Every small business owner (SBO) dreams of making it big. Through Mission Main Street Grants℠ from Chase, SBOs have the opportunity to share $3 million in grants to grow their businesses. Every aspect of the program–from outreach, audience engagement and applicant word-of-mouth—incorporates social media. Facebook is the largest contributor to the key goals of the program by helping to drive business registration, consumer voting and brand awareness. Highlights include: • Approximately 25,000 businesses from all 50 states submitted applications • More than 1.6 M people submitted votes via Facebook Connect in support of participating businesses • 11 leading organizations including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce served as advocates of the program by spreading the word to their respective members • Premier Sponsor Google will award recipients with an all-expenses paid trip to Google for a 2-day marketing workshop and free laptop Facebook objectives: • Drive business registration and consumer voting with one holistic campaign o Enhanced creative from previous year to bring the previous grant recipients’ stories to life using vibrant photos, text and videos with clear call to action o Creative and copy centered around an IMAGINE concept—small business owners are doing the best they can to grow their businesses but sometimes they need a little help (and inspiration) to get to the next level. • Increase awareness of the Mission Main Street Grants program and Chase’s support of small businesses o Canned responses, monitoring and optimistic posts resulted in 100% neutral or positive sentiment
“The social media exposure we received was invaluable. Not only was Milagros de México introduced to thousands of people via Facebook, but this exposure led to several new vendor relationships. We learned a great deal about how to promote our company and as a result, our Facebook "likes" have increased from approximately 350 in late 2013 to close to 2,200 at the present time. We are very thankful to Chase and their team for the exposure and awareness their social media campaign brought to Milagros de México." This quote, from a 2013 grant recipient, is just one of many responses Mission Main Street Grants has received since launching the program in 2012. It embodies the overall spirit and purpose of this grant initiative; making a relevant impact on small businesses and their communities across the country. The Mission Main Street Grants team is committed to working directly with the grant recipients, not only from a financial perspective, but in the development of all creative and social media assets to support their businesses. We continue to create new and innovative ways to engage with small business owners and provide them with the access and resources needed to help their businesses thrive. Facebook is one of the innovative tools that small business owners use to garner votes and increase their business’ presence on a larger scale. The objectives, key features, and metrics/results listed below highlight the overall effectiveness of the 2014 program. Objective: Showcase previous grant recipient stories • SBOs advice: Small businesses like to learn from other businesses. Videos and photo posts brought to life the stories of how previous recipients have grown from their grant, hoping their stories will inspire new business owners to apply Create positive awareness of Chase’s support for small businesses • Third-party endorsements: Align with small business organizations (reach of approx 38 MM followers for Supporting Organizations) and Premier Sponsor Google to promote the program through their respective social channels • Cross-channel social promotion: Chase promotes the campaign across multiple channels, including Twitter (via @ChaseSmallBiz, @Chase), LinkedIn (Chase and Chase Paymentech pages) and additional Chase product Facebook properties (i.e. Ink from Chase and Chase Freedom) Provide engaging content for small businesses to authentically promote their own participation • Social Media Toolkit: Provide applicants with access to a free social media toolkit to help them attract votes. The toolkit includes digital marketing tips and customizable social media templates (e.g. posts for Facebook, program logo for easy use). • Encourage businesses to share news of program milestones: Information about program milestones (i.e. consumer voting) is shared with applicants via pre-populated Facebook posts • Attracting votes via social media: Applicants are required to attract at least 250 votes via Facebook Connect on the microsite (www.missionmainstreetgrants.com), so all voters must have access to Facebook. Key Features: • Video: Video page posts with call to action button and bit.ly link for option to drive off-site, used for awareness objectives with soft call to action o Five unique short form videos, natively hosted on Facebook, featuring past Grant recipients o 1 “How To Apply" video that gave interested SBO’s a program overview o Video content optimized for reach increases program awareness, followed by re-targeting small businesses who engaged with the videos to increase registration consideration Focus on Targeting & Re-targeting: o Utilize Facebook data and offline data o Target self-reported owners/entrepreneurs in their job title (5M) o Target SBOs who buy Facebook ad credits for their business (1.6M) o Target Facebook data on small business interest groups (20M) o Create custom segments and utilize look-alike audiences that increase engagement Metrics: Facebook is the strongest driver of campaign registrations and votes • Mass reach and targeting tactics effectively engage users and drove an efficient volume of conversions for both registration and voting • Facebook was the #1 referral site to our microsite (2.63 MM referrals in the past six months) and the second referral site only led to 112k visitors Reached 13 MM unique SBOs and achieved 39 MM total impressions on Facebook • More than 6,200 registrations and 2,000 votes • Over 901,100 video views • Viewed to 95% of their duration 58,500 times • Approximately 40 MM impressions o 3,700 shares o 21,250 likes o 2,000 comments (100% positive/neutral sentiment) Paid Owned 2013 481 MM impressions 14.4MM impressions* 2014 36 MM impressions 3.8 MM impressions *2013 results included announcement phase in January 2014