Swagbucks

The word "swag" has become the new "bling." It's everywhere, from Justin Bieber songs to clothing companies, and now through Swagbucks.com, it has become part of a new advertising campaign. Swagbucks is part of a new business model that appeals to customers through free points. This growing marketing strategy digs further into the interactive social media community by appealing to specific searches, browsing history, and video views. By logging into the site, you add a new searchbar to your browser, and whenever you search something you are eligible for "swagbucks." These points on your account are given depending on different searches, or activity through the site. Points can be redeemed for Amazon giftcards and other prizes.

This strategy is a great way to get an active community for the Swagbucks brand. Google is obviously the most popular search engine, and Bing is attempting to grow to be a decent competitor but the reality seems to be that Google will always triumph for web searching. Swagbucks has found the alternative, to allow users that search through their website to gain rewards just for browsing the web as they do every day. Swagbucks, unlike Bing, has presented motivation for change.

The secret benefit of Swagbucks marketing strategy, is that it motivates users to turn their internet time wasting to this new site. By watching videos, clicking links, and reading articles through Swagbucks, users are earning points. After logging into the site, I found myself lost in the SwagbucksTV portion of the site. SwagbucksTV rewards users based not only on the number of videos they watch, but also on the amount of time spent on each video. There are channels for food, fashion, news, and environment among others. It is such a simple yet creative way to get users to become involved in the site. It seems almost obvious: pay people to come to your website. By using Swagbucks along with the supporting companies, like Amazon and Itunes, people are motivated to use the site and are also reminded of these brands. It is a genius way to generate an interactive following. Users take their Swagbucks to these brands, where they are ultimately more exposed to the products they offer. I look forward to using the site and seeing how it can develop within the web community.