Wpromote Drives Engagement—and SEO

When it comes to driving results, digital creative agency Wpromote prefers to focus on the big picture: getting big returns from integrated campaigns that blend multiple marketing channels and great creative work. So when restaurant chain Wienerschnitzel asked Wpromote to help it build brand recognition and boost social engagement with customers, the agency went far beyond traditional tactics and proposed an ingenious hashtag campaign designed to achieve the stated goals and more.

In partnership with Joe Gibbs Racing Mx, Wienerschnitzel launched a national Stackla-driven hashtag competition called #WienerCross. The contest was promoted both online and in physical Wienerschnitzel locations. Nearly 1,500 contest participants submitted photos of themselves eating at a Wienerschnitzel restaurant using hashtag #WienerCross for a chance to win a motorcycle and other prizes.

“We wanted to get the social, SEO, and creative departments aligned and working toward a common goal,” says Ryan Farrell, Director of Creative for Wpromote. “We believe there’s much more value in driving users to your own website than to your social accounts because it gives you the chance to connect them with products and other engagement opportunities. And to do that, you have to create something that people genuinely care about and want to share. Contests are a powerful way to build SEO since they generate lots of inbound links organically.”

Farrell sees Stackla as the key to bridging the gap between social engagement and bringing fans to Wienerschnitzel’s owned media properties. “Stackla was the missing ingredient that allowed us to harness user engagement and build SEO for the client’s own site,” he says. “Owning the destination for social engagement creates a snowball effect—you start to see time on site, average pages per session, and sales go up, and bounce rates go down.”

Another Wpromote client, a large e-commerce retailer, experienced this effect in a powerful way during a recent hashtag competition. Fans submitted photos of the retailer’s products paired with the hottest trends of the spring season for a chance at cash prizes. The average user’s time on site during the contest jumped 30 percent over time on site during a previous hashtag contest that was not run using Stackla technology.