Get ROI From Your Social Media – Use a #Hashtag

SFBJ | Social

Reprinted from South Florida Business Journal

How to increase social marketing ROI by tweeting a hashtag?

The viral aspects of Twitter for celebrities, politicians, the media and even countries have proven to be very powerful, but Twitter integration with campaigns to drive results has remained a question for many marketers – until now.

American Express launched programs earlier this year with Foursquare “check-ins” and Facebook “likes” to reward users with participating brands points and discounts. The rewards are directly credited to American Express synced cards.

Card-synced Twitter hashtag (#) promotions have even more potential to drive participation at terrific speeds across your social graph of “touch points”.

How Tweets Can Build Business Fast

Retweeting hash tags with followers could bring a brand to the “trending topic list” on Twitter that has the opportunity to be seen by 40 million Tweeters a day.

This builds brand followers from individual ambassadors status to an army of ambassadors within a few hours/days.

Of course, there is also value in putting promotional hashtags in print and broadcast ads to generate awareness even more quickly. Certainly, this is easier than going to a website address to download coupons.

Seamless Collection of Rewards On-Line or In-Store

For consumers, obtaining rewards has never been simpler when they are automatically loaded to the participating cardholders’ American Express card. That allows hashtag shoppers to just as easily buy groceries at a Whole Foods store or DVDs online at Amazon.

“Buying directly from tweets will be huge,” Twitter Revenue Chief Adam Bain has predicted.

Called a “smart offer,” American Express uses this example: “Say you’re waiting in line to pay for your broccoli, kale and brownies at your favorite grocer. You see on your smart phone’s Twitter feed that this grocer is offering a one-time deal: spend $75, get a $20 AmEx statement credit. If you’ve already synced your card with your Twitter handle (easy at https://sync.amricanexpress.com/twitter), all you have to do to grab that savings is to tweet the following hashtag: #(and the grocer’s name). Then pay with your AmEx card, and your account is automatically credited $20.”

Major Brands Are Tweeting “Smart Offers”

This is a process that consumers need to learn, but many major brands are already onboard with tremendous promotions so it is only a matter of months before more of your customers begin tweeting their way to savings.

In addition to Whole Foods, current brands with Twitter/AmEx smart offers include FTD Flowers, Staples, FedEx, Best Buy, Zappos, even high-end clothing brands like Lord & Taylor. For an expanded listing you can go to https://twitter.com/#!/AmericanExpress/favorites.

An Easy Way to Grow Your Social ROI and Your Business

This kind of partnership between credit card companies, consumer-based product and service companies and social media is only one of the ways social communities are building business and our economy.

Social media marketing has become a must-have tool in the marketing communications toolbox.

Social Madness presented by Capital One Spark Business is a new summer competition being offered by the South Florida Business Journal to help get your organization growing with the expanding social marketplace, locally, regionally, even nationally. It costs nothing to participate, so you have nothing to lose.

You can nominate your organization for South Florida Business Journal’s Social Madness before May 15 and see how building your social graph can help your business grow. The process and rules are found at “socialmadness.com” and there is no cost to enter.

For more competitive edge, ROI marketing strategies, sign up for her newsletter at etips.starmark.com.