The prestigious All-Ireland An Post Direct Marketing Awards took place at the Mansion House on Dublin’s Dawson Street. Galway based Mint Digital Marketing scooped Silver in the ‘Best Social Media’ category for clients, Salthill Hotel. This was a hotly contested category with fierce competition from Peter Mark Ireland and global brands O2 and Toyota.

Salthill Hotel decided to use the viral nature of Social Media to promote their brand, the brief was to create a fun and interactive campaign that would engage, entertain and reward their existing customers, and to build their fanbase further. The Facebook campaign involved a competition app and targeted Facebook advertising. Mint Digital developed a strategy that alluded to the location of Salthill Hotel and the hotel’s new PROM restaurant – tapping into a unique Galway-ism of Kicking The Wall at the prom in Salthill. This idea manifested itself in a Facebook game where fans could ‘pic’ rather than ‘kick’ the wall – i.e. put their picture on a virtual version of the infamous wall. By doing so, they could win daily prizes.

The game really struck a chord with the target audience and the results of the activity spoke for themselves, with the number of Facebook fans increasing by 1,100%. the increase in website hits was 85% above target and most importantly there was an increase in sales as a direct result of this campaign. Salthill Hotel’s Acting Manager, Pauline Griffin, is delighted that Salthill Hotel’s Facebook activity was the recipient of such a coveted award, “The competition was a huge social media success for Salthill Hotel. We received great customer feedback and gathered many new fans along the way. Mint Digital did an excellent job at orchestrating the entire campaign”.

Mint Digital recently celebrated it’s first birthday and are incredibly pleased to achieve such a tremendous accolade so early on. Commenting on the win, Managing Director, Zara Sheerin said ‘We are absolutely thrilled, surprised and delighted to have been shortlisted in such a competitive category. Social media as a channel has gained more and more prominence over the last number of years, with brands all over the country making waves online (both big and small!). So to be up against multi-national brands like O2 and Toyota, and to win silver is just phenomenal!’.

To celebrate their first birthday Mint Digital are running a competition on www.facebook.com/mintdigital offering companies the opportunity to win one of ten branding packages, to optimise their Facebook presence and make the most of what Facebook’s new Timeline platform has to offer brands. There is also an opportunity to download a free guide ‘6 Things You Need to Know about Facebook Timeline’ on the page.

2012 has already proven to be quite a year for Mint, who have recently begun working on national and international brands such as Avonmore, Eristoff Vodka and the Independent Beverage’s Innovations company.

‘Pic the Wall’ has been shortlisted in the Best Social Media category – along with worldwide brands O2 and Toyota.

More about the campaign strategy:

The Salthill Hotel went through a refurbishment in 2010 adding new and improved services to its offering. They decided to use the viral nature of Social Media to promote themselves. They had a modest Facebook fan base and really wanted to ramp up the number on their Facebook page. And in doing so create a dialogue with their fans to keep their hotel top of mind. Targeting males and females from 25 upwards, the Facebook campaign involved a competition App that encouraged ‘friend get friend’ and some targeted Facebook advertising.

The creative idea tapped into a unique Galway-ism of Kicking The Wall at the promenade in Salthill. This idea manifested itself in a simple game where fans could pic rather than kick the wall – i.e. put their picture on the wall. By doing so they could win daily prizes. The game really struck a chord with the target audience and the results of the activity really speak for themselves:

• Facebook fans: 5,500 (83%) above target
• Website hits: 4,600 above target
• Facebook referrals to website: jumped 6 places from 13th pre-campaign to 7th in-campaign

Here is a reference guide to ensure you are getting the best out of Timeline:

1. Starting out:

• Visit Timeline for Pages preview manager to add Timeline to your Pages. You can set a test period where only your Page’s admins can see timeline.
• Take a tour of the features detailed to familiarise yourself with Timeline. On March 30th, 2012, Timeline will automatically become publicly visible for all of your Pages.

2. Cover Photos

• Cover photos offer a great opportunity for brands to visually tell their story via a 851 x 315px Cover Photo right at the top of your page.  You can change your cover photo regularly based on your current campaigns or brand positioning.
• The page avatar (180×180 px) should still feature your brand logo (scales to 30 x 30 px)
• Restrictions, according to Facebook’s T&C’s, Cover Photos may not feature:

- Price/purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”.
- Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section.
- References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features.
- Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”.

