My families first computer was an Apple.

This blog is in response to Jeff Effas blog post “The Value of an Apple“. This was an interesting read because I have grownup using apple products my whole life. The first computer we had in my house was the apple that was released before the classic model. For a long time it was hard for me to argue that apple was “better” than the pc machines my friends had. I had less games available for my computer, and at that time, before the internet, that was the only use for computers. Or put another way the machine was only as useful as the applications it had loaded on it.

The only choice for my college computer

For some reason my family only ever had an apple computer. We would get a new one every 5 or so years. So by the time it came time for me to get a computer of my own I was already completely loyal to the apple brand. There was no other option in my mind than the 13 inch macbook pro even tho it would be almost twice the cost of an alternative. But to an apple user you see there was no alternative, the pc laptops simply don’t compete in the same league. There batteries stay charged half as long, their screens are worse, they are made out of plastic and they don’t have the famous apple operating system. On top of that, my computer would match my phone and ipod. This was a very interesting lesson in brand loyalty and building barriers to entry.

I  run a lot of contests from my companies facebook page www.facebook.com/TheCalendarUBC and have learned a thing or two over the years. I wanted to see if I could learn some more tricks from fellow social media marketers. I am going to review a post by Jay Baer about how to run the perfect social media contest and see if I can learn anything else from him! 

First off Jay suggests that we choose a Venue for our contest. I don’t tend to move far from facebook but twitter and Instagram can be great complements. The next thing to think about is how the guests will enter into the contest. This needs to align with your goals, if you are simply trying to gain a bigger following, I would suggest asking the user to like your page to enter, if you are simply trying to increase engagement with your followers I would suggest doing a like contest, and lastly if you are trying to spread the word about something in particular host a share contest. Next up Jay suggest you need to set up your timeline, pic your prizes and make sure you have someone to manage your graphics. I completely agree about posting graphics, there is no point in posting text alone as no one will ever see it. All posts need an accompanying image.

Make sure your prize is exciting and relevant for you target audience. We usually give away concert tickets.

Get the word out. Social media contests are the most effective when people know about them before they even start. This way the contests pops out of the gate. Lastly and this is something that I need to get better at, Jay suggest that you create an editorial calendar. You need to mark out when each of your posts needs to be published. If you want to go a step forward which I and Jay strongly suggest you should write all the messaging and posts for the campaign at one time before hand. This way you can execute your contest quickly and efficiently.