Awards:
Best Use of Facebook - Constant Contact
BtoB Magazine
Why we liked it: Small businesses are the core of Constant Contact's constituency, and Facebook is a great place to find them. The email service provider doubled down on its Facebook initiative in 2011 with the goals of increasing network size, deepening brand engagement and improving brand awareness. It used its Facebook wall to deliver a steady stream of advice, solicit suggestions for features and enhancements, and encourage customers to post questions to the community. Constant Contact makes sure every customer's question gets a response. The scope of its own engagement is impressive, often exceeding a dozen posts a day. A series of polls asks interesting and revealing questions, and a busy Product Q&A section elicits a steady stream of how-to inquiries from customers. The company's voice is friendly, fun and informative, and it constantly seeks responses. Results: Facebook “likes” have grown nearly sixfold; total “likes” and comments grew 400%. Post views blew away expectations, totaling almost 6.5 million for the year.
http://ow.ly/aPb26
'BtoB' Social Media Marketing Awards
http://ow.ly/aPb4b
Best Use of Twitter - Constant Contact
BtoB Magazine
Companies that look at Twitter as simply a bonus channel to broadcast their marketing messages quickly hit the wall. If you want to grow a Twitter following, look at the example of such companies as Constant Contact. The email service provider set its sights on drama-tically expanding its Twitter presence in 2011 as a way to enhance customer service, amplify PR, engage with its markets and augment educational content. Its tweet stream, updated about 50 times per day, now provides a constant flow of links to useful marketing advice on the Web, tips on using the company's products and conversations with individuals. Its upbeat, appreciative tone makes it clear that Constant Contact loves its customers. Customers have responded: Constant Contact's following spiked 370% in 2011, reaching almost 39,000 followers; clicks on tweeted links grew nearly 200-fold; and mentions increased more than 30-fold—all of which shows that helpfulness has its rewards.
http://ow.ly/aPbb6
'BtoB' Social Media Marketing Awards
http://ow.ly/aPb8U
Best Use of Pinterest - Constant Contact
BtoB Magazine
As a past winner of BtoB Social Media Awards for Facebook and Twitter, Constant Contact has a track record of social media mastery. Pinterest presented a new challenge: The email marketing business is not inherently visual, so the company had to get creative.
It turns out there are visual elements to almost any business. The Constant Contact Pinterest account features art and photos from the company's blog with superimposed text linking to the post. Other users' content is repinned to such boards as Engagement Marketing, Holiday Marketing Tips and Small-Business SEO. Every special occasion gets its own pin board, and the company shows off its customers' work in boards devoted to email newsletters and infographics.
A Humor pin board hosts cartoons, drawings and small-business-related photos. There's even a behind-the-scenes Life at Constant Contact board. The company is now closing in on 5,000 Pinterest followers. More important, Pinterest is second only to Facebook as a traffic driver.