When developing an overall web strategy, and in particular a social media strategy, a common question is whether to launch new initiatives as part of the existing corporate fan page, or create a new campaign-specific page for that initiative. This can apply to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, or any number of other social media platforms.

This is essentially a social media strategy problem, with parallels in the question of extension brands versus sub-brands. Here are some questions that are helpful to ask while developing your web strategy and your social media strategy in order to help determine the best web strategy:

1. Who uses the main corporate page? Customers? Employees? Investors? All of the above? Is your new social media initiative appropriate to that audience (or to those audiences)?

2. Who is the target market for the new product or promotion? If it’s the same as your overall brand target market, consider extending the main page. If your new web strategy targets a different market or a subset of your overall market (e.g. only the younger demographic), you may want to create new social media pages.

3. How does the tone of the new initiative compare to your primary brand voice? If you’re going for something edgier that could potentially alienate fans of the main page, you might want to create social media new pages for the new initiative.

4. Does the new initiative have geographic limitations? If you’re doing a limited product test launch or an online promotion that won’t be available to all of your customers, consider separate social media pages in this case.

When creating new social media pages, it’s often a good idea to link to the new pages from your main corporate pages, and vice versa, unless there’s a need to maintain a more strict separation in terms of your overall web strategy.

AlterSeekers is a brand promotions agency in New York focusing on promotions consulting and planning, web strategy, social media marketing (including Facebook strategy), go to market strategy, and overall strategic planning. For more information see AlterSeekers.com.

WOMMA, the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association, is the author of the Ethics Code of Conduct, known as the WOMMA Code. The Code helps to define best practices, unacceptable practices and baseline rules for word of mouth marketing to help companies define their social media marketing strategy and web strategy.

Why is this of concern to promotional marketers? Because the nature of online promotion strategy is changing: for instance, social media marketing has become the hottest channel in today’s marketing mix, the same way that blogging has become de rigueur as an effective method for brands to interact with consumers. However, a murky area exists when blogs start to promote brands and products. Since blogs have traditionally been viewed as “grassroots” and editorial, it creates a red flag when bloggers are seen as endorsing brands and products. Questions are raised: Is it now advertorial? Is the blogger being paid for his or her endorsement? Is it honest? And has the blogger been transparent about the effort?  In other words, has the blogger blatantly disclosed that he is promoting the brand or product? Companies need to be transparent when integrating blogs as part of their overall online promotion strategy.

In answer to questions like these, the WOMMA Code creates an environment of trust between consumers and marketers. It seeks to prevent unfair, deceptive or misleading marketing practices from occurring in a company’s web strategy.

Similarly, in the social media marketing space, take the example of a Facebook fan page for a brand. Consumers who are fans on Facebook can freely post rave reviews of a product, or openly post complaints; but does it cross the line when the brand itself posts rave reviews, posing as a consumer? The WOMMA Code would clearly point out, “Yes, that is a violation of ethics.” Social media is a resource that is “of the people.” It needs to remain a safe space where consumers feel free to share, and not a venue where companies can misrepresent themselves in the pursuit of the almighty bottom-line using this web strategy. When a brand DOES post on its fan page, it must do so in the most transparent way, with full disclosure.

You can read the entire WOMMA Code at http://womma.org/ethics/code/. Since the WOMMA Code directly affects marketer’s ability to virally share in today’s marketplace, marketers would do well to heed both of these resources in the planning of social media marketing and blogging initiatives.

AlterSeekers is a brand promotions agency in New York focusing on promotions consulting and planning, web strategy, social media marketing (including Facebook strategy), go to market strategy, and overall strategic planning. For more information see AlterSeekers.com.

We just finished editing new videos on AlterSeekers and would love your feedback. This one talks about how online promotions has evolved with Social Marketing. We’d love to know what you think!

It seems like every few years, something new comes along and changes the promotional marketing landscape. Today, I’d like to discuss the evolution of Sweepstakes, Contests and Games. I’ve worked in this industry for over 20 years and it’s been an amazing run. When I started my career in the promotion industry, the Internet was primarily for education and government workers. And I can remember doing some of the first online promotions for AOL & Prodigy in the early 90’s.

But what’s most exciting to me is the most recent evolution of Sweepstakes, Contests and Games that are happening on Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media sites. The promotion has once again evolved and I’m excited to be talking about that evolution today.

Let’s start with Online Promotions. If you haven’t read Bill Carmody’s book on the subject, you really should. It’s the only book out there on the topic and you can get it at 50% off if you become a fan of AlterSeekers.

This is important because in order to see the future of promotions, you need to understand where we started – both online and in retail. With tools such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, you don’t even need traditional back end databases and other scripting technology in order to launch a sweepstakes, contest or game.

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Facebook Fan Page promotions, for example, can really take off because of the viral nature of Facebook. With the right prizes and the right hypertargeting, you can easily launch promotions that drive awareness, downloads and ultimately incent people to buy your product or service.

Likewise, Twitter creates a sense of urgency within your promotions. Rather than having one 6 to 8 week promotion, you can have an hourly or daily promotion that gets people to pay closer attention to your Tweets. AlterSeekers has continued to stay on top of these evolutions in Brand Promotions – especially in the social media space. It’s where your sales are headed if they’re not there already. The idea of social commerce is no longer a foreign concept to most of us.

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For more information on Social Marketing, please download our Free Webinar on Monetizing Social Media: How Do You Make Money with Facebook and Twitter.