Hiccup

Hey there,

Wildfire Interactive is constantly making enhancements to our platform of applications-- we never want to stop making it better. Unfortunately, every once in a blue moon, technical efforts to improve some part of the system can cause unintended hiccups in other parts of the system.

While making a few enhancements to our platform last night, several emails may have been sent from our system by mistake.

If you believe you've received any messages from us today by mistake, please disregard them. We apologize for the confusion.

To remove yourself from future emails, please go to http://www.wildfireapp.com/dashboard/accounts/user_profile.

Feel free to email (info@wildfireapp.com) or call us (888-274-0929) if you have other questions or concerns.

Thank you for your patience and for being a Wildfire customer!

Cheers,
The Wildfire Team

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Thank You!

Wildfire HQ is abuzz-- this morning, going through our fan page and responding to people's comments and questions, we noticed that we have 10,999 fans! Hopefully, by the time this post is live, we'll have 11,000! It seems to be that...you like us! You really like us!


Our team could not be happier to serve you-- every interaction we have with a friend, a fan, a user, helps us to gauge the impact our product is having on social media, internet marketing, and the business of understanding and engaging a user base.

Keep 'em coming, guys! If you promise to keep checking in and dropping us a line now and then, we'll promise to keep rolling out new and exciting features to add to our product lineup, making it easier for your business or brand to engage with and grow its user base!

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Wildfire Gets New Digs!

Here at Wildfire, we've been lucky to enjoy ongoing success with our products-- it's been very humbling and extremely exciting to see our services covered in the media and shouted out by our fans and loyal customers. To that end, we've also been experiencing some growth! Our team has been steadily expanding, and we have outgrown our office!

We're excited to share with you the news about our brand new headquarters, located in downtown Palo Alto, where all the cool web kids are. We'll be moving to 167 Hamilton Ave, to occupy two floors and take over the roof! Our plans are grand-- we will now have conference rooms with doors, and our shopping list includes a kegerator, so that the team can enjoy cold brew on Fridays after work, on the roof.


The office space we're occupying will have room for many new desks-- that's because we're still hiring for several open positions. If you are looking for a new job with a fast-paced, social-media-focused tech startup, check out our open positions here. Come join us, we've been looking for you!

[caption id="attachment_957" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Whatdya think? There are doors!"][/caption]

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How to Make Sure your Promotion is Within Facebook’s Guidelines

A common question that we hear from our customers is: "How do I make sure my campaign is playing within the rules of Facebook Promotional Guidelines?". We wrote a blog post about the new Facebook promotions guidelines when they came out in November but we want to use this new post to further clarify Facebook's policy and how Wildfire can ensure that your contest or sweepstakes is always Facebook friendly.

While the full text for Facebook's promotional guidelines can be found here, there is one point which is important to underline and understand. The guidelines state that you cannot "administer" a contest or sweepstakes on Facebook without Facebook's written consent but you can "publicize" a promotion without approval. "Administering" refers to the collection of user data (e.g. when a user fills out an entry form) and/or the drawing or notifying of winners. "Publicizing" your promotion means that you display and promote your promotion within Facebook (e.g. on your Fan Page) but you do not collect user data or draw/notify winners within Facebook.

A promotion can thus be handled in two ways. Anybody can "publicize" their promotion within Facebok e.g. by displaying it on their Fan Page, promoting it via status updates, or by inviting friends to participate. However, only companies that obtain approval from their Facebook sales rep can have their promotions run entirely within Facebook. If you do not have a dedicated Facebook representative, a portion of your promotion (i.e. the collecting of user data and drawing/notifying of winners) needs to occur outside of Facebook.

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You can create a fun, compelling, interactive sweepstakes or contest and have it live right in your Facebook Fan Page, which is completely fine within Facebook's Promotional Guidelines. However, when the user goes to submit their information (which is called "administration" in the guidelines) without prior Facebook approval this step will occur outside of Facebook, in a microsite the user will be automatically and seamlessly guided to. This is a service Wildfire provides for all sweepstakes and contests automatically!

