Assignment 3: Rogers and Social Media

The company that I have chosen for assignment three that, that is involved in social media as a marketing tactic is Rogers Wireless. The social media that they chose to use was the ever-popular Facebook. The campaign they used lately was called “Campus Battle ‘09,” a race between 37 universities to see who can get the most Facebook fans in a period of two moths. The initiative they used to get users to join the campaign was a concert that would take place at the winning campus. The organization realized the opportunity of using the social media site to gain awareness of the event, as well as the ease of letting the target consumers spread the word themselves. “Facebook is probably the easiest way to grow this the way we want it to grow” (Ewing).

 They also found that it would be a great way to get the message across to the consumers, as a lot of them are already members. The way the contest happened, was they had a page on Facebook, on which the students were able to vote for their schools. Each person was able to vote once, and if they got more of their friends to join, they were allowed a second vote. It was a very ingenious way of spreading the word of their marketing tactic, using social media. “We know that the demographic we’re targeting is very active on Facebook, especially in Canada. It gives the schools the opportunity to get behind the program without having to do too much in the way of organization. The tool is there and set up for them”(Ewing). They were very successful in reaching the target market in this campaign using Facebook with large percentages of the university student body’s casting votes. “Voters totaling over 15 per cent of the university student population supported Dalhousie University” (McNutt).

 From the proposed Campus Battle that Rogers is holding each year, it shows that social media is a very efficient way of sending and spreading the message. It also gives the opportunity to create different, effective, and creative campaigns that can easily be successful with the right target. Social media methods of marketing are now starting to evolve and become very effective, and they will only become more useful in the coming years.

http://www.marketingmag.ca/english/news/marketer/article.jsp?content=20090223_175543_5452

http://dalnews.dal.ca/2009/03/11/deathcab.html