How an incredibly distracted millennial won a social media contest

So when I saw a tweet from @DrinkCraftBeer announcing it was holding a contest to determine the name of the official Fall to Winter Beer Fest beer, I copied the link, sent it to my boyfriend with a quick “help me think of a name,” and quickly forgot about it.

Until six hours later when he texted me, “Did you think of a name?”

I hadn’t. But being the marketer I am, I thought of one on the fly.

“Nut Your Average Ginger?” I texted.

Pause.

“No, never mind, I can do better,” I texted back.

“Actually, that’s pretty good. Funny and witty,” he wrote.

So, I entered the competition. And then I went back to doing the 49,999 other things on my to-do list.

Here’s how I won this contest using social media:

1. Find ambassadors on Facebook.

Anyone can post something on Facebook and ask his or her friends to vote. But to win, you need to target the people who will rally their own troops to help you take the lead. The best is when you don’t need to blatantly ask for the shares—your ambassadors just make it happen. In the last 24 hours of voting, when the fight became bloody, I turned to these faithful few and they spread their social seeds.