Category: Instagram

Get Social with a Back to School Sweepstakes for Students

Social is the perfect platform for a back to school sweepstakes as it’s the easiest way to engage high school and college aged students. You don’t need a huge budget to run a social campaign, and as long as you run the promotion on a platform familiar to your target age group, and offer something they want they will find you! It’s a win-win for your brand and for

July 19, 2017 No Comments

Criteria for Judging a Video Contest

Fae Savignano, Marden-Kane SVP, provides this in depth post on video contest criteria. Marden-Kane has provided you with information about “Good Criteria for Judging a Contest” and a follow-up article on “Criteria for Judging a Photo Contest”, well what about Video Contests? I’m glad you asked. Taking into account all of the previously suggested Judging Criteria in the articles above that may also apply to a Video Entry including

June 27, 2017 3 Comments

Sizzling Summer Social Sweepstakes Ideas

Need a summer social sweepstakes idea? Here are 6 of them! Hashtag a Day Sweepstakes: Post a new hashtag every day in your social posts, and ask your customers to tweet or post an Instagram photo or Tumblr post using that hashtag of the day. This sweepstakes will encourage people to look for your social posts each day – and reward customers with random drawings for daily prizes. I

June 16, 2017 No Comments

Social Contests and Sweepstakes: Favorite (and Least Favorite) Platforms to Use

Social contests and sweepstakes are currently the most popular tactic that we are seeing our clients use to increase brand awareness and reach. The Marden-Kane team has some strong ideas on what social platforms work, and which ones can cause headaches. We compiled this list of pros and cons to use when evaluating social platforms for your brand’s next social promotion. Remember: If you are thinking of running social

April 4, 2017 No Comments

Use the Marden-Kane Social Tracker Tool for a Successful Hashtag Contest

Marden-Kane’s Social Tracker tool is a quick, efficient way to run a social sweepstakes or contest. A social media sweepstakes or contest is a cost effective way for your brand to gain followers and increase sales without setting up a special web site or sophisticated data collection. The Social Tracker tool tracks hashtags, likes and comments on social media platforms. Simply let us know what hashtag to track for

January 10, 2017 No Comments

Promotional Marketing Predictions for 2017

Every year at this time we discuss what the next big thing will be. Sometimes we can see it coming, and sometimes we don’t. So how did we do for this past year’s marketing predictions? Here they are so you can see! 2016 Prediction #1: Native ads will be booming – and promotions are part of that mix. Results: Native ads did turn out to be big news this

November 22, 2016 No Comments

Working with Third Party Brands for a Contest

You should approach working with third party brands in a contest or sweepstakes with caution. Giving away highly sought after prizes like trips, electronics or gift cards, or running promotions on social platforms, may seem like a great idea to garner interest and new followers for your brand. However, if you are naming a specific brand name other than your own as part of your contest, you may need

September 8, 2016 2 Comments

2016 Instagram API Changes and Hashtag Contests

Did you suddenly lose the ability to track hashtags due to Instagram changes this month? Here’s why: Back in November 2015, Instagram announced they would be changing their application policy in an effort to curtail malicious apps. On June 1, 2016 ALL apps or programs that had not gone through the new approval process and approved by Instagram were rendered unworkable. Here is the announcement and link: https://www.instagram.com/developer/review/ What this meant

June 20, 2016 2 Comments

#Hashtag Contests 101

The buzzword in contests right now are hashtag contests (or hashtag sweepstakes). These types of promotions are easy to run, less expensive than setting up a contest web site, and don’t require a lot of lead time. The simplicity and low cost appeals to a lot of businesses anxious to expand their social channels, but you will still need to follow some best practices to ensure that you don’t run

May 17, 2016 No Comments

Social Contest Platforms: Inexpensive, Easy…and Risky

Today I was sent a link to an article touting Platforms for Social Contests that will “launch and track your contest with ease.” The article then went on to list eleven platforms, all relatively cheap – well, really dirt cheap or even free – and all the wonderful features each one had. If I were looking for a way to run a contest and I didn’t know any better

April 19, 2016 No Comments