Business noticed the value of social networks in our daily life, they are using different technique to promote their products. Social media marketing is cost effective and brands have a huge audience.
In March 1 2018, Owndays Singapore decided to hold a marketing campaign that allow customers to get discount either getting likes on post that includes owndays spectacles or having alot of followers on their Instagram account.
This marketing campaign garner a huge response from the public, sparking many teenager’s interest in attempting to own a pair of new spectacles without having to pay for it. Due to the overwhelming response from the public, the campaign was forced to come to an end even before their intended dateline. It resulted in a backlash of comments after the post on Facebook stating that the campaign will come to sudden stop.
It was mentioned by one of Owndays employee that during the campaign, more than 3,000 pairs were redeemed from stores islandwide, inclusive of 2,000 pairs that were given totally FREE OF CHARGE. Participants are not limited to any amount of spectacles which results in them collecting more than a pair making it unfair to other participants.
Hashtags were going around the social media; #owndaysfollowerdiscount in exchange for the likes to help gain more discounts for their own pair of spectacles.
Initially, I didn’t think that this campaign would be a success as people would delete their post after getting their free pair of spectacles, which will result in zero exposure and advertising for the company
However due to the quality product produced by Owndays, customers are willing to make a second purchase and share it with their circle of friends. This will help the company gain extra exposure and advertise to the general public whom are unaware of the brand.
All in all, social media is definitely capable of influencing the public and increasing the number of sales for a company. However, it is an approach that has to be controlled and specific to prevent the company from suffering a loss.
My suggestion would be that Owndays should set a limit in order to control the amount of giveaways. For example, they could limit the number of winners to ten each day and choose the participant with the highest amount of likes or the most creative photo taken with their products. Giving consumers a discount would be more ideal in this scenario as the objective of this campaign is to merely advertise and gain exposure for the company to the consumers.
Making it complimentary would not be an ideal plan as it would cause a loss for the brand, given how they would be losing the sales of 2,000 potential customers. Perhaps instead of making it complimentary, they could come out with attractive discounts that would be capped at $100. This way, they are still able to gain exposure for their business, as well as minimizing their losses.
What do you guys think can be done to improve social media marketing? Feel free to give your feedback and we can learn better together!
Mark Blog 
Hello Mark. Your suggestion would be that Owndays should set a limit in order to control the amount of giveaways can you explain more in depth why is this a good strategy for Owndays?
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Hi Brian! This can help to improve brand exposure allowing consumers to be exposed to the brand. For those customers who purchased at a discounted price, if they are satisfied with the products they are getting, they will purchase it again or share it with their family and friends. Without a limitation, they suffered a huge loss thus by redrawing the promotion lead to a huge backlash on their company image.
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Owndays did create a hype for themselves using the marketing giveaway but at the same time they are suffering a loss. Customers are required to visit the owndays shop to take a photo to enter the competition. They may better understand the product and feel the urge to purchase one themselves if they did not win the competition.
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Hello Mark, i feel that using data analytics before doing any social media marketing would actually help the company to cut down on marketing cost even though the upfront costs of implementing the data analytics would be expensive. By understanding your consumers preferred products and what they would be more interested to see in your social media platforms would help the company in putting more focus in that area instead of other areas.
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Hi Ang Loh, yes by creating an ideal persona helps to understand their audience better. The R&D costs are necessary to reduce wasting unnecessary funding of creating items that are not sellng. And also, having an intended target audience help to reduce marketing costs altogether.
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Hey Mark, great post! Social Media Marketing can be done by knowing who is the intended target audience. By creating an ideal persona, it helps them to understand their audience better hence it reduces backlash and improves the relationship between the company and the users as they feel that the company understands them. Other than that, social media marketing can improve on aligning their goals with their social media marketing campaign! In this aspect, I believe that Owndays has underestimated the power of social media marketing but in turn, it helped them gain the exposure they wanted, but at a cost. Do you know of any social media marketing success? Do let me know!
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Hi Gladys! There is definetly social media marketing success, a good example would be Dove’s #ShowUs project, it tacks the lack of representation of different body types in the media from the inside out. This allows their consumers to feel included and not be ostracised by the public. It helps consumers to have a better brand image of dove thus purchasing their products
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Hi Mark, I read your post and it was really informative! However, I have a question. Will it affect the brand image of Owndays if they give attractive discounts to the customers?
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Hi Jaslyn! Thanks for the comment and I agree that definitely it will affect the brand image as customers will wait for other such promotions to purchase it again but this will increase the customer base of owndays thus increasing sales.
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