 

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If you run a promotion via Wildfire we automatically solve this problem for you. We enable you to easily add a sweepstakes or contest to your Facebook fan page (without needing Facebook approval) but at the point that an entrant needs to submit their personal data (via the sweepstakes or contest entry form) he is auto-redirected to a microsite outside of Facebook where he leaves all of his data submissions. In terms of design, this site looks identical to your promotion design in Facebook, so the movement between sites is seamless and the user will usually not notice that he has momentarily been taken outside of Facebook. Finally, when he is done submitting his data and clicks "Submit," he will be seamlessly re-directed by Wildfire right back into your Fan Page on Facebook.

This is just one of the ways that we ensure that your promotions are Facebook-compliant. In addition to this, we also automatically include in your promotion the appropriate disclaimers and footnotes required by Facebook, we automatically exclude language that's disallowed by Facebook and we guide you to ensure that you are not offering a forbidden prize. For more details about Facebook's promotions guidelines and how we help to guide you, check out our previous post:http://help.wildfireapp.com/faqs/frequently-asked-questions/facebook-promotions-guidelines-explanation

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6 Clever Tricks to Double the Effectiveness of Your Fan Page Status Updates!

Many businesses are rushing to build up their Facebook 'fan' base, but what's the value of a fan if you don't know how to effectively message them and get their attention? Below are a series of very simple tips for how to get your Fan page status updates noticed. Special thanks are owed to the other panelists joining our CEO Victoria Ransom at the Web 2.0 expo session, "From Faceless to Fantastic,"where some of these tips were discussed (@ekaterinawalter, @ttaxchels, @smcilnay and @angelathp) and in particular to Jeff Widman at Brand Glue.

But first, you might be wondering why such tips are even necessary. Aren't all status updates seen by fans? The short answer is, no. Facebook uses an algorithm to determine which updates and stories will appear in a given person's newsfeed. While no one knows exactly what this algorithm is (besides Mark Zuckerberg!), it largely depends on how much engagement a particular story receives. So, if you send an update out to your fans and it receives a lot of 'Likes' or 'Comments', it will be exposed to a much higher % of your fans in their Top News stream and there will therefore be a much higher likelihood that your fans will actually see your post than an update that gets few 'Likes' or 'Comments'. So sending out posts that are highly engaging is extremely important to the success of your Facebook marketing strategy.

TRICK #1: Ask fans to 'Like' your update!

[caption id="attachment_906" align="alignnone" width="355" caption="Check out the great engagement with this post-- 29 people indicated they "Like" it, which was likely aided by the direct prompt to do so right in the message!"][/caption]

This may sound trivial, but it is hugely powerful - when you post an update out to your fans ask them to show their support by clicking on the 'Like' button of your post. For example, if you send an update about a new product feature instead of simply saying: "We're excited to announce the release of our brand new navigation, " say something like: "We're excited to announce the release of our brand new navigation. Click the 'Like' button if you like this change". We have tried this over and over again and on average we see 200-300% more 'Likes' when we make direct requests like this.

TRICK #2: Encourage comments by asking yes/no questions

A powerful way to encourage comments is to ask your fans questions when you post an update. But you'll get a much higher response rate if you ask questions that require very little effort to answer, like yes/no questions. For example, you'll get far fewer comments if you ask "Tell us what you think of our new homepage design" than if you ask "Do you like our new homepage design - yes or no?". Of course, if you're looking for concrete feedback from your fans you may prefer the first approach, but if you are wanting maximum exposure for your post the latter approach will yield a significantly higher number of comments.

TRICK #3: Don't use the Facebook links box!

You may have noticed that Facebook provides an option to attach a link to your fan page status updates. What you may not know is that you'll generally get fewer clicks on your link if you use this feature rather than simply including a link in the body of your update.

Don't do this...

[caption id="attachment_907" align="alignnone" width="540" caption="The link button outlined above will attach a link to your post, but its best to avoid using this tool, and just paste the link right into your text."][/caption]

Try this instead...

[caption id="attachment_908" align="alignnone" width="344" caption="Pasting a link you wish to share with your users directly into your message has proven, with testing, to have a significantly higher user click rate!"][/caption]

TRICK #4: If you post your own videos, do use the Facebook video upload

Just as Facebook provides functionality to attach a link to your update, so too does it allow to you attach a video to your post. While we recommend against using this functionality when posting a link, we do recommend that you use the 'attach' functionality to add your own videos to your updates. Why? If you upload your video via the Facebook 'attach' functionality it will automatically embed a 'Like' button into your video, thus giving you the opportunity to build your fans when people share your video. If you simply link to a video on YouTube or elsewhere there will be no 'Like' button automatically embedded in your video.

