I am always on the lookout for great social marketing examples. Last night I found a great one in my own Facebook News Feed. But before I can discuss this great case study, you will need a little background information.
First let me tell you about the company in the case study, Ting. Ting is an innovative new mobile phone service that has developed a more common sense approach to how they interact with their customers. The magic is in their billing plans. In a nut shell, they charge a customer based on how much they used. If you are a heavy data user, no problem you pay for the amount of data used. For instance, I use very few minutes of my calling plan a month. On Verizon, I still pay for minutes I don’t use. With Ting, don’t use it, don’t pay for it. Novel approach. Now the tradeoff is that Ting runs on the Sprint network so if you are in an area with great Sprint coverage, then it is perfect for you, if not then Ting may not be the best solution at any price. It’s all about tradeoffs.
The next item I need to explain is Facebook Offers. Facebook Offers is a way for companies to offer discounts in the News Feed of the Facebook users that like their Fan Pages. If an offer appears in your News Feed, click the link to redeem the offer. The offer will be sent to your primary email account associated with your Facebook login. Then simply take your phone to the company that made the offer and show them on the screen or print it out and take it in. Simple. Facebook Offers are limited only by your marketing imagination.
Now back to the case study.
I have liked the Ting Fan Page at sometime in the past. I happened to pull out my mobile phone, jumped into the Facebook app to see what is new and in my News Feed was the Ting offer. So I clicked to redeem it. Immediately I got an email with instructions about the offer.
This morning, a friend of mine (who I know is looking for mobile service), sees that I redeemed the offer in his News Feed and clicks to claim the offer too.
Back in my News Feed, I can now see that he also redeemed the offer. Off course we now have the added benefit of another point in common.
This is a great interaction, but more than this it is a highly trackable interaction.
To recap, offer, social interaction with my network, company receives at least two interactions from me (mine and one from my network) and they can track how many redemptions they have had in Facebook as well as how many came to the web site to claim the offer.
This is a textbook social marketing program. Brilliant.