Branded Content has become a very common practice in US marketing. Often brands approach this tactic by generating entertaining material and then integrating the brand into the messaging. Essentially, digital product placements.

Some marketers take a more progressive approach, creating authentic branded content that centres around people, not the brand. This type of branded content lets the audience experience and connect with the brand’s core values. And the stronger connection the audience makes, the more likely they are to share it.

Big Break for Small Business was designed to educate small businesses about social media. Therefore, social media drove participation throughout all phases.

Our Facebook tab served as the programme hub with all communications driving to this experience—including videos, Facebook posts and targeted ads.Once finalists were selected, we armed each business with a social media marketing toolkit—including shareable videos, Facebook badges and $2,500 in Facebook ads. The tools empowered small businesses and their advocates to campaign for votes. Hence, marketing the programme for us. By leveraging their social networks, they created organically viral messages that lived in the news feeds.

As a result of our social media marketing, over 11,000 businesses entered the contest during the 2-week entry phase, 177% higher than projections. During the 2-week voting phase, the sharable finalist videos were viewed over 628,000 times.

Big Break saw over 1.2bn programme impressions across paid, earned and owned channels, including 39.5m in PR. Big Break participants reported significant increases in sales (up to 100%). Finalists saw an average of over 100% increase in Facebook fans, creating new relationships with potential customers and driving more business.And best of all, Big Break winners continue to pay it forward, sharing their new-found knowledge with the greater small business community. They taught classes, wrote articles, created online communities and became social media evangelists.

OPEN and Facebook continue to work together, educating and inspiring small business owners to use Facebook’s business tools through a national road show. This programme leverages case studies and learnings from Big Break. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg selected Big Break as one of the best ways brands are using Facebook to genuinely add value, not just advertise.