Cisco contest combines onsite and digital activities

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women conference offers Cisco Systems’ Talent Brand Team one of its biggest recruiting opportunities of the year. In order to elevate the Cisco talent brand and identify potential new employees, the Talent Brand Team devised a competition that involved both Instagram and Snapchat. The contest has won Cisco first place in the “Contest” category of PR Daily’s 2017 Digital PR & Social Media Awards.

Entering the contest was simple: Entrants followed the Cisco Snapchat and Instagram accounts, filled in the blank, “I am a woman in tech because ________,” and shared a photo from the conference. The genius in the campaign was in capturing the attention of the target audience and inspiring members to submit entries. 

At the Cisco booth, conference attendees found postcards with Cisco’s Snapcode, which was also designed into the booth itself and available in a cutout version with which attendees could take a picture. Roving “social encouragement” representatives from the team told attendees about the contest and drove traffic to the booth; they also contributed a steady stream of photos to both Snapchat and Instagram Stories, raising more awareness. In addition, the team created special Snapchat geofilters from an evening event. 

Ultimately, 70 entries were evaluated based on innovative answers to the question, photo aesthetics and how well the entrants presented themselves as women in tech. Eight winners were selected, each of whom talked about the prospect of a Cisco job with a Talent Brand Team member, leading to four interviews the very next day and two invitations to join the organization. Social media metrics also reflect the contest’s success, with thousands of Stories views. 

For the integration of online and onsite elements to create a cohesive, niche contest, congratulations to team members Macy Andrews, Carmen Collins, Casie Shimansky and Amy Bice.