Manta Antes Up For Social Media Marketing
Love is a many splendored thing and when your love is directed at a small business, and captured in a photograph, one of those splendors might be $10,000.
Manta is back with its annual Manta Photo Contest. It kicked off in July and runs through August. The idea is to share a photo of your favorite small business somewhere in the Manta social media world, which includes Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Small business owners can also submit photos. Be creative. Find great customers. Artistically frame your storefront. Feature your products. Whether you’re a customer or an owner, here’s what you do:
Like Manta’s Facebook page, upload photos to your wall or their fan wall with @Manta #SmallBizLove. On Twitter include @Manta and #SmallBizLove with your tweets. For Instagram tag your photos #SmallBizLove and @Mantagram.
Important marketing strategy
Encouraging your customers to post photos or updates from your small business is one of the fundamental social media marketing strategies. When you increase the stakes with the possibility of winning $10,000, you give your customers a lot more motivation to participate.
I suggest that you design a little poster to display in your business that promotes the campaign. You’ll find a piece of art Manta has designed that you can include in your personal promotion of the contest on the page where the details are explained. Further, you might include a link to this page in email and social media marketing that you do over the next few weeks. There will be one small business featured weekly and then a grand prize winner at the end of August.
Beyond this contest, you could use Manta’s idea as inspiration for your own social media marketing throughout the year. Contests are one of the biggest things that motivate people to engage with small business social media. You can continue encouraging your customers to post photos of your business on social media and reward one each month with a gift certificate or other promotional item.
Third party apps available
There are third party apps that take much of the work out of running a social media contest and marketing campaigns, including ShortStack, Woobox, and Offerpop. Further, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have their own rules, guides or suggestions. So far, Pinterest hasn’t given any specific guidance relating to contests, although contests there are very popular. Also, you need to know the law in your area.
So get on the contest bandwagon, starting with the Manta Photo Contest. The worst that can happen is you’ll get some valuable exposure in social media. The best: you or a customer will be $10,000 richer.
Image: “Pie eating contest 1923” from National Photo Company Collection. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
