Facebook Kindle Competition Reflections for Plumbworld

Nov. 16, 2012 - PRLog -- Plumbworld recently did a Kindle Touch giveaway on Facebook which was quite successful in seeing a new wave of people sharing and liking the Plumbworld page which was one of the reasons behind this promotion. http://www.facebook.com/www.plumbworld.co.uk

However, the Plumbworld competition ran a lot smoother than sister-company Toolbox’s competition which encountered quite a few problems and hiccups along the way. The Plumbworld marketing team were dedicated to making this work and although it didn’t have quite the hype they had hoped for, it definitely was worthwhile.

James Cook, part of the Social Media team at Plumbworld oversaw the majority of this competition and gave the following account: “After seeing other competitions doing quite well on Facebook, we decided to do a little research into it to see just how beneficial these things were. Straight away it was clear that it built strong customer relations simply by offering them the chance to win something for liking the Plumbworld Facebook page.”

However, the downside of this is that a lot of ‘freeloaders’ could also join up simply to try and win a free Kindle. The problem with this is that most of these people are the kind that will never buy anything and offer no value to the company; they’re simply trying to get whatever freebies they can. This problem was made even clearer after surfing the profiles of a few people who shared our competition picture (20+ times), the only things on their wall were free gifts – these people didn’t even have friends.”

Apparently, this is one of the current trends in Facebook – signing up to freebie competitions in the hope that if someone enters enough, they’ll actually win something. Hopefully, Facebook realise that their networking system is being taken advantage of by users looking to gain something for nothing by making several profiles to increase their chances of winning. Then maybe these competitions will be far more efficient and worthwhile to businesses such as ourselves and others who have a Facebook presence”

It’s rumoured that Plumbworld are currently planning on preparing another competition for its Facebook and Twitter fan base which involves some extremely high quality bathroom mixer taps and possibly a small bathroom suite. However, this couldn’t officially be confirmed or denied by anyone in the business – so at present, it’s just a bit of speculation.

The Plumbworld website is hosted on the large Online Home Retail network at present. The network already hosts close to 50 niche-specific websites which sell a whole range of products, varying from circular saws all the way to leaf blowers and car covers on brands such as http://www.gardentoolbox.co.uk and http://www.franke-sinks-shop.co.uk. Online Home Retail Limited was originally Plumbworld Ltd back in 1999 and since then it has been bought by the Grafton Group PLC in 2006 and received a brand overhaul in June 2012. The business now employs close to 60 people in its purpose built warehouse and offices whilst turning over in excess of £20 million per year.