It may seem like a no-brainer to connect your social media promotion to an event. That’s because events have, built-in, some of the most important components of a successful, audience-building, awareness-generating social media promotion:

1) The definitive, time-sensitive attention of an audience
2) An easy-to-integrate theme
3) And often a logical prize that goes perfectly with the occasion (tickets, access, a timely discount or gift)

Sporting events…concerts…product launches…conferences and conventions…even social media milestones (”Our 1,000,000th Follower!”)…these are all great events that savvy marketers effectively tie their promotions to.

Holidays- and the frenzied weeks that precede them- may be the single best sort of event to serve as a promotional anchor.

This week we read that Americans will spend close to $7B on Halloween by October 31- or 18% more than we did last year. Not surprisingly, recent use of our newly-launched self-service platform reflects a HUGE emphasis on Halloween promotion. Seemingly every other sweepstakes launched over the past week is Halloween-themed, from ticket giveaways for haunted houses to best dog costume photo contests. Some of these contests have engaged hundreds of entries almost immediately. And some great ones have come out of our full-services, like this costume contest from The Children’s Place.

So as a social media marketer, what do you turn your attention to once the Halloween rush subsides on Tuesday?

Holiday retail. While the holiday bonanza official kicks off in the wee hours of Black Friday, Nov. 25, when throngs of Early Bird shoppers line up for morning-after-Thanksgiving specials to OFFICIALLY launch the retail spree that runs through Christmas Eve and, really, New Year’s, the reality is that holiday commerce is already underway.

Votigo clients are well on their way to an impressive variety of contests, sweepstakes, mobile promotions (including check-in and coupon-based giveaways) and much more. Some are keeping it simple: a Facebook photo contest asking fans to submit a snapshot of them demonstrating their need for / favorite use of / funny drawing of a newly launched product or holiday favorite gift item.

Others will get more sophisticated with a cross-platform campaign that first captures audience attention on Facebook OR Twitter and a branded microsite, then drives them to a store for a chance at a mobile instant win or a coupon offer, and finally invites users to spread the word for additional votes (for a photo contest) or sweepstakes entries. These strategies work especially well for retailers, from mom-and-pop shops to national chains.

So even though it’s nearly All Hallow’s Eve- and that means Black Friday is a mere month away- there is still time to create your own promotion in our self-service tool or call our full-service team to get started on a premium promotion.

Earlier this week Votigo officially announced the launch of self-service access to our social media promotions platform. We’ve been asked, with our background of providing full-service, flexible, cross-platform social media promotions for major brands since launching our first promotion for Victoria’s Secret PINK in early 2007, why launch a self-service platform now?

We strongly believe that brand marketers, and technology providers like us, are just scratching the surface in the realm of social media marketing and promotions. Think about it: Facebook has only been open to brands for a few years; Twitter for about the same short time and YouTube a bit longer. And even though a lot of the other social tools we frequently provide- like interactive microsites and user-generated content galleries- have been in use longer for 10 years or more, that’s no time in the big picture of marketing, where promotions (like contests and sweepstakes and offers) have proven effective over the course of decades.

As many social media marketers know, Facebook recently announced a big time offer to small businesses, hoping to greatly expand the already 9.2M small businesses who already use the platform. To us, that is another sign there is a world of businesses that are essentially just getting started when it comes to marketing and promotions on Facebook and other social networks.

So we built a do-it-yourself platform that we could offer to all the businesses who couldn’t yet make the budget and time commitment of our full-service offerings (even though we now have full-service tools starting at $2,500.) We designed it with small- and especially mid-sized businesses in mind and set out to get great feedback from our early users and so far the feedback- and the promotions launched- are impressive.

One of the cool, unexpected things that has happened when we started inviting beta users to try the platform, and showcasing it at different events for the past few months, is seeing bigger brands, like Brooks Running, and even start-ups start using the platform, in addition to the small- and mid-sized businesses for whom it was designed. They have shown us what they need in enterprise editions of our self-service platform, whether it’s the ability to sanction promotions at local (retail) levels within corporate brand standards, or to launch various promotions for different brands within their portfolio, or in an agency context, to launch promotions for multiple clients. Some major brands will use the platform simply to launch friction-free promotions between their bigger, more integrated campaigns.

And of course you can still tap into Votigo’s full-service solutions when your needs include promotions across social channels (beyond Facebook), advanced features, flexible design and tight timelines.

Our self-service platform completes our full spectrum of service levels, apps and features, and we’re excited that it allows us to serve a whole new set of brands and businesses.

After a painfully unlucky month of dealing with the DMV in Colorado, service is on my mind. It got me thinking about one of the first things I noticed when I joined Votigo earlier this year: clients routinely choose Votigo for our full-service approach to social media marketing.

We are not an ad agency or a social media marketing agency. But it is easy to confuse Votigo for one because of the level of service that, we are often told, is one of two major reasons why clients return frequently. We work with agencies- some of the best in the world- as often as we work directly with brands, and the experience is seamless- because Votigo is transparent and expert in providing powerful social media promotions applications for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, mobile and the web.

Even in a week in which we are launching a self-service platform, the constant dialogue in our office is “How we can provide legendary service even in a self-service channel?”  At first it simply means a brute force effort- lots of late night emails with new users; but by the way, that’s also the best way to learn about our new customers.  (Side note: If you are trying to decide which level of service you need from Votigo, start here.)

What does full service mean? It’s different in every case, and it often means “whatever is needed to launch a campaign in time.” A few things come to mind:

• We don’t often pitch our design chops, but our clients aren’t afraid to entrust design to our in-house design talent when their resources are thin.
• There are companies out there that do nothing BUT contest or sweepstakes management- but we are able to package these services, from legal oversight to moderation to winner selection.
• Delivery. While youn won’t see us pitching our ability to launch a promotion FAST, we know it sometimes seals the deal for a client to know that we have a powerful platform from which we can seamlessly customize and launch a new promotion. Having a talented team of 30+ developers - mainly in our Hyderabad, India, office- makes it possible for us to quickly adopt new platforms, add new features and hit tight deadlines with quality marketing apps for Facebook or any channel.
• Expertise - the knowledge and best practices accumulated over five years of powering cross-channel promotions that we can draw upon when needed - is certainly in the mix.
• It may simply mean the security we offer with a dedicated project manager and 24/7 reliability and support from the Votigo team.

The next time you are sitting at the DMV and trying to kill an hour or two, think about what makes for a great service experience. And remember it when you are choosing your social media marketing partners.