Toronto-based start-up firm Kibboko Inc. has developed a social media marketing service that rewards consumers for sharing advertising messages with their friends and followers.
The program, called Shweet, allows marketers to post contest ads on a dedicated website. Consumers can choose to share a particular message with their Facebook friends or tweet it to their followers. Those that do become eligible for a draw to win the prize associated with the ad.
The prize draws are activated when a pre-set threshold of consumer “shweets” is reached. For example, the draw for an ASPCA promotion currently running on the Shweet site will take place once 500 consumers share or tweet it.
Shweet’s beta launch took place in late January. Since then, the site has taken on advertising partners such as online retailer Boom Vintage, Indiana record label Jagjaguwar, and Men’s Health magazine.
Keith Bates, founder and CEO of Kibboko, said Shweet’s “crowdsharing” concept is ideally suited to smaller marketers with limited budgets.
“The basic idea is that, especially for more independent advertisers that have an interesting creative product but maybe not a huge ad budget, we can provide a way for the viral spread of messages,” said Bates.
Advertisers can also measure the reach of their Shweet initiatives as the system automatically counts the number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers for each consumer that shares or tweets a marketer’s message. For example, the Jagjaguwar contest, which awards the winner a $25 Amazon gift certificate, had been passed along 494 times by consumers as of this morning to a total of more than 52,000 people.
“An interesting message is what’s going to attract the attention of people on Facebook, or a neat little prize,” said Bates. “And the prizes, we’ve found, don’t have to be big.”
Bates said that in the absence of a Shweet marketing campaign, advertisers themselves have been helpful in telling consumers about the service, often using their company Facebook and Twitter accounts to do so.
“Any of [the advertisers] can go and tell people, ‘If you’re a big fan of our products, here’s a chance to win if you tell your friends about us.’”
Bates said his company has not yet announced a pricing structure for Shweet.
