If you want your social media presence to stand out and provide instant gratification for your customers, encourage participation with contests.

Be exclusive. By offering a special promotion or contest to Facebook fans only, or to Twitter followers only, you will entice more people to subscribe to your updates.

Chapters offers a $5 off coupon for individuals who become Facebook fans. They tweeted about this offer on Twitter, where current followers clicked a link and were directed to the Facebook fan page.

To announce the grand opening of their second location, Halifax jewelry store The Vault held their More to Love campaign, featuring traditional means of advertising — print and posters — combined with ambient and online executions, including a new website, twitter feed and text-to-win campaign. The text-to-win campaign, which invited cellphone users to visit the Vault’s website, was especially popular among The Vault’s new Halifax Shopping Centre clientele.

Contests are an efficient and effective way to build your online community — after all, the more the merrier, right?

Collaboration is a huge part of what we do. And creative minds don't always think alike. But that's what keeps things interesting around here. This post was written in cooperation by members of the Trampoline Branding staff.