Reddit Archives by Mark Murnahan

Online Contest Tip: Make it Relevant

Since prizes are a huge piece of any contest, they should be relevant to the contest promoters’ business model. For example, if you have a fishing store, you may want to give away fishing poles, but you probably do not want to give away knitting needles. It should be relevant to your industry.

As an Internet marketing guy, I help people to make their business more successful online. So, when I decided to hold a contest, I determined that it should be relevant to people seeking more success in their business. This is why I am providing ways for you to achieve more exposure.

Online Contest Tip: The Prizes

The best contests will provide value for the contest promoter as well as the participants. Nobody loses, and somebody gets a great feeling of winning along with some cool free stuff, like money! Here are the prizes of this particular contest:

Cash Prize – The first place winner will receive ten percent of any new marketing contract that I accept during the contest period, referred as a result of the Online Contest Contest, plus ten percent residuals for the first 12 months from any contingency contract. Note that I do not sell $.95 knitting needles, and this could be big.
Win a Blog – The first and second place winners will each receive a custom WordPress blog setup including ten hours of customization and SEO services, or equivalent redesign services.
Business Exposure – Gain more exposure to your business! Each winner will receive spotlighted exposure in a blog post here at aWebGuy.com in a winner’s announcement, plus all participants will receive recognition in the comments and reactions on this blog post. This can add up.
Brain Food – Top ten participants will win a copy of “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends“.

Online Contest Tip: Let People Win

If you run a contest, try not to exclude people. You should make it easy to join in and win. In this case, I am making it really simple to participate. Since my blog will add social media reactions in the comments, it will be really easy for you to show your participation and gain exposure, too.

Everything that appears in the “Comments and Reactions” for this blog post will have a chance to win. For example, my blog is set to include social media “reactions” from FriendFeed, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Hacker News, Blogger, WordPress, YouTube, Vimeo, Picasa, Flickr, TypePad, Movable Type, BackType, UberVU, and other services. These are just the services that are set up to automatically appear in the comments and reactions. You can also add comments directly. Remember, everything that shows up has a chance to win!

Online Contest Tip: Make the Rules Easy to Understand

If it is easy to understand, it becomes easier to win. In this case, I am using a point system. Winners will be determined based on a simple points system, and can choose how to get more points. Some of these are really easy! Here is how to get points:

250+ Points (New Contract): I will award two hundred fifty points to the referrer for each new client who contracts my SEO and social media marketing services during the contest period from April 5th to April 20th 2010. That is 250 points per new contract, and it adds to the cash prize, so don’t be shy! They simply must express that they heard about it from you.
100+ Points (Contest Ideas): If you submit the Contest Idea that receives the most “likes” (note the “like” button beside each comment) you will receive one hundred points plus five points for each “like”. You surely have friends to help you, right?
100+ Points (Blog Points): If you blog about this contest with a link back to it, you will receive one hundred points for the blog post (or other website) plus one point for every 10 unique visitors linked directly to this page coming from your blog / website during the contest period as verified through a Clicky Web Analytics referrer report. I suggest adding a comment here on this blog to claim your article. I will also provide a “dofollow” link back to your post.
50+ Points (Comment Points): If your individual comment here on the contest page other than a Contest Idea receives the most “likes” (note the “like” button beside each comment) you will receive fifty points plus five points for each “like”.
50-550 Points (Digg Points): If you Digg this article and include a Digg comment, you will receive 50 points. If the article reaches the front page of Digg.com, each person who diggs the article will be awarded an additional 500 points.
25-45 Points Daily (Twitter Points): If you send a tweet, you will receive 25 points, and if it is retweeted, you will receive an additional 2 points for each verifiable retweet up to a total of ten (for a possible 45 points per day). Twitter points will be calculated based on tweets which appear at TweetMeme.com.
25+ Points Daily (FriendFeed, Reddit, Blogger, WordPress, YouTube, Vimeo, Picasa, Flickr, TypePad, Movable Type) Reactions aggregated and appearing on this blog post as reported by BackType and UberVU across these listed social media sites will be awarded 25 points each, with a limit of 25 points per network per day.

This is such a fun blog post to write, because I am going to tell you how the “big dogs” in social media marketing get paid. I hear it all of the time, and many of my peers say they hear it, too … “so how do you make money with social media?”

Please note that this relates to social media marketing consultants who earn their living by helping clients with marketing their products or services better with social media. There are many branches to the field of social media, such as bloggers who earn money as writers and blog owners. There are providers, such as Twitter, Digg, Sphinn Linked In, Reddit, Facebook, etcetera. There are social media marketers who saw some success in the industry and decided to write a book about it and sell it to make money, and similarly those who speak about their success in public forums. These are various methods, and this article is not about them (maybe later).

