NEW ORLEANS - NACStech was "a buzz" at the "Spreading Your Word With Viral Marketing" workshop with ideas to leverage social media. Retailers were encouraged to use a wide variety of monitoring tools, social networking sites, microblogs, widgets and more to generate excitement about their businesses and build brand loyalty.

Jenna Lebel, director of Buzz at theKbuzz, suggested several ideas to design effective and impactful viral marketing campaigns:

• Make your brand loveable - Customers relate well with brands that they love. And once that relationship begins, they spread the word. This free publicity can add dollars to your bottom line.
• Identify goals - Ask what you want to accomplish with social media. "Should we use viral marketing to simply generate awareness about our company or do we want to use is as a means to increase loyalty?" is a great place to start. Specific goals help you identify key milestones along the way.
• Build your target audience -Identify the demographics you want to reach, develop your voice and the tone and determine which viral platforms are right for your company. "Facebook isn??t right for everyone. You have to determine the platform that your customers will use frequently and establish a presence there."
• Focus on them, less on you - It??s easy to only post information about your operations, but social media provides the opportunity to engage, interact and provide value for your customers.
• If content is king, then conversions are queen - You want more than just a fan base or followers??you want to turn those customers into profits. Engage fans with contests, exclusive deals, etc.

Eighty-five percent of social media users expect companies to interact with them, and social media provides a platform for retailers to turn every day customers into brand evangelists. Kate Ngo, manager of marketing strategy and communications for Cumberland Farms Inc., shared how the retailer is successfully boosting its social networking presence on Facebook.

Over the past year, the number of Cumberland Farms "fans" has skyrocket from 500 to approximately 90,000, largely due to contests asking users to increase the fanbase that are leveraged by the proprietary Chill Zone frozen beverage. To keep the momentum going during the colder temps, Cumberland Farms launched its Chill Zone Winter Games to keep fans engaged.

At Speedway SuperAmerica Christianna Frizzell of customer relationships shared how the retailer uses e-mail campaigns to keep loyal customers engaged and aware of its promotions, as well as use of banner ads and a microsite for its "free coffee for a year promotion." What??s next, she said, is the potential to boost its customer engagement with a mobile app.

Look for more coverage of NACStech in this week??s NACS Daily and the upcoming special issue of Convenience Store News, specifically focusing on NACStech.

NACStech continues May 6 and 7 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. For up-to-the-minute information about NACStech, download the mobile app and visit nacstech.com.