Using Social Media Contests Internally to Build Brand Awareness

I rarely care much about promoted tweets, but the latest I received via one of our accounts from @DaveKerpen moved me to write this short blog. Dave is CEO of Likeable.com. In an effort to grow Likeable, he devised the following experiment with his staff:

Focusing on the value of thought leadership, I’ve decided to run a contest at our company on Twitter. Over the next 30 days, I’ve challenged our entire staff to tweet their way to more followers – sharing great links, articles and insights and engaging with the 200 million+ registered accounts on Twitter. As a Twitter Promoted Products beta partner, we also have access to Twitter’s Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts advertising platforms, and so I’ve given each full time staff person an equal ad budget as well, to use however they’d like to grow their follower count. From strategists to designers, planners to developers, everyone has an equal shot – even our I.T. guy. The winner on May 15th will receive 3 fun and valuable prizes in conjunction with our core values. (Since it’s a surprise for my team, I couldn’t include transparency here).
Excerpt from the likeable blog titled, “A Twitter Nation of Thought Leaders.”

In the original blog post, Dave goes on further to discuss how he expects his contest to impact his key stakeholders, and perhaps more importantly, Likeable.com.

What a great idea! What do you think about Dave’s contest? Perhaps this is something you can implement with your staff?

Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about another important on-going contest which just opened for voting, the Dream Big, Grow Here Cedar Valley $5,000 Iowa small business grant contest. If you haven’t do so already, be sure to vote for your favorite Cedar Valley small business!  If you’re currently in the Dream Big Grow Here Cedar Valley contest, are you leveraging your employees to gain votes on the site?  Maybe having an internal contest for your employees is one strategy you can use to bolster votes for your entry!

Rob Williams is a Business Analyst for the University of Northern Iowa