Nearly all businesses today see the value in social media but have a tough time figuring out how to use it properly. Instead of deciding prematurely that an app is what they need or that they need to create a fanpage on Facebook, it’s wise to determine what your trying to accomplish first and then choose the correct medium for the job.
Recently my role at Scripps Networks has grown and I now oversee Social Media for our shelter category which includes brands such as HGTV and DIY Network. Over the past week, I’ve had the opportunity to leverage the functionality of Facebook in a way that has proved beneficial for not only our brands but for fans of our brands as well. Hopefully the example below from what I did with DIY Network will help whoever is reading this to do something similar for their brand.
DIY Network
Last Thursday I was informed of an in-store event between DIY Network and Lowes. The TV show Yard Crashers was going to be at a Lowes in Tampa where 1 lucky person would get a landscaping makeover. Immediately it seemed like a great opportunity to leverage the marketing capabilities on Facebook and to start letting our current fans in that area know we were going to be there in just 3 short days.
We had little budget but a great opportunity so what could we do with little to no resources and 3 days before the event?
The first thing I did was ask for a very minimal budget to buy targeted advertising around people living in the Tampa area who were interested in landscaping. Depending on your budget, you could broaden your targeting or even go more granular. Below is an example of an ad that ran:
As you can see from the ad we needed a place to land people in order to give them more information about the event so in conjunction with the ad buy, we created an event on Facebook. Doing this allowed us to add detailed information about the show, why it was coming to Tampa and what was in it for local residents of the Tampa area.
You can view the RSVP page here but here is a screenshot:
We also posted a Facebook update to our current fans letting them know about the event with a link to the RSVP page:
The final thing we did was leverage our relationship with HGTV and sent a targeted note out to HGTV Facebook fans located in Tampa only so as to not bother fans with information not relevant to them.
As you can see, what we did wasn’t anything over the top but it was effective. Instead of going out and spending a lot of money on something that we thought would be cool, we tried to think about the fan and what was in it for them. Based on the feedback we received from the event yesterday it was a huge success and we’ve even had fans post pictures from the event yesterday. Hopefully you’re able to get a few takeaways from this rapidly put together post. 
