It seems like every few years, something new comes along and changes the promotional marketing landscape. Today, I’d like to discuss the evolution of Sweepstakes, Contests and Games. I’ve worked in this industry for over 20 years and it’s been an amazing run. When I started my career in the promotion industry, the Internet was primarily for education and government workers. And I can remember doing some of the first online promotions for AOL & Prodigy in the early 90’s.

But what’s most exciting to me is the most recent evolution of Sweepstakes, Contests and Games that are happening on Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media sites. The promotion has once again evolved and I’m excited to be talking about that evolution today.

Let’s start with Online Promotions. If you haven’t read Bill Carmody’s book on the subject, you really should. It’s the only book out there on the topic and you can get it at 50% off if you become a fan of AlterSeekers.

This is important because in order to see the future of promotions, you need to understand where we started – both online and in retail. With tools such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, you don’t even need traditional back end databases and other scripting technology in order to launch a sweepstakes, contest or game.

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Facebook Fan Page promotions, for example, can really take off because of the viral nature of Facebook. With the right prizes and the right hypertargeting, you can easily launch promotions that drive awareness, downloads and ultimately incent people to buy your product or service.

Likewise, Twitter creates a sense of urgency within your promotions. Rather than having one 6 to 8 week promotion, you can have an hourly or daily promotion that gets people to pay closer attention to your Tweets. AlterSeekers has continued to stay on top of these evolutions in Brand Promotions – especially in the social media space. It’s where your sales are headed if they’re not there already. The idea of social commerce is no longer a foreign concept to most of us.

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For more information on Social Marketing, please download our Free Webinar on Monetizing Social Media: How Do You Make Money with Facebook and Twitter.

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