Beta – across the – pond

Irish social media and engagement agency Betapond had its recent Visit Britain campaign profiled in the UK trade press. Charlotte McElney in New Media Age reports, “Using Facebook Places in a more interesting way can provide engaging content and cost-effective, clever campaigns. VisitBritain, with the help of agency Betapond, is collating all the check-ins on Facebook Places for UK attractions to create a daily top-50 list.”

Winning the Visit Britain business is a coup for the Merrion Street based agency, a recent start up by Declan Kennedy and Richard Delevan. On the back of a 34% decrease in its budget, the UK tourist agency moved away from a reliance on TV and has embraced location-based interactive campaigns with social media sharing and ranking. This is a fine example of Facebook Places being used to good effect by marketers.

So what’s so smart about it? By using the Facebook Pages app people can now check into top UK attractions that are ranked based on popularity. This provides an incentive for small “brands” (attractions) to bump up their social media marketing to get into a top 50 or top 10 list and bask in the reflected PR glow that results. Have a read of the Betapond blog to get their take on the new account. Simple and effective, it is good to see this type of useful location-based social media campaign managed by an Irish agency.