Check out the BlogPaws or Bust Sweepstakes
March 03, 2010
By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk
We're just a little over a month away now from getting together in Columbus, Ohio with a large group of pet bloggers, online pet enthusiasts and pet brands for BlogPaws 2010. Yvonne has mentioned BlogPaws several times here on Lip-sticking and I believe first announced it in this post back in January. Yvonne and her partner, Tom , who work together on the Scratchings & Sniffings pet blog, together with Caroline Golon of Romeo the Cat, came up with the idea of BlogPaws last year. Since then they've been very busy turning it into reality.
Now you should check out the BlogPaws website and learn all about it. I am one of several committee members, most who are pet bloggers, helping to organize the event. Now while I am a blogger, I am not a pet blogger. I do have several pets though...2 dogs, 2 cats and a chinchilla who my daughter left in the care of my husband and I while she's away at her first year in college. My blog is focused on marketing with an emphasis on promotional and social media marketing, which is what I primarily blog about here as well. So while I'm excited to be on the ground floor of this great new online community as a committee volunteer, I am also really looking forward to being a speaker as well. I'll be part of the Contests, Sweepstakes, Promotions – Nuts & Bolts panel along with Jenny Cisney, Chief blogger for Kodak, Hollis Thomases, Web Ad.vantage Blog and Jane Couto, MomGenerations.com.
So in light of my promotional marketing background, and as a way to promote the event, we've developed the BlogPaws or Bust Sweepstakes which we just launched on Monday. We're giving away two grand prize travel packages to Columbus which include round-trip airfare from anywhere in the continental U.S., two nights hotel accommodations at the Westin Columbus (where the event is taking place) and a pass to attend BlogPaws 2010. We've also thrown in three second place prizes which are free passes to the event.
Now we're using a web-based application tool to run the BlogPaws or Bust Sweepstakes which enables us to launch the campaign simultaneously on our website, on our Facebook Fan page and on Twitter all at once. This app creates a micro-site that can be either embedded or linked to a website or blog and added to any Facebook fan page. The Twitter option gives extra entries to people who tweet about the sweepstakes and are successful in getting their followers to enter. I've now used this app several times for a few of my clients and have been happy with the results, but this is the first time I've used the Twitter option.
The application, called Wildfire, is included on Facebook’s Preferred Developer list and is in compliance with Facebook’s promotional guidelines that they recently released in December. Facebook now states that you need prior approval to run a sweepstakes or contest on their platform, however, by utilizing this app prior approval is not necessary. So this is a very cost-effective way to get a promotion up and running on multiple platforms quickly and fairly easily. This makes it a great tool for anyone who wants to integrate a promotion with their social media efforts, what I call Social Sweeps promotions. The app offers a premium or standard version that helps to fit within most budgets. We're utilizing the standard version for the BlogPaws or Bust Sweepstakes.
So whether or not you want to join us pet enthusiasts in Columbus, please check out the sweepstakes and go ahead and enter and please let us know what you think about the promotion. Follow any of links above to get to the entry form.
Oh yeah, we're also having a Twitter Party tomorrow night where we're giving away some great prizes. Please join the fun if you can for a #blogpawspawty on Thursday, March 4 @ 7 pm EST. You can get more info on this here.
Hope to meet some of you in Columbus!
Blog Paws or Bust Sweepstakes graphic was created by our very own Tom Collins!
Posted by: Donna DeClemente | March 05, 2010 at 12:54 PM
I love the BlogPaws graphic! What a hoot :)!
Posted by: Suzanne Choma | March 05, 2010 at 12:18 PM