By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

The With Art Pinterest Contest, sponsored by Visit Philly, invited fans to pin an artful weekend getaway in Philadelphia to be entered for a chance to win it. The actual Philly weekend getaway prize would be designed by the winner. Here's how it worked:

Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (aka Visit Philly) launched the contest on April 25 and started promoting it on their Facebook page.

Participants were asked to first follow Visit Philly on Pinterest then create a board titled “With Art Philadelphia”. The board needed to contain at least ten pins taken from the following:
• 3 pins from the Visit Philly With Art website
• 2 pins from the With Art Philadelphia Pinterest Page
• 2 pins from the Visit Philly Eat & Drink Pinterest Page or of restaurants from the Visit Philly website
• 2 pins from the  Visit Philly Stay In Philadelphia Pinterest Page
• 1 repin of Visit Philly’s official contest pin

Each board needed to have at least two restaurant pins and two hotel pins so that Visit Philly could compile the winner's prize from what they pinned on their board. Once the entrant’s board was completed they had go to the Visit Philly Facebook page and click on the link to the Contest application. If they were not a current fan of Visit Philly they had to first Like the page to become a fan in order to access the Contest entry form where they would enter the URL address of their “With Art Philadelphia” Pinterest board along with their name and email address.

The contest ended on May 24 and a panel of judges reviewed all the submissions and chose a winner that was based on creativity and originality. That grand prize winner,  Lyn Benonis, was just contacted and she is so excited to plan her Visit to Philly! You can view Lyn's Pinterest board here.

There were also five runners-up chosen by the judges that will each receive a membership to one of Philadelphia’s art museums.

We worked with Visit Philly's agency, Sparkloft Media, on this promotion. They specialize in assisting tourism and convention and visitor bureau (CVB's) organizations with their marketing needs. They have been keeping track on blog of where CVB's stand on Pinterest and, as of May 30, Visit Philly had 4,062 followers and was ranked #12. We have done several promotions with Sparklfot Media  for some of  their other clients such as the Beaches of Ft. Myers and Sanibel Florida. Some of these have also included Pinterest, however, this was the first one where a prize was designed by the entrant themselves which I thought was highly innovative.

Congratulations to Lyn. Hope she and her guest enjoy their weekend getaway in Philly.