We recently gave a rundown of some essential tools to help you successfully run and monitor a social media-based contest. Although those tools are awesome and helpful, your contest should be more than just a simple join-our-mailing-list-and-enter giveaway. Not sure what I mean? The three companies below took the opportunity to think outside the box, resulting in three creative and well-received giveaways.
ThinkGeek
The fine folks at ThinkGeek do all the right things when it comes to social media marketing…and it’s no different when it comes to contests. The brand is known for its spur-of-the-moment contests that push followers to participate immediately. The most recent of these contests featured a ThinkGeek intern and a bunch of T-shirts (15, to be exact), challenging followers to guess how many she was wearing. Fun? Yes. Creative? Definitely!
Shout Factory
Instead of hosting a cookie cutter giveaway, Shout Factory likes to think outside the box with its clever and creative giveaways. Last month’s incarnation took the form of a tongue-in-cheek mad lib challenge. To enter, participants just needed to mention some of the characters and shows released by Shout Factory and a few fun verbs. Not only was it a fun idea, it also challenged participants to have some knowledge of the brand’s product. For March, Shout just launched a badge of honor contest that is also promising to challenge participants’ creativity.
RiffTrax
The guys behind the cult classic TV show “Mystery Science Theater 3000” are bringing their bad movie riffing ways to the big screen with a new Kickstarter campaign. Although the campaign was a success right off the bat (meeting its goal in less than two hours), some sharp eyes noticed that the Kickstarter copy contained a few typos. Instead of getting annoyed by tweets that pointed them out, the guys launched an impromptu giveaway, challenging followers to point out each typo. The first followers to tweet the typos would then each receive a free riff, turning mistakes into a CRM opportunity!
Want to start hosting giveaways for your brand? Get started with these four great social media contest tools.
