How to avoid controlled contest tweets

The beauty of social media is it’s a process of refinement, and I’d say that based on my own trial and error of tweeting out controlled contest messages, it really doesn’t work to impact the value of the brand.

Due to the increased noise level of contest tweets on Twitter, I’d caution any company to create a formalized contest tweet strategy. True, that with a formalized strategy, you can control those who RT your contest or promotion, BUT it really misses the mark of communicating the brand’s personality, and in this day and age, brands DO have a personality. If you’re trying to be warm and friendly, the approach then looks robotic, autonomous and a bit non-approachable—even if it’s F-R-E-E.

Earlier on, Axiom did a Twitter contest known as Twegg Drop to raise awareness for a non-profit. We created a formalized Twitter strategy and after evaluating the key performance indicators, we felt it would have been better to have followers and contest participants originate their own tweet, in turn, conveying the gut instinct of the brand, not what the company wanted the person to say about the brand. After all, who wants to feel “forced”?

There are a couple of ways you can avoid controlled contest tweets:

Witness the power of a hashtag: Because hashtags are simple word aggregators, it makes it very simple to get your message across WITHIN the right context. Dell has a contest right now for free notebook computers, and I have to say the set-up is all wrong:

“I just followed @DellDigitalLife for a chance to win one of 10 Dell Mini netbooks! More info at: http://bit.ly/DellTwitter.”

Where is the hashtag? Yes, the impact of this tweet can be measured thanks to URL shorteners like Bit.ly (we use it here at Axiom!), but inclusion of a hashtag makes the message much easier to find. How about #DellMiniContest? Suddenly, all the tweets are pertaining to the contest, not just @DellDigitalLife when you perform a search.

Avoid using ‘ I followed’ anything: Talk about brand selfishness, it’s a huge turn-off to keep the message focused on you and not on the person with whom you’re sharing the message. It’s really simple to fix this “I followed because” business by simply allowing the person in the Twitter space to take control, meaning give it up to them to recommend the following:

Wow! Check out this great contest by @DellDigitalLife! Win a free dell mini http://bit.ly/DellTwitter #DellMiniContest

With this example, it’s not obvious to follow Dell but if you want to know more about the contest, it’s definitely implied.

Now, Twitter is definitely a place where your contest can go viral—especially if you’re Google or Best Buy. Adding these simple nuances to your Twitter contest will definitely increase the outreach and give you KPIs across the board—tonality and all.

What about you? Any strategies you’ve used for Twitter contests that you’d like to share.

Hypothesis: If social media is free, then interns are

Such is the hypothesis concluded by a number of PR agencies and firms who are announcing unpaid internships, and in turn, receiving all the free knowledge of the social media space.

Why do practitioners insist on handing off what I would call ‘Web intricacy’ to interns, much like they do with pitches to top tier daily reporters—of which a phone call-up that’s meant to be a conversation becomes a quick hang-up instead, due to lack of understanding of client and reporter’s area of interest???

Frankly, I’m a bit flabbergasted by this approach, as I think the real selling points of social media cannot result from just being part of the different communities online, nor quick research: It’s knowing the best practices and best tools to get the job done. That is something that cannot be taught overnight or during the course of a summer.

While a social network offers easy sign-up, a social network is also very intricate. VERY. On a constant hunt to conceive the most effective public relations campaigns that integrate social media strategies, I have to consider what channels will provide best opportunity for linkback and quality word-of-mouth buzz that results in long-term brand engagement. Brand evangelism/advocacy, remember? Anything less than that equates to the lifespan of a surfacing trending topic on Twitter: it’s off the chart and out of people’s minds the very next day.

I also think throwing interns to learn all things social media actually dumbs down the value of social media, because after all, interns are meant to push paper. Right? WRONG. Get what I’m saying? Let’s treat our interns like account workers, like a part of the team, not so what have you got for me people in a basement.

Hear me out. I’m all for interns learning about social media, but don’t let them be the backbone of your agency’s understanding of it. Everyone in the agency must learn, not have one individual learner.

Thoughts?

Chill Out with @McCafeYourDay and Iced Coffee

While a great Fourth of July was due in part to a grand fireworks display from my lake cottage pier, a letter postmarked by McDonald’s McCafe division really hit the spot. It was a note from Jessie @McCafeYourDay providing me with a free drink coupon for any McCafe beverage-- because I do enjoy a once a week binge on McDonald’s newest brand craze, and I just so happened to tweet about it.

It’s really no secret that iced coffee is 2009’s hottest summer (or should I say coldest) beverage. With that being said, a number of gas shops and mini cafes, including 7 Eleven and Dunkin Donuts, are tapping into its saleable exponential potential—particularly among the teen girls and moms demographic. This report shows iced coffee has surpassed iced tea sales as a morning breakfast drink, and at 68%, iced coffee is clearly a woman’s creme de la creme.

Realizing iced coffee’s double-digit sales growth ability, McDonald’s opened up McCafe in a big way. Everyone has seen the ads tailored to different ethnic demographics, and of course, the infamous accent mark that boasts a better day being ‘possibl-ay’. Now who helped put that accent mark together?

