There’s a whole world of possibilities for what you can do with Sponsored Posts. You can link surveys, announce special services or even promote your hashtag. In this article, you will get to know the multiple functions of sponsored tiles on a social wall.
What are Sponsored Posts?
Sponsored Posts are special posts on your social wall that aren’t filled with regular social content from your sources. Instead, you can upload specific images (or videos or just text) that you want to display there and have it show up on your wall in regular intervals.
Show ads from your sponsors during virtual events
The main function of Sponsored Posts is to make money by offering ad placements to your event’s sponsors. Tomorrowland, for example, made sure that their sponsors received a prominent advertisement space on the festival’s official social feed.
Tomorrowland designed and set up Sponsored Posts so that the ads naturally blended in with the user-generated content posted by fans on the social media wall. Each ad linked to a relevant landing page provided by the sponsors.
However, these tiles are a versatile tool that can be used in various other ways as well.
Measure customer satisfaction with online surveys
Surveys help you collect important feedback that helps you optimise your marketing strategy. However, sending these by email might not generate enough replies. By using Sponsored Posts to draw attention and link to your survey on your social wall, you have a chance to collect feedback from those who you might not be able to reach via email because you don’t have their contact details yet. You can also add an incentive, such as a voucher for those who complete the survey, to encourage more people to take part.
Sponsored Posts let you add any image or video and connect it to a link. You can send social wall visitors directly to your survey with one simple click. Use this feature to measure attendee satisfaction after an event or to gather valuable feedback from your customers.
Display sponsored ads on a news feed
With Walls.io, it’s easy to set up a news and information hub centred around a particular topic or focusing on local news from your area. You can add content from social media or RSS feeds and even make some money by offering sponsored placements.
You can also use the sponsored tiles to advertise subscriptions to your paper or magazine — just like you’d do on the physical pages —, or introduce additional services you’re offering.
Below, you can see a microsite we’ve created for the coronavirus crisis. This news feed includes Sponsored Posts promoting Walls.io, so you can see how well the tiles blend in with the news posts.
Encourage people to take action
Add Sponsored Posts that motivate people to take action, just like Study UK did. Study UK is a global campaign by the British Council promoting the UK as a destination for international students.
The Study UK campaign used Sponsored Posts to provide concrete information that international students would need right on the social wall. The Sponsored Posts give them a taste of the services Study UK provides and, ideally, inspire them to find out more by following the link to the Study UK website.
As Spoon, the agency which ran the Study UK campaign, puts it “The sponsored posts were easy to set up, and they encourage people to take action.”
Support local businesses
Hotels, restaurants and tourist destinations can benefit from Sponsored Posts by showing off collaborations with other local businesses on a social wall. Display your partners’ ads or a simple logo on your social wall to alert guests to things they can do locally and ask your partner businesses to do the same for you.
You can advertise tasty meals offered by restaurants in the surrounding area or activities guests can book with local travel agencies and businesses. Creating a network of local businesses that support each other through social walls has never been easier.
Promote your hashtag
Sponsored Posts also offer a way to promote your content. You can use these tiles to periodically explain how your hashtag campaign works.
Add an image that stands out from the other posts with clear and concise instructions on posting to the wall. The image below displays a sponsored tile with the words Post & Tag followed by a hashtag. People watching the wall will be easily informed of how to contribute to the social wall.
Find a unique use for the sponsored tiles
Each example on this list was created based on what each brand needed. But the ways you can use Sponsored Posts are practically endless. Whatever you need to advertise on your social wall or alert your visitors to can be displayed as a sponsored tile.
Would you like to learn more about the sponsored posts feature?
If you come up with innovative new uses for Sponsored Posts, please, let us know about it! We’re always eager to show our audience the multiple benefits of this feature.