Free Facebook Tactics for Internet Retailers from ZAGG.com #smx #socialmedia

When giving a brief profile of his target audience, Drew Conrad of internet retailer ZAGG.com said the mobile accessory company most wants to reach users who’re interested in gadgets, social media, who count sites like TechCrunch and Mashable among their frequently visited news sources.  I don’t think it was lost on anyone that he just described everyone in the audience (myself included).

Aside from attending conferences like SMX Social Media Marketing, one of the ways his team gets their products out there is by capitalizing on the mercurial nature of the industry; there’s always a new app, a new new feature, a new announcement about changes to some platform to keep their bloggers churning out fresh content each week.  Every blog post they publish gets sent out via their @ZAGGdaily Twitter handle, only those that perform well in the Twitterverse are added to their Facebook page.

When it comes to Facebook, the goal is simple: get them to ZAGG.com and get them to convert.  If they can get a Facebook “like” or capture their email address in the process, all the better.  The reason for that being that their custom URL shortener (zagg.to) ties in with their database of customers, so they can count not only clicks coming from their social channels, but also orders and revenue generated.  With this data, they can evaluate how much each post is actually bringing in.

Using those insights, ZAGG has a few key learnings that you can leverage in your own campaigns:

• Use limited time giveaways to create urgency, motivating users to take action now.
• Incentivize sharing by using voting contests.
• Use frequent links to pages that convert well, place your upsell banners on these.

To that, Drew added that you have the resources at your disposal, ambitious Facebook sweepstake campaigns can bring in a big return on investment; one of their Christmas campaigns saw a 452% increase in fans over a 12 week period!  One of the tactics they use to maximize sharing is to let uers enter by simply supplying their email address, but they get 2 more entries for sharing on Facebook and one more on top of that if they share the link on Twitter too.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Drew over lunch and was impressed with his passion for social media and the potential it has to connect people, both with each other and with the things they love.  If you’re not sure what to get for the gadget lover on your list, definitely take a look at ZAGG.com… and give them your email address if you’re feeling so inclined.

Be sure to follow Drew Conrad on his site www.drewconrad.com.