The world is abuzz with “likes” and “commenting”, but do you really know how your audience is using Facebook? Do you have a Facebook strategy to help you grow your database?

These are some of the areas we recently explored with our national Facebook study.

With over 66K national responses, we asked some critical usage questions like:

• Have you ever “liked” a Facebook page to be part of a contest? National sample: 47.5% said yes

• How many hours a day do you spend on Facebook? National sample: 18.5% said 1 to 2 hours a day!

• Have you ever shared information about a contest or brand promotion with your friends on Facebook? National Sample: 31.8% said yes!

If you want to see how your market answered, go to: admin > reports > closed surveys > facebook survey.

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How You Can Use the Data
• Use the new “Get Social” module in your loyalty program to incentivize your audience to earn points for ‘likes’ for clients
• Pay attention to how much time your audience spends with Facebook daily and create a strategy to post relevant content more often
• Understand where your audience goes to get information updates most often
• Create on air and off air promotions that can help you leverage your biggest fans social streams to encourage like minded people to sample your brand

For more information on how to socialize your brand using your loyalty program and Facebook, email us at help@tritonloyalty.com

Congratulations to Froggy 98 – KFGE/Lincoln Nebraska.

NRG’s Program Director Steve Albertsen and team just launched their new “Froggy 98 Country Club” and knocked it out of the park!

Steve explains: “On Nov 18th, we found out that we won the FREE acoustic concert from Dierks Bentley to come to Lincoln on Dec. 9th. This was the kind of event that we thought would be a good place to launch the FROGGY 98 COUNTRY CLUB. We had an old VIP club, but it wasn’t very active, and didn’t mean much to listeners because there wasn’t any special benefit to being a member. We wanted a club that offered TRUE benefits, and was a very special club where membership would only be open a few times a year. (“Membership has it’s privileges!”)

We secured a venue for the concert and now we had to find a way to give out 3000 pair of tickets! Each day on the air we revealed another component of the Dec. 9 show. We could tell from the phone calls . Behind the scenes, we were developing our strategy as Triton was developing the Club.

Finally, on Monday (11/28), we let our listeners know that we were opening up the Froggy 98 Country Club for membership starting Tuesday (today) at noon. It would be open for only 72 hours. Friday at Noon, membership closes. The only way you get tickets is to be a member. At Noon on Friday, we’ll draw 3000 winners from all the members and they’ll get an e-mail confirming that they’re a winner, with instructions on how to pick up tickets.

By 4:30pm (only 4 ½ hours after opening up the club), we had 3100 members, enough to fill the auditorium where the concert will be held.

Next week, we’ll give Country Club members an additional chance to win by hearing a “cue to call” on the air….every hour. But if they’re not a Country Club member, they can’t win. We’ve created HIGH DEMAND and a real benefit to being a member. And it’s very special…..won’t be open all year ‘round. We’ll strategize and plan additional events and bonuses for opening up the club for additional membership only a few times a year.

At Triton Loyalty we believe that one of a kind, experiential opportunities like this are a ‘best practice’ when it comes to growing your database.

What have you done special for your audience lately?

Need ideas on how to integrate digital contesting into your 2012 promotional plans? Email us at Help@tritonloyalty.com for more great ideas!

A recent study by Buddy Media has produced some interesting factoids about when and how to post messages on Facebook to drive engagement.

Here are some of the highlights:
* Posts made between 8 PM and 7 AM receive 20% more user engagement.

* On Wednesdays, fan engagement is 8% above average.

* Posting one to two times per day produces 40% higher user engagement.

* Posting one to four times per week produces 71% higher user engagement.

*Posts with 80 characters or less receive 66% higher engagement. Very concise posts – those between one and 40 characters – generate highest engagement. Only 5% of all retail brand Wall Posts are less than 40 characters in length, even though these receive 86% higher fan engagement.

* Ask questions to spark dialogue – “question” Posts generate Comment rates double that of “non-question” Posts.

At Triton Loyalty we believe your brand needs to be everywhere your audience is. Use these new media channels to cross promote and bring users back into your database.

This is all about converting an anonymous Facebook relationship with your customers into a long term, relevant partnership.

In a recent Engagement Lab study we took a hard look at the impact of whether or not using Facebook “Bonus Codes” could drive increased engagement.

The results produced an astounding 25% engagement lift among our test group.

As a result, we’d like to launch a national Facebook “Bonus Code” promotion that would branded locally but implemented nationally by Triton Loyalty.

If you’d like to participate and get more details….email us at help@tritonloyalty.com and tell us “YES”.

Every product has ‘super fans’. We often hear them referred to as ‘brand ambassadors”. The key for any product is to figure out who these people are and what weight they carry in helping you grow your brand.

