Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Contests, Are they Social?

Contests can be social, especially if they are discussed and presented through "Social" means. They can be social (i.e., doing things that only social media and social netowrking allow on to do), but social or not, contests can be a good way to involve your audience, even if they are similar to old school web 1.0 ones like web contests of the 1990s. Engaging your audience is the key, whether or not it's in a fundamentally new way or not.

Like Beyond the Rhetoric's Win a Box of Stuff Contest photo editing contest. I learned about it through Michael Kwan's Twitter. Ten years ago I might have learned about a contest like this through an email, web site or offline. It may have asked people to email the pictures or put on them their web page, instead of now asking participants to add it to their blog or flickr account. While the contest itself isn't especially social network-y, it's still fun, builds him some links and engages his audience.

In fact it's engaged me enough to spend a few moments on it; here's my entry to the Beyond the Rhetoric contest:

Invisible PDA

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