Given that we tout Promoboxx as the social promotion engine, it makes sense that we define social promotion. First off, it’s not social networking. Social networking includes building communities, fostering interaction, and building an online brand. Social promotion on the other hand, is about leveraging a social networks to get more customers. Social promotions tap the viral tools (Share, Like, Retweet) of the social networks to widen the audience of a promotional incentive (“Save 20%” or “Win Free iPad”), and then uses urgency (“Offer Ends 2/17”) to drive conversions (“Buy Now” or “Register Today”). But, don’t you first need a social network to do this?
Yes, social networking absolutely helps with running effective social promotions, but you don’t need a social network to run an effective social promotion, you can just leverage other peoples network in the form of ads. These ads cost money, so the value of creating your own social network is that you can share your social promotions with your community for free. Why don’t small businesses just build a social network and then run social promotions?
Some do, but most don’t. The problem is the cash-strapped time-crunched small business person won’t see immediate ROI when building a social network. But, they’ll understand a social promotion, because it’s not all that different from their existing ads. They fully get time-sensitive promotions with a strong call-to-action, but most of all they really only get what they see and they love seeing new customers. Why hasn’t anybody met this need?
The majority of social marketers, consultants and agencies don’t focus on the power the good ole’ promotion. They pitch the need to create communities, advocates, trust agents, and mavens, building your digital reputation, and branding. These are great goals, but they take a serious commitment of time and money, which is something a small business person has little to spare. Only when they can see the “gold in them that hills” from social promotions, will they commit to truly building a business social network.
At Promoboxx, we intend to meet the needs of business people looking for an easy way to promote on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, but needs a place to start. We invite you all to contact us to get started creating your first social promotion today.
Updated by Ashleigh Anderson on 1/28/22.