Loyalty databases have always been a central repository of data. What you do with that data is variable,  however keeping it up to date and employing some strong data mining best practices can teach you a lot of things about the past, present and future of your product line.

A recent article in Media Post outlines 5 things you can do to incentive loyal fans to make them become true brand spokespeople. See it here!

And to find out more ways to use your loyalty program to create rabid fans for your company…email us at help@tritonloyalty.com and ask us how we can teach you to create custom, engaging messages for them!

The marks of a great loyalty contest are:

1)  A great offer, preferably one that money can’t buy, such as an experience.

2)  Built around brand values that already exist.

3)  Well presented and promoted.

These contests from Clear Channel/Los Angeles’ KIIS FM and New York’s Z100 fits the criteria:

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Lotus Communications’ rock radio station KOZZ/Reno is finishing a clever loyalty promotion that connects their brand values (Classic Rock) to their audience (men) through a familiar, popular event (NCAA March Madness) and highlight their music image (core artists) while involving the audience interactively (audience chooses the top artists of all time).

KOZZ started with their top 64 bands of all time, creating a head-to-head competition in the familiar “bracket” format.  As in the NCAA, the better bands were paired against the weaker.  That’s why you see Van Halen vs. Stevie Ray Vaughn in the first round.

The bracket is displayed prominently on the main page of their website, and is featured in each week’s email newsletter.

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KHRD (Red 103.1) in Redding, Ca. has launched a creative idea to drive new membership and engage current participants.  Dave Shakes, Matthew Reisz and PD Don Wilson developed a campaign involving several features inside loyalty to connect a community event (hatching of three Eaglets) with the upcoming Eagles concert.  Here’s how it works: (more…)

Carl’s Jr. has introduced a new loyalty program, and in it are a few simple lessons you can use to improve your club immediately.

1)  While you can find the loyalty club through the main page of their web site, it has it’s own url www.burgerslayer.com.  This helps the customer find it much easier, as they don’t have to sort through dozens of competing messages on the Carl’s Jr. home page and makes the club easier to promote.  Instead of directing customers to their home page, then click on ______, it’s a simple message:  Go to BurgerSlayer.com.  Lesson:  Consider registering a separate url for your loyalty club, and redirect that site to your loyalty login page.

2)  The club has attitude, just like the restaurant  Big, bold graphics with easy to navigate icons take me though the site.  All text and graphics are presented in the same “voice” as  would expect from their marketing messages.  Lesson:  Who is responsible for writing content, offers, surveys, etc. in your loyalty club?  Do you realize that every message you send impacts your brand-positively or negatively?

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I was excited to receive this email last week from Clear Channel/Los Angeles Hot AC radio station KBIG (My 104.3).  It’s a great example of an effective newsletter, highlighting most of the things that should be in every one of yours!  Specifically, here are seven things that make this a winner!

1)  Easy to read.  It’s well laid out, easy to follow and find content.  There’s not so much going on that each individual item competes for attention as if it were just one more neon sign in Times Square.

2)  It’s all about the member.  Since the newsletter is delivered to members of their MY CLUB Loyalty program, it follows that all of the elements be about club activity and benefits.  It is loaded with benefits for the member, from Alice In Wonderland tickets to a Bon Jovi experience to awarding me points for engaging in the letter.

3)  Interactive content.  The What’s That Noise and What’s That Photo contests offer interactive games played on-air (noise) and online (photo).  While I would have recommended What’s That Photo be executed inside the club (must join to play), there is a members benefit for playing….an additional code worth points.  What’s That Noise could have offered a bonus clue to members only, delivered inside the club as well (using Home Page Promo, Page Host, or several other ways).

4)  Links.  Each element is well written, to the member perspective, and links take the reader directly to their website to get more information.  Non-club content does not clutter the newsletter, but is offered in clickable tabs at the top of the newsletter.  This keeps it clean, but easy to access.

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This is the third in the three part series of  ideas to increase engagement on your Triton Loyalty program.  Today, we encourage you to sharpen your FOCUS and promote the key offers or benefits of the loyalty program instead of the loyalty club itself.

Many times, club promotion becomes little more than promotion to “join the club, collect points and win prizes”. Not only is this a tactic that only attracts a small percentage of potential members, it also leads to a lack of sustainability in the club over time.  Your goal should not be to convince consumers to join your club or get points…it should be to engage them in interactive content and promotions that happen to be taking place inside your club!  That’s a huge difference.

Today’s idea is to focus your promotion strategy on member benefits, not on the mechanics of participation.   Here’s how to do it in three easy steps:

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