Last week WPLG gave away an iPad after they hit 14,000 Facebook fans in a couple of days or so after announcing the contest. But now they want even more. They’re keeping the bribing contest going with a new goal of 25,000 fans. Once they hit that, another fan will get an iPad. As of this writing WPLG’s Facebook fan page had a tad over 18,363 fans, so there are over 14,000 who didn’t care enough to fan WPLG until they got a 1:14,000 at winning a single iPad.
And how amusing and cringe inducing is all the begging and buttering up of the WPLG crew going on the wall by people who want to win? You can see the comments people are leaving yourself if you’re sure you need the time spent back!
Fan begging aside, isn’t it rather odd that a big TV station, who brings in some major bacon from ads, and whose signal can be picked up by literally millions in South Florida can’t get more than 4k people to hit the ‘Like’ button on their Facebook fan page without bribes? If offering an iPad for fans is genius why is giving away gas cards during sweeps to viewers who watch a station’s 11pm newscast called a stunt? Many people harped on some Palm Beach stations who gave away gas cards a while back and some even called it low.
I don’t know what WPLG does or did to get the word out about their Facebook page on the air, but I noticed WSVN has a (somewhat lacking) reminder they’re on Facebook and Twitter in rotation during the newscasts and even that just tells people to ‘log on and search’ (I think showing people the actual URL would be much more productive but what do I know?)
So what do you think? Stunt or genius?
It’s a stunt!!! Come on Ch10, people must be desperate!!!! Plus you only give one away! CHEAP!!!!
I LIKE IT! I think this site should do the same! ; p
Alex had that idea but I was too busy. Maybe soon we will 😉
how about stunt & genius. it’s about results…20k facebook fans in a week… it obviously worked… whether you liked it or not.. it worked…
It would be genius if you could monetize it but since this is just a pissing match it’s stupid because 16,000 of those people will not interact on the page once the giveaway is over.
Who cares,,, they are giving away something free! More then any of the other stations are doing… Who cares if its for facebook hits…. bottom line is– you either want a chance to win a click “like” or you don’t care and ignore it… thinking that what there doing is cheap is a joke,,, i dont see you giving anything away on this site except for outdated local news stories,,, get with it kid….
Complete genius and here’s why:
When it began they had just over 4,000 friends. As of now, they have just over 19,000. That means in about 2 weeks they have almost quadrupled their “fanbase”.
Facebook views/hit don’t matter. Like every other station, they post news stories on their facebook page. They are links to their main page (justnews.com) So lets say out of those 15,000 new “friends”, 5% of them click on those links. That’s 750 page views per day added onto justnews.com. THAT translates into additional revenue from web advertising.
So their minor investment (if they actually paid for the iPads and didnt get them in trade) can/will actually translate into additional ad revenue from their own website.
Seems genius to me.
And before anyone says it, no, I am not a WPLG flunky. Just someone who wishes their management would have thought of it before WPLG did.
Maybe
I’ve seen the traffic on those Bit.ly links that get posted on Twitter. Based on clicks, I saw CNN muster around 1% click-trough rate, surprised me actually how low it was. I checked other outlets and they had similar CTRs on Twitter. Now it could be that Facebook has higher user engagement but still they are signing up a lot of people who probably would lose interest once the contest is over. 1% of 25,000 isn’t that much.
And I doubt WPLG’s CPM rates on JustNews.com are that high, I don’t know for sure but I’d speculate they might be around $4? I know MSNBC wants $5CPM minimum for run of site, $9 CPM to run on Today Show site, $16+ for Business and Travel sections.
And Pat, no reason why your management can’t do it. Personally, I’d like to see another station get into it and one up 10 with a better or more interesting giveaway. There are ways 🙂