REALLY COOL INSIGHTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND FRIENDS

OK... so here is the deal... I created this contest to get a title for myself at The Catevo Group. Contest

My job is new business, social media, brand strategy, and a whole bunch of other crap that people don't want to do. I figured I would get a few responses to the contest and that would be it. Welllllllll not exactly. We have had over 500 titles submitted and close to 10,000 votes so far. it has been insane. We built a simple admin tool so I could approve each title before it goes live. We basically did this so all of the good ones would never go live. I have spent a lot of time approving submissions! If you want to see them email me and I will share a few of the best ones. Granted they might not look great on a business card, but they would be really funny to have to explain to a potential client.

So here are 8 things I learned about social media and my friends:

1. People will jump into the social media fray if you give them a good reason. I had no less than 10 people tell me this was their first experience with Social Media. The lesson is an old one... Content is King

2. The words you choose on Twitter are critical as we saw much different responses from tweets that were worded differently. I know that sounds obvious, but go to Twitter and see how many people don't think about what they post.

3. More people look at their Facebook stream than you would imagine. I can not tell you how many people told me they first saw the contest on my Facebook status update.

4. There are some really fun people on LinkedIn. Contrary to popular belief LinkedIn is used for more than just business. I had a tin of submissions and people messaging me from my LinkedIn contacts.

5. There is a lot of pent up creativity out there if you ask people to participate. I have seen (and they are posted) some incredibly creative title submissions that I would not have thought of in a million years.

6. This type of Open Source Marketing is the wave of the future. People are going to be enlisting other people to help them solve complex marketing problems. Granted this was not a complex one, but I am certain that there are many people who would comment on brand's positioning and other communications if they are asked to. I know some of you are losing your mind right now saying it is already happening,btu I am talking about complex stuff; not just do you like this ad.

7. You never know what social media platform is going to be the strongest. I would have thought that Twitter would be the one for this but I was wrong. Facebook and recommendations from people who submitted were the most powerful. I know of a few people that send out an update every day asking their friends to vote for their submission.

8. You never really know how deviant your friends are until they think they are submitting anonymously!

Stay tuned for more insights and information as the contest ends one week from today.