So props to our friends and Nashville legal counsel at Callahan Witherington, PLLC for identifying a really cool looking contest with social media integration for us to blog about. As we help guide our clients with how to grow their brands via social media, we always talk about a few major things: being transparent, being honest and creating a connection with audiences. It’s important to us that we try and help people learn social media marketing.
Social media contests happen to actually be a phenomenal way of achieving all of these goals. For example, Chase and Living Social have created a co-branded contest at MissionSmallBusiness.com (a nice, clean looking site by the way) where they’re trying to raise $3 million for small businesses nation wide, and one business will win a $250,000 grant in the Nashville area.
Users are asked to first log into the site to vote for a favorite company using a social media API for either Facebook or Twitter, or share via email.
In order to be considered for the grant though, each business must garner 250 votes before filling out an application. The main way to get votes via the website is through social sharing features, pictured below…
As you can see, when I voted for Callahan Witherington, I was asked to share my vote with others to try and gain traction. Obviously, the more people that want to try and win the grant, will encourage votes, and those that vote are then encouraged to share socially. A simple concept wrapped around a phenomenal PR and SEO strategy.
The genius of this contest from an SEO standpoint is the requirement for the votes. This drives tons of traffic and facilitates a lot of chatter that will easily create connections with Chase and Living Social as a result.
There will be millions of legitimate backlinks that appear on social media pages, that will actually be followed, thus rated highly by Google, helping each company with organic search efforts.
Now, not every business can raise $3 million and giveaway several $250,000 grants. However, your business can and should look at doing something equivalent to this if you can. Scale it down so it fits you, and even benefits a charity of your choice. It creates a lot of social media chatter, potential media opportunities, and eyeballs on your company in a positive way.
For help considering how to build and executive something like this for your company. Tweet at us or give us a call. Our number is in the footer of our site. 🙂
Tags: Google Updates, Learn SEO Nashville, learn social media nashville, Learn Twitter Nashville
