Social Media Camp Victoria
Back at the beginning of October I was asked to participate as a speaker at Social Media Camp YYJ (Victoria). I realize it was a while ago and I have been meaning to blog about my talk since then. I was on a ‘tourism’ panel with two others so with only about 12 minutes of talking time I decided to speak about our experiences in contesting through social media. We have done a number of contests, primarily through Twitter, for clients, events and ourselves. We use contesting as another form of promotion and usually partner with a high profile social media user to gain maximum exposure.
Social Media Contesting
Below are the notes from the talk:
The Must Do’s…
- Have a plan
- Offer multiple ways to enter
- Require a RT or comment for each entry
- Make following and/or ‘liking’ mandatory for entry
- No purchase necessary
What has worked…
- Partnering with a professional blogger
- Combining a guess paired with your golf score
- Sending Press Releases
- Combining the prize to include the golf with a local celebrity
- Use your website
- Repost multiple times
- Thank everyone for participating (and announce next contest date)
The Mistakes…
- Not being socially engaged with your followers prior to the contest launch
- Making the contest too restrictive or difficult to understand
- Tweeting contests over 119 characters
- Not making following and/or ‘liking’ mandatory for entry
What Could Be Better…
- Ask people to post their favourite golf photo on your Facebook page
- If possible, update people throughout the contest…
- Ask people what they want (realistically) for your next contest
- Partner with other businesses to make the prizes more valuable
The Bottom Line…
- Just do it!! You may make some mistakes, but contesting is a great way to strengthen your brand and / or promote a product.
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