3. Location of App Tabs: 

Apps are now featured below the Cover Photo to the right hand side. This is how your former ‘tabs’ on the left hand side of your page are now being displayed. Brands have three much larger opportunities (the Photos app is fixed) to promote your featured custom apps. A drop down menu allows you to feature another 12 apps.

• App images are now 111×74 pixels instead of the 16×16 pixel icons used previously used. Page admins can now customise these app images directly through Facebook. So, it is important to run FEATURE apps. NEW users will be able to better find apps via the app menu, while current fans will still find custom apps through the newsfeed, friend invites, and other custom links such as via email.

• Highlighted and Pinned posts gives brands even more flexibility to promoting custom apps. Slide 3 shows how Tiffany have ‘Pinned’ a post to the top left of their timeline promoting a story, the same can be done to promote a new custom app.
• This is where your old fan gate or landing page application will now live, making it obsolete as a way of converting new visitors into fans because it won’t be the first thing that’s seen when you land on a timeline. There’s no longer an option in the admin settings to select a landing page, your timeline is your permanent landing page. The cover photo will have to serve as somewhat of a fan gate to the extent that the site’s rules allow. You can still put a real fan gate on your other applications and content. Encourage users to like your timeline before they can access the sought apps or content. We highly recommend this.

4. 810px wide canvas page for Apps: 

App landing pages are now 810px wide, giving you more freedom with design for your custom apps. Facebook has also embedded a link back to a page’s Timeline in the top left corner of the app.  Like Gates remain an extremely important feature on custom apps to drive new likes and acquire new fans. The 810px wide app page replaces the former steps of using the 520px tab view of campaigns, and the 960px wide canvas view of campaigns.

5. Control over what a fan sees on your timeline:

Timeline effectively replaces the ‘Wall’ but gives fans much more control over how posts are visually presented, and also which posts you want to promote to fans.
Feature only the best updates/apps on your timeline. You can ‘hide’ minor posts or negative fan comments, delete posts, ‘Pin’ important posts to the top of your Timeline.

6. Messaging for Timeline a lot more visually focused:

• There is now less emphasis on a text based wall, with brands instead choosing much larger visual based posts to highlight on Timeline. Posts images can be full or half width. This allows you to promote your feature apps in a much more effective fashion on Timeline. Brands can create full width (843 px wide) ‘Highlighted Posts’.
• Pinned posts: Pin favourite or feature posts to the top left of Timeline for 7 days at a time. Perfect for promoting your custom apps.
• Highlight posts: Highlight posts in a double width feature on Timeline. This is another great opportunity to promote custom apps or positive fan posts and endorsements.

7. Composing Milestone Stories: 

In addition to traditional status, photo, video, and question updates, you can select to publish special Milestone stories, such as your founding date, and other big accomplishments like new product launches, landmark advertising campaigns, or hitting a notable number of customers. Some brands are taking a tongue in cheek approach to these milestones to create an engaging semi-fictional history to represent the brands identity in a fun way. These updates are likely favoured by the EdgeRank news feed visibility algorithm, and may receive more impressions in the news feed and more prominence on Timeline than standard posts. Milestones appear full-width on your Page with a special flag icon on top.  Dimensions for milestone photos are 843 x 403 pixels.

8. One to one messaging:

The new brand pages also have a feature that allows fans to send a personal message to the brand. This provides another feedback loop for brands to communicate with their fans and a welcome addition for both customer service and marketing personnel. Facebook will continue to evolve as a central communication platform for many forward thinking companies because of these changes.

Summary:

• Choose a beautiful cover photo
• Feature your most important apps
• Adapt your designs to the wider 810px App landing page
• Pin or Highlight the post you want to drive the most traffic to (your custom apps)
• Start composing your brand story on Timeline with Milestone stories
• Get ready to manage incoming one to one messages from your fans

Fanpage Design Implications:

Facebook Timeline Design Implications

App Design Implications:

Facebook Timeline Design Implications

Sources: Facebook, All Facebook and Engage Sciences.

The two days of conference will give delegates the opportunity to listen to key talks from industry experts as well as engage in focused workshops and breakout sessions. One-to-one clinics will be available for all delegates to put their questions to the experts in the areas of Insurance, Social Networking, Charities, Tax and more.

To read more about the speakers and schedule click here.