What I am writing about here are the social media marketing people you encounter and wonder how they earn a living. The “big dogs” are the ones who seem to have a lot of connections, including many thousands of followers on Twitter and elsewhere, and who seem to always be active with socializing in social media.

Social Media Big Dogs Love People!

The big dogs of social media marketing really love people. The most successful social media marketers are the ones who would give you the shirt off their back and ask if you need their shoes, too. I can name many of these big dogs, and I will get to that. The truth about the biggest dogs with the best pedigree in social media marketing, and with the biggest social media respect, are the same people who can laugh with you when you tell them a funny story of how your son got even with his brother by writing all over him with a marker, and counsel you when you have a bad day. They may not reach each and every person, but they sure try, and they are sincere. They care about you, and you are not a part of some underbellied marketing plan.

Social Media Big Dogs Get Paid to Have Fun

It is really an amazing thing, but yes, social media marketing big dogs get paid to know people, make friends, and have fun. So, you may think that is crazy, right? Let’s examine this. The big dog of social media marketing consulting does not look at you as a meal ticket or a box lunch. They want to know about you. They want to hear from you and have a feel for who people are. The big dog of social media has a genuine enjoyment of being your friend.

Social Media Big Dogs’ Agenda

So the business side of the big dog comes out, and I will tell you their agenda. The agenda of the social media marketing big dog is to know people. The big dog uses an understanding of people (yes, including you) to know what people want. Once the big dog knows anything and everything about what people want, they use this information to help their client (the people paying them) to be a better company and to best express themselves to the appropriate audience, and to do so more abundantly, providing a greater return on their investment. By the time the social media marketing big dog is ready to bring something to market, he or she has polished that offering to be positioned at the top of the given industry.

Social Media Big Dogs Run in Packs

A pack hound mentality is not really as ugly as it may sound. Here is how it happens: Once the big dog has done their homework and knows the perfect way to reach the people who will best benefit from their cients’ product or service, they search their brain and their contacts to seek assistance. The big dog will likely make telephone calls to other big dogs to ask for advice, and for references of who they know that can help. This may be to find an editor at a popular industry-related news agency, blogging site, or other periodical. It may also be a series of email and social media messages such as Twitter, Digg, Sphinn, Linked In, Reddit, Facebook, etcetera. If the big dog has done their job well, and has improved their clients’ message to one that is appealing to a massive audience, they will put their reputation on the line and ask other big dog friends to pass along the clients’ revised and shiny new image directly to their networks.

Social Media is Easy

So here you have it. Social media big dogs get paid for a lot of fun, doing what they truly love to do. It is really pretty easy in some ways. You may wonder why they get paid for it at all, since it is so easy. The truth is that although it is a lot of fun, the social media big dog also uses a lot of social equity, analytical marketing experience, media insight, and much of their time in making their clients massively successful. The social media big dog makes many efforts to help their clients understand where their offering should be positioned in the marketplace. They often train and coach key client personnel in proper public relations, keep watch over the client’s reputation, open doors the client never realized existed, and much more.

What Can They Do That a Client Cannot?

The social media big dog often encourages individuals and companies to do everything they can to engage in social media. They try to give their best advice, and hold very few secrets. However, even with all of their coaching and training, and even their list of contacts, a well polished message will often still fall on deaf ears. The relationships and the experience of any big dog will vary, but you can be assured that a real big dog has put in the time and effort to build an invaluable network. If it is truly a big dog, you have one that you are not wise to let walk away. That network sits silently behind them when they are at your bargaining table, and they can prove it to you.

A company can do this all on their own, but it is often the equivalent of a father going to school for dentistry in order to take care of his own family’s teeth. When it calls for a professional, it is best to hire a big dog.

Hiring a Social Media Big Dog

It seems that most social media marketing big dogs are pretty busy. They usually have a lot of work to do, even when it does not relate to a specific client. This is because their job has a lot to do with building and maintaining relationships, and a constant study of the world around them. It also seems that many are not really into selling their service, but rather educating. After all, their job is far more about making a product or service so attractive that selling is not necessary. This can be misleading to both the big dog and the potential client. When the social media big dog sniffs you, they want a feel for the culture of your product or service. If it smells bad, they will likely walk away without any further interest. The real truth of the matter is that if they really have what you need and take the time to prove it, the job is then up to you to recognize it quickly, and be ready to strike a deal. This is because a real social media big dog is truly your best friend, and you will be lucky to have him or her in your family.

When you read this blog post, it is not at all unlikely that it reached you because a dog broke his chain and delivered it to you. The author runs with a lot of really amazing hounds.

So there you have it. This is my job as a social media marketing consultant and search engine optimizer. I enjoy it very much, and I love to help others. If you know somebody seeking to make the most of their business, I am a phone call away at *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE* (*REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*).

Online Contest Tip: Defined Timeframe

Online Contest Tip: Easy to Participate