Try this out...

[caption id="attachment_910" align="alignnone" width="540" caption="Upload videos which you have on your computer using this uploader tool-- it automatically inserts a "Like" button right into your video!"][/caption]

You get a cool feature with it!

[caption id="attachment_911" align="alignnone" width="346" caption="By uploading this video directly into the video uploader tool pictured above, users can now click directly on "Like" within the video as they watch."][/caption]

TRICK #5: Target your messages to different segments of your audience.

[caption id="attachment_913" align="alignnone" width="338" caption="If you have a message that's only relevant to a certain geography of users, target them right in your update!"][/caption]

Did you know that you can push out status updates that only specific segments of your fan base will see? For example, if you have a global business and you have an offer that is only relevant to your Canadian customers, you could push out a story that only your Canadian fans will see. Likewise, if you have Spanish speaking fans you could target them exclusively with an update written in Spanish. Right next to the "Share" button in the messaging box is a targeting tool-- while the default targeting is "Everyone," you can limit the outreach by location, all the way down to city/state and by language.

If you have a message that you don't need or want all of your users to see, you can customize who the message will be revealed to, by using the functionality built right in to the message box!

Target your message right down to the city!

[caption id="attachment_914" align="alignleft" width="341" caption="You can target you messages by location of your users, as deep as their city, and even the language they speak!"][/caption]

TRICK #6: Make it worth your fan's while to look out for your updates!

Razorfish published a study awhile ago that asked consumers why they fan and follow brands. The greatest percentage of people, by far, responded 'for the exclusive deals & offers'. So if you want your fans to watch out for and look forward to receiving your updates, you should reward them from time to time with special offers like coupons, giveaways, contests and more. We've seen companies that offer regular deals (e.g. Friday specials or Tuesday giveaways) build highly engaged fan bases. So why not get started by creating a promotion today ;)

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Use July 4th & Other National Holidays to Build your Fan Base

If there's one thing that our most successful clients (i.e. those who have the greatest number of engaged fans and followers) have in common it's this: they consistently provide their audience with great reasons to engage. We've previously written about the power of running weekly or monthly promotions (e.g. weekly coupons or monthly giveaways), but another powerful way to consistently engage your audience is to center promotions around holidays (e.g. Valentines, Halloween, Easter, Christmas, Hanukkah etc).

With many countries about to celebrate their National Holiday over the next couple of months (4th of July, French Independence Day, Swiss National Day etc) we thought we'd provide you with some creative ideas for 'National Holiday'-themed promotions.

IDEA #1: Encourage word of mouth spread by offering The Ultimate Holiday Party

Run a sweepstakes to give away the 'ultimate National Holiday party' - food, drinks, and bbq included. But to make it more 'social' and to encourage word-of-mouth spread, use our 'group prize' functionality and ask entrants to name the '5 people' they'd invite to the party if they were to win.

IDEA #2: Drive daily engagement with a 'count down' sweepstakes

Encourage regular engagement leading up to the holiday by running a 'count down' sweepstakes (e.g. 'Count down to 4th July' or '30 days 'til Bastille Day'). For each day of the 'count down' award a daily prize like a gift card and then award one grand prize at the end of the promotion.

IDEA #3: Combine Holiday-Themed Virtual Gifts with Charitable Giving

Create a virtual gift campaign to enable friends to send each other free Holiday-themed virtual gifts (e.g. American flags, fireworks & party hats to celebrate 4th July). Combine this with an opportunity to ‘give back’ by offering to donate $1 to a charity of your choice for every gift sent.

IDEA #4: Encourage sharing by running a Holiday-themed Contest

Create a Holiday-themed contest where users submit their best fireworks photos, favorite 4th July recipes or pledges for what they plan to do to make their country better. Contests can be highly viral because each entrant will reach out to their friends and family to vote for their entry.

IDEA #5: Celebrate the Holiday by giving away ‘Mystery’ coupons

Many stores will offer coupons and deals to celebrate the 4th July or other National Holidays so why not use Wildfire Campaign Builder to provide a coupon on your fan page or website. To add more fun to your promotion, use our unique code upload functionality to offer a ‘mystery’ coupon, like the game retailer Hautelook created with Wildfire.

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