Social Media MarketingTool Prompts 941% Increase in Sign-Ups

Marketers today are beginning to look more and more at Social Media as an innovative and effective way to reach their targeted audiences and achieve their branding and marketing communication goals. The marketing goals will differ for every business or organization; however most Social Media Marketing (SMM) programs or campaigns will involve some the following objectives:

• Increase brand awareness
• Create Brand engagement (pages viewed, time on site)
• Generate Publicity, positive buzz and word of mouth
• Drive traffic to a website
• Convert sales of products and services
• Develop strong inbound link generation, which benefits organic search engine rankings
• Produce positive ROI

Here's an example of a recent campaign that included social media marketing that had some great results:

Zecco Holdings, Inc. developed an online customer referral program that awards people when they get friends to sign up for a new Zecco Trading account. They have built a financial social networking community that has access to free stock trading through its wholly owned subsidiary, Zecco Trading, Inc. PopularMedia, a social media marketing solutions agency, worked with Zecco to develop a viral marketing campaign that resulted in a 941 percent increase in Zecco Trading account sign ups.

Influencer marketing tools made it simple and rewarding for people to invite their contacts to join the MyZecco community, and motivated invitees to open and fund new Zecco Trading accounts.Through a variety of rewards ranging from a $25 certificate to iTunes to a charitable donation, Zecco found that online customers were most responsive with a cash giveaway. If a customer referred a friend who opened a Zecco Trading account, they would receive $50 in their Zecco Trading account. In addition, their friend would receive a free investing book. Program participants invited an average of 6 friends each.

“The key to a successful social media campaign is not only the ability to identify who is influential but also what makes them influential,” says Jim Calhoun, CEO of PopularMedia. “By unlocking and demystifying social networks, businesses of almost any size or industry have the potential to more effectively community with online customers.”

I guess it shows that if it appears that your friends are making money, than you want to get in on the action as well. This social media marketing campaign successfully acheived most of the objectives I listed above.