And they’ve launched BIG on Twitter. In popular day-association fashion known to loom about Twitter and Twitter’s trending topics, McDonald’s is rolling out Free Mocha Mondays. Each Monday starting on July 13, McDonald’s will be giving away free mochas until August 3, 2009. Though, I’d think that, since a major demographic of theirs is teens and moms, they might want to extend this into the back-to-school period. Nothing says a new school day like a big iced coffee beverage to awaken the tired senses.

If you’re interested in coffee-- hot or iced-- and you’re looking for something more quaint, check out this Nashville coffee joint and their lovely aromatic tweets.

I have to say that I admire McDonald’s interest in segmenting their brand entities and getting @McCafeYourDay out there to compete with the tweeting likes of Starbucks and Caribou Coffee. McDonald’s as a global brand has underwent ‘reinvention testing’ time and time again, and once again has come out on top with the ‘I’m lovin it’ principle. And while they can’t own the Twittering coffee space entirely (that’s Brad @Starbucks), they can sure own a hefty cup of it, thanks to Jessie and the many other McD’s associates involved in the company’s social media strategy. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go pick up my free iced mocha and try to retain what's left of my manhood.

I’m a Social Media Rat-- Get Me Out of Here!

Lou Diamond Phillips may have won the not-so-hit TV reality series, “I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!” But when it comes to determining the winner of the social media rat race, the chances of finding “one”—let alone a frontrunner—are slim.

If you’ve been trekking the path of social media tools and analytics research, social media webinars and conferences, and flat-out social media involvement in every Web space imaginable, you’re one of the rats that is eager to find more stars in the caves and sewers. While we see reports on executives saying they don’t have time for social media, my realization of time is just that, too: how many hours can I spend conditioning myself to be the frontrunner for all things social media? What does social media director, manager or consultant mean anyway if we’re all on the same path of knowledge evolution? Some of us are farther along than others, but never in the lead. Repeat. Never.

While I don’t want this post to come off as a half-glass-empty opinion piece, it may remind us all that, while we’re sojourning the Web, making connections, building communities and linkbacks, accessibility is what makes the space remain very small. Eventually you’ll end up at Kevin Bacon again, thanks to a very tight-knit community of social media rats.

This couldn’t be more apparent than with the number of LinkedIn updates I receive. It’s not just connectivity within region, it’s nationwide connectivity and unfortunately, you’re probably not a ‘fave 5’ if someone broadcasts more than 500+ connections. If that’s not enough, my Twitter account, as well as my PR friend’s Twitter accounts, boasts the same name followers. Don’t even get me started on Friendfeed; it’s a community-driven paradise and the professional/person grouping tags don’t help the cause. If you haven’t figured it out by now, we’re all sharing our connections whether on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Yammer, FriendFeed, etc (enter site here), so play nice on the track everyone.

The social media rat race in perspective
Picture this: The whistle blows and you’re off. You’re jumping the same hurdles that 100 other participants have already completed, though some of you are approaching those hurdles differently. While some of you make it over, some fall or lag behind. Your heart is pounding and you can hear a similar beat—about 500 human heartbeats coming up from behind you, passing you, because you decided to skip conditioning for a couple of days. You’re tired, run-down, and overwhelmed by the rushing crowd. You only have two options: announce you’re a social media rat and cancel yourself out of the running OR stay in the game realizing there is no finish line.

What do you choose?

It's Complicated with Peter Shankman (Facebook pun to prove a point)

UPDATE: This post has been modified, as I have come to find out from Peter himself that he researches and engages with the services he promotes. In particular, Peter has used both MyMediaInfo and Vocus at one time or another, and when HARO took off, he was no longer in need of their services.)

Relationships have their good days and their bad ones, and let me start off by saying Peter Shankman is a great man. His superpower, according to his Google Profile, is talking really fast. Believe me, he does, as I’ve seen him in-person up on stage wowing hundreds. But I have a gripe, however. While I appreciate HARO and all of its media goodies pertaining to Axiom’s client base, I don’t much care for the sponsored product touts in the start of the e-mail.

This is the kind of thing that turns people away from social media. I’m not referring to prospect PR clients or businesses here. If anything, monetization is good for business (WE ALL KNOW THAT)… but not for the many users outside of the frame of mind of commercialization, or wanting to drive revenue from it. These are the ones who use social media for networking, entertainment and information-sharing purposes—its original tenets. While I understand that innovation is what turned Facebook into a moneymaking platform for companies, we have to remember that Facebook was first and foremost a community for college-age kids, and HARO started as a service to “help a reporter out.”

But product touts in a mass e-mail send-out to a bunch of PR practitioners (or whomever is the communications world this is sent out to) is not exactly on point with some of the mentioned brands’ target audience-- though millions would pay for this type of exposure. That leads me to believe that being on point with brand messaging is no longer a concern; that is if done in a social networked-type space. People just want the exposure, period. Seems like a bad pitch to me.

[paragraph omitted]

I really wish these product touts would be toned done a bit. [line omitted]. I feel such a disconnect lately that I think I might end the relationship, but I’m scared to leave. He’s independently wealthy, very responsive, and has a got a great sense of humor… I just don’t know.

What do you think?