When social media campaigns are an epic fail, I’ll point it out. And, on the flip side, when a campaign is extremely successful and touches millions of social network users around the world, I’ll also point it out.
Coffee-mate has launched an ingenious Facebook campaign titled “Free Flavor Friday” that offered 100,000 coupons for a free bottle of coffee’s best friend (Coffee-mate). To redeem the coupons, all Facebook users had to do was “Like” Coffee-mate’s fan page.
The campaign received such an overwhelming response that technical difficulties decided to show their ugly face, and Coffee-mate stepped up to the plate to make things right. They posted the following status update on Facebook:
“Hi Fans! Technical difficulties have not been our friend today. We’re so sorry for all the inconvenience this has caused you. We’re working hard to make sure you can all get through to the page, but because of the overwhelming response and as a thank you, we’re giving away an additional 20,000 FREE bottles of Coffee-mate! We want to make sure as many people as possible can get one. Thanks for staying loyal!”
What I find interesting, which I’ll expound upon in a future article, is the fact that the promotion took place on Facebook yet “coffee mate” was one of the top searches on Google today. What does this mean? Well, it shows that social marketing campaigns must include Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as a vast majority of traffic will come from search engines.
In conclusion, I’m very proud of Coffee-mate for taking such a mundane, basic product and creating worldwide hype. Coffee and its accompaniments have been tantalizing taste buds since the thirteenth century, and are now entering a new digital age.
Aaron Schoenberger
@TheSchoenberger
The Brainchild Group
Aaron Schoenberger is Founder of The Brainchild Group — a world-renowned Internet marketing agency that specializes in Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). He’s known for his work with celebrities, top restaurants, automotive manufacturers, professional athletes, educational institutions, luxury brands and Fortune 500 companies.