Not a day goes past that I don’t scroll through my twitter feed to find a ‘giveaway’ going on. Its something that I see particularly from YouTube bloggers “Vloggers”. All that happens is they post a tweet asking followers to retweet and attach a picture of the winning giveaways. After a certain period of time or after a certain number of retweets they pick a winner. Popular vlogger Estee Lalonde frequently gives her followers the opportunity to take part in this, resulting in 7000+ retweets.
I personally like entering these types of social media competitions. Back in 2011 I entered a competition run by gossip website Cambio to win a signed Jesse McCartney perfume. I don’t think I even liked Jesse McCartney in 2011; I just wanted to win.
However I can see why some companies or personalities can be hesitant to use them since they do have the opportunity to go wrong. For instance in 2013 EE promised 10 twitter followers tickets to Glastonbury, all they had to do was use the hashtag ‘#WinGlastoTickets’ to be entered. After seeing how successful the campaign was, EE opened it up to Facebook users. The competition ended and EE did not have enough tickets to give to the selected winners. One winner named Terry expressed his outrage on twitter and a new campaign headed by the public ‘#GiveTerryHisGlastoTickets’ began. Tickets were eventually found for Terry but that didn’t save EE from humiliation.
For a successful social media competition I believe the key is to have a plan for if or any problems that could arise. This way you can make sure you are prepared and can minimize any damage. As a consumer I also appreciate the simpler competitions, a quick click on the retweet button and you’re entered. Using a hashtag is also a good way to get the product or brand name out there.
I am all for a social media competition and will certainly continue to enter them in the hopes of winning!
Likely Waiting For a Train 