Barclaycard US launches social media sweepstake

Barclaycard US is offering Americans the chance to win up to $25,000 through a Facebook-based sweepstake competition, entitled '#LiketoLove'.

The competition - open to all US residents, whether they are customers or not - will run until 8 September and offers entrants the opportunity to win 'customised' daily prizes worth up to $100, weekly prizes worth up to $1000 and one grand prize worth up to $25,000. The fine print states that 'prizes will vary, and are based upon what winners #liketolove.'

To take part, entrants must 'like' the Barclaycard US Facebook page, submit a photo of things they love and include a 'Like to Love' logo within the picture. The photo must also include a caption of what it is they have chosen.

"We realise that there's a story behind every purchase made, journey started and goal fulfilled. That's why Barclaycard wants to give consumers, whether a cardmember or not, a platform to share what they really care about," says David Goodman, digital managing director, Barclaycard US.

Barclaycard UK has already used the power of social media competitions with a Twitter prize draw in June. Entrants had the opportunity to win a £1000 holiday voucher by re-tweeting a Barclaycard URL with the hashtag '#PassTheLolly'.

Related Companies

Barclays Bank Barclays Global Investors (BGI)

Channels

Retail banking Payments

Keywords

Cards Mobile & online banking

Comments: (2)

Steve Ellis - Finextra Research - London 01 August, 2013, 11:22

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It'll be interesting to see the results of this campaign.

In our experience, running competitions to attract followers or likes can often be a red herring. Great for noise or awareness but ultimately not great for longterm community building.

Yes, you can attract lots of RTs or likes but very often not from your target audience, and not even from audiences who can ever subsequently be converted to purchase or use your service.

So while the outreach metrics might look great in the short term, longer term having a chunk of followers who once 'liked' your brand on a whim but will never interact with it, skews your engagement data and potentially confuses the strategies chosen to get deeper engagement with genuine customers, or to draw them into a purchase journey.

Barclaycard are not novices by any means, so will have worked hard to get the targeting right and avoid these pitfalls.

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Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 02 August, 2013, 17:36

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Don't know about BarclayCard but from my experience with a couple of similar campaigns from other banks, the LIKE is itself a red herring. Once visitors are drawn to the bank's social media page by the contest, they're enticed to respond to a CTA via a promotional offer e.g. apply for a credit card. By their very nature, these are one-off CTAs. The prize money is so small that such these campaigns deliver very low CPLs. Although it's debatable whether social media should be used in this fashion for lead generation - as against branding and long term community building - such campaigns are not uncommon.