When we first saw the Social Madness competition hosted by The Business Journals, we were happy to sign up. Helping companies use social media more effectively is part of our mission, and we do a pretty good job of it, if we say so ourselves. So we thought this would be a great chance to demonstrate how we continually expand our reach and influence by employing good social media practices. (We’re also pretty fond of the Portland Business Journal, and rely on it for excellent local business reporting.)
Today, our marketing manager, Kristina Weis, got an email from the contest that made her decide to withdraw our name from the contest. Everyone in our office agreed and supported her decision.
Here’s the part of the email that seemed so un-social:
Call us purists, but we think a social media competition should be based on which companies most improve their reach and engagement during the contest period. And they should accomplish that by using social media in the way that’s most effective for a business: Offer content that’s genuinely interesting to your audience, and engage in real conversations with real people – in public, where your audience can watch you.
Somehow, the idea of winning points by asking your friends and followers to vote for you on the contest site – and placing a badge on your site, linking to the contest site, to encourage more votes – doesn’t seem very social. It feels more like link-building, or like pay-per-click advertising. It feels especially like a branding campaign for Spark Business from Capital One, the contest sponsor.
Don’t get me wrong – we’re all for companies promoting themselves online with innovative new tactics. We just think a social media competition should encourage the best practices that make social media most effective for business.
Update, 5 June:
Egg on face. It turns out that the top three national winners of the Social Madness competition will each get the chance to direct some donated cash to the charity of their choice. That feature of the competition isn’t mentioned in the official rules, and it certainly wasn’t mentioned in the email that Kristina received after signing us up. In fact, we didn’t find out about the charitable component until a company we know and love, Outlier Solutions, told us that’s part of the reason they entered – that and their hope of winning more followers while having fun.
We searched for a while and finally found the charitable donations mentioned in an article published by the Philadelphia Business Journal. Now we’re feeling all curmudgeonly and embarrassed. Sigh.
But we still feel that our points about a social media competition being more – well, social – are correct.
Aliza Earnshaw is vice president of business development at AboutUs. A former business reporter and editor, Aliza still indulges her love of great writing and working with creative writers while pursuing business opportunities for AboutUs.
First to comment, YAHOOOOO!!! ))
well, let’s – arguable topic…
But you right – to ask friends to vote = to go into unfair competition!
THIS SOUNDS LIKE A FORM OF FACEBOOK with Link Building and a few other twist. But is it not truely to be a contest without a Sponsored By and Impartial Judging… America Rose, Home and Garden, Ms. Ameria, Winston, Nextel, Sprint, and So On. Its always been about Brand Building / Name Recognition. This is yet another Ranking to Be The Best. PageOneRank on Google. Alexa Rating. A CONTEST. And with all contest they can set their own guidelines and criteria of eligability. If I were toss a Serena Williams in with a Kate Middleton in a Amature Tennis Tourney would that be fair? If I put Tiger or Phil in a Nextel Race would that be proper? Okay now lets figure out if WebProNews, PRweb, SitePoint, erelease, and AboutUs in a contest… and find some others that are known. This is somewhat a fair contest.
I agree that this is Social media madness, do we get involved or not?
Hi, Wolfgang,
This contest is for U.S. companies, actually, so in your case it’s a moot question. However, I think it’s up to each company to decide. We initially wanted to enter because we thought the competition would be to see which companies gained the most new followers and engagement – measured by conversation and amplification – over time. That would be a great competition, actually.
What we didn’t like was adding the completely extraneous step of getting your followers to vote for you on a contest page. We believe companies should use social media to bring prospective customers and evangelists to their website by offering useful, entertaining content; by engaging with people in genuine conversation; and by responding to complaints, praise and comments in a human way. Voting for a company on a contest site doesn’t seem like it falls into any of the social media best practices.
Hi,I am sorry to hear you are have backed away from this idea,seems like a misfortune.I would like to see more social trust in social issues like business
Chris.
Hi, Chris,
Nope, haven’t backed away. As I said, we still feel that a social media competition should NOT be driving followers to another site to vote for contestants, but should simply look at which companies get the most new followers and engagement during the contest period.
I just think we’d have felt slightly differently about it if we’d realized that participating would ultimately benefit three charities.
Cheers!
Aliza,
Do NOT feel embarrassed or apologetic because AboutUs decided not to participate in this particular contest! It says in the official rules for the contest (which you provided a link to, in your post):
“There is no prize in this contest other than recognition as the winner.”
Charitable donations are not mentioned anywhere, not one word of it. You used the proper source for making a decision about participating! The terms of the contest that were published in The Business Journal’s local publication, specifically, bizjournals in Philadelphia, is secondary to the official contest rules (unless you have been told otherwise by someone with legal expertise).
I agree with radiobardak and dr. Robert. Well, I think I do, if I understood correctly. What is the point of all this? It is a VERY complicated process, with local rounds, national rounds, then more local rounds, AND oodles of rules.
Also, the sponsor of the contest is American City Business Journals, not Capital One (although they probably are owned by Capital One, as Am. City Biz is located in NC too). Anyway, Am. City Biz says that it reserves the right to terminate the entire thing at any time if it wants, and choose a winner based on the entries received up to that point.
About Us is a reputable organization. This contest encourages updates on LinkedIn. It seems like a bad idea to potentially clog up LinkedIn user feeds with updates for this contest. Why risk About Us’s credibility on LinkedIn for this Social Madness contest? If it were only for Facebook, bizjournals and Twitter, that would make more sense.
Sorry for the lengthy comment, but you did ask for our opinions! I think you did the right thing!
Thanks for your thoughts, Ellie. I like your thorough discussion.
Here’s another blog that objects to the Social Madness competition on the grounds that the behavior it requires has little to do with best practices for social media:
http://www.findandconvert.com/2012/06/social-madness-from-bizjournal-is-madness/
Thanks for including a link to my blog post objecting to the Social Madness contest. As I point out in my post, this contest is not based on social media best practices, which you’ve pointed out in your post is about engagement through useful content.
If the Business Journal had taken a different approach to the contest I might have been supportive. One possible approach they could’ve considered is to partner with a social media monitoring company such as Buddy Media to measure company’s social engagement. Another approach that would’ve been interesting is to promote a charitable cause and measure the social media influence of companies toward the cause. There are several approaches they could’ve taken other than the “vote getting” approach that could’ve been a credible approach.
Thanks for sharing your sentiments in your post and for sharing my post.
I think you did the right thing!