As we head into the new year it’s a good time to think about what you hope to accomplish in the next twelve months. We know that many of you are excited to take your social media marketing efforts to the next level in 2013. To assist, we have prepared a list of 7 ideas for fun, interactive campaigns that can easily be created and managed using the Strutta platform.

The number one reason people Like brands on Facebook or follow on Twitter is still to receive special deals and offers, so promotional marketing continues to play a key role in building your audience on social channels. It is never enough to run a single campaign designed to generate new fans or followers if it is not properly promoted and if there is no ongoing engagement. Promotions must be combined with regular communications and sharing of content and information that is useful to your target audience.

However, our clients that run frequent promotions for their fans see higher overall participation and benefit from more consistent levels of engagement with their core audience. In addition, by running regular campaigns these brands (like Cuvler’s through their agency, Hiebing) are able to use the Strutta dashboard to identify their most active and influential customers.

Hopefully these suggestions will serve as a starting point for your social marketing strategy in 2013:

##Fans Only Coupon

In the past year Facebook launched its Offers product, which is a great way to present deals in the News Feed. However, one of the drawbacks is that you can’t require users to Like your Page in order to claim your offer. Using our Coupon App with optional fan-gating you can drive new fans that convert to customers. Choose how many coupons you want to offer and whether you wish to use unique coupon codes for tracking purposes.

##Fan of the Week

A popular idea is to recognize your fans or customers by honoring them on your Facebook Page. You can choose to highlight someone who has achieved success with your product, as Hubspot does in the example above, or you can reward someone who is an active contributor to your community on Facebook, Twitter or your blog. Strutta’s Welcome Page app can be used to let visitors to your Facebook Page know about your Fan of the Week promotion. Or use a Form if you wish to have fans register in order to be eligible, and in the process generate new leads.

##Community Voting / Poll

A fun and easy way to engage your audience and make them feel listened to is to ask them a question or seek their feedback. Facebook allows you to post simple questions/polls that your fans can respond to. With Strutta’s Voting Gallery you can run a more interactive visual poll by uploading images or video and asking your community to cast a vote. Set voting limits and optionally display the results in a leaderboard.

##Product Giveaway / Sweepstakes

No doubt about it, people love free things or a chance to win. Whether you are launching a new product and wish to provide samples or you plan to run a sweepstakes to award a larger prize, you have a ready-made opportunity to capture important user data. For clients who are just getting started with social media contests we often recommend a sweepstakes as a great starting point. With a lower barrier to entry sweepstakes are a great tool to quickly generate Likes and leads.

##User Submitted Photo Contest

Contests that invite users to share content such as photos are a terrific way to enlist your community to help tell your brand story. Instagram has helped make everyone with a smart phone an amateur photographer so now is a terrific time to tap in to all of that content. When users contribute their photo or story to your promotion they are naturally inclined to share with their friends. If you include a voting component then there is even greater incentive to share. The benefit to your brand is amplification of your message as you reach not only your fans but their friends as well.

##Crowd Sourced Campaign

Instead of asking users to participate in a contest solely for the shot at personal gain (i.e., winning a prize), another goal of a UGC promotion can be to crowd source content for your brand. In the “Life in Color” example above, the organizer has solicited audio submissions from aspiring DJs around the world for a chance to spin at a high-profile live event. In other instances we’ve seen clients secure photo submissions for a calendar or videos promoting a popular tourist destination that were showcased as part of a tourism campaign.

##Competition for Charity

Another way to appeal to your fans is to tie in the concept of cause marketing. At Strutta we recently ran a campaign called #Struttacares, where we offered participating non-profit organizations a chance to receive free access to Strutta’s platform. During the promotion we hosted a Voting Gallery on the Strutta Facebook Page and asked the nominated organizations to rally votes from their respective communities. As a result we saw significant levels of engagement on our Page and had the opportunity to introduce the Strutta brand to many people we wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to.

We would love to hear how these types of campaigns work for you!