The pitfalls of online popularity contests
Harriet Fancott, Limelite PR Senior Associate
We’ve noticed a disturbing trend: Businesses interested in capturing the attention of mothers are using mom blogger clout to boost their own brand with little value to involved moms. Even worse, these campaigns result in spamming mother’s friends and followers. We’re referring to contests based on votes.
Blog post competitions based on voting
Take the latest bid for votes. The Ddrops contest. On the upside, their integrated campaign acknowledges the power and influence of mom bloggers. The way it worked was bloggers wrote about how Mom bloggers can have a positive impact on the health of Canadians to be entered for a chance to win registration (not travel or accommodation) to the women’s blogger event Blissdom Canada. There were four prizes.
The problem is how they pick the winners. Submitted blog entries were listed on the Ddrops website and the winners were selected based on the amount of comments each partipant generated. The posts that generate the greatest amount of comments wins! The result? A Twitter and blogger beg-a-thon. Everyday, I’d see at least five tweets asking for my vote. Add Facebook requests to the mix, and I started un-following and hiding anyone who asked more than once. There is an opportunity cost to the blogger who exhausts her network looking for support.
Although we applaud the campaign’s concept, we believe that if you’re going to run a fair and honest contest, either select winners based on pre-determined criteria using a jury of peers or conversely or use a random number generator in order to eliminate the unnecessary spam tweets from participants.
Cute baby contests
There is nothing more odious or dated than a cute baby contest. In the old days, a panel of matrons probably sat down and rifled through photos in search of the most cherubic face. Nowadays, they are “beg your friends” contests. The aim is truly to get people to visit the host site, boost their visits and traffic, and increase advertising revenues.
We dislike these contests for the following reasons:
1) Concept: Can we agree that all babies are cute and that no baby should be judged for looks, clothing, behaviour or the quality of their parents’ camera? I doubt you’d find a parent who entered their baby in a cute baby content that would also enter them in a beauty pageant or consider Toddlers and Tiara. But really, what’s the difference?
2) Votes: Once again many of these contests are based on how many of your people you can get to vote on your behalf or on arbitrary criteria that’s not clearly outlined in advance. The result is encourage contestants spamming friends, family and followers through their various channels, typically Facebook or Twitter which indirectly can negatively impact a brand’s public perception.
3) Long-term effect: Consider what the long-term ramifications are when sending your child’s photo to a corporate entity. If you read the fine print in the contest, by providing your child’s photo you are giving the company permission to use that photo (in other words they can re-purpose that photo) in corporate marketing materials – website, brochures, print ads, without you or your child receiving any further compensation. Also consider that if you submit your photo via Facebook, you are giving Facebook a licence to use the photos as described in the Facebook Terms of use.
What do you consider a fair contest?
10 Comments to “The pitfalls of online popularity contests”
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I have participated in various contests, and I have found the voting process to be unpleasant. There is the begging and spam element, and then there’s also an element where occasionally things seem to be rigged. That is, someone who no one else has heard of gets twice the votes of anyone else. The upside of the D-drops system, at least, was that it couldn’t be gamed using technology. Although I agree that a judged contest is better.
I do have to point out, though, that one of the first contests I participated in was run through Limelite PR – it was the “Blog to Inspire” contest with Parenting by Nature. So it’s interesting to me to see the evolution that we’re all undertaking, from begging for votes to more sophisticated judging systems.
You know, I submitted a post for the Ddrops contest because for some reason I was under the impression that two of the four passes to Blissdom that were being given away were based on judging and not comments/blogger votes. I was hoping I’d have a chance based on my post itself and not on popularity.
I tweeted once about my submission and then (because for exactly the reason you mention – I was not intending to blast everyone with “vote for me!” endlessly) I ceased to mention it again (and obviously suffered the consequences). But I believe I’d rather pay for Blissdom out of pocket than lose valuable connections with other bloggers and tweeters I admire.
It’s a tough slog for mom bloggers. I’m fortunate I do it for the pleasure and not for business.
Thanks for noting our past campaign amber but more importantly how we continue to evolve since that first approach. We learn something new with every campaign and after that first effort, we adjusted the voting process in subsequent campaigns.
As we all become more sophisticated in our use of and participation in social networks, marketers need to change and evolve their approach with moms and mom bloggers.
I’m not a mom blogger (heck, I’m not a Mom – if anything I would be a Dad, but I don’t have kids). But I totally see the point of this post. I’m a bit baffled with online contests. I have gotten to the point where it’s ME who sets his rules about his contest. If there’s a point where my popularity has given me power is precisely that. I decide how I structure my contests. If PR companies want to go with my approach YAY. If they don’t, well, nothing lost (on MY side, at least).
I am a big fan of randomized contests, simply because I don’t feel qualified to judge “what is the best approach”. That said, I recently judged a competition for So Nice Organic (kudos to them for the transparency in that campaign) where I think a lot of people were satisfied with the peer-review approach (a panel of judges qualified in the field).
For me, the purpose of contests is to promote a local company, and to make my readers happy. I don’t think it should be a popularity contest.
Wait.
Maybe that’s why I never win one of those popularity contests where people say “vote for me”. Rats.
Whenever I facilitate a contest for Mom Bloggers Club members I always pay a team of judges who are in no way affiliated with the brand or contest to be unbiased judges to choose a winner. If there is one thing I really hate — it’s all the begging for votes!
Right away I disliked the Ddrop campaign and their voting system. I like Amber’s comment of a more sophisticated voting system.
whooops, looks like I was one of the *beggers* you refer to for Ddrops contest. Yep – I entered the contest AND asked for votes. I tweeted about it. I also tweet about my blog posts and regularly update my coffee habits – I hope that doesn’t make me too spammy.
On the one hand, I almost pulled out of the contest when I realized it was by vote – I actually spent a bit of time reflecting and writing the post and I was not convinced that most voters coming to the site would be reading ALL 20 entries, reflecting on them and then vote accordingly.
I did not realize I was begging for votes though.
I *hoped* I was asking people to visit the site, read some awesome posts and support our efforts. I love that this is a community where generally, we support one anothers efforts and have opportunities to help each other.
As mom/women/humans we are told that it is ok to ask for help & recognition – calling me a beggar for doing so really kinda makes me feel cheap.
That said, would I enter a contest by vote again??? NO WAY!! I prefer to lose based on merit, not because I am not as *popular* as others. I love that Ddrops is supporting our efforts to get to Blissdom. I hope that they change the format and use judges for future contests. I hope that my efforts to gather support did not tarnish my reputation. Entering this contest really took me out of my comfort zone, I am not great at asking for help or putting myself in the spotlight (too many unhappy highschool memories, I guess).
I think you have a point though about how these campaigns will evolve. The bottom line is that if the contestants (like me) are not comfortable and the voters (like you) are not comfortable then it is time to discuss & change it.
Good point Suzie. Nobody needs to be called a begger. Just trying to raise a point not offend you or Mom Bloggers. I think the main point is as suggested above perhaps it’s time to rethink these contests so we can all look and feel good participating in them. Thanks for all your comments!
I agree. I believe there’s a way to engage companies and mom bloggers (or dad bloggers) in ways that create positive relationships and benefit both sides without causing feelings of being used or cheaping what bloggers and tweeters use these tools for.
It’s good we’re learning from experiences on both sides and that it will always be evolving.
[...] and social media world, there are a lot of contests that involve asking people for votes. These online popularity contests are usually won by the person who is able to convince the most people to show up and vote for them [...]