Twitter Contests: I Now View Them All as Spam

by Aaron on February 1, 2010

One of the posts I wrote the first month of Social Photo Talk’s existence was about what I thought was the right way to handle contests on Twitter. http://www.socialphototalk.com/contests-on-twitter/

I’d like to rescind that earlier opinion. I was wrong. Contests have no place on Twitter. They’re really damn spammy and it makes your followers look bad.

When you require folks to tweet about your contest as a method to enter said contest., you’re asking them to spam their friends and followers with an advertisement for your business or service. Would you ask them to send an email to everyone in their email address book? Would you require them to call every person in their phone listing and tell them about your contest? No… you wouldn’t, because that would instantly be seen as overly pushy.

Your followers have opted into hearing your message. Their followers have not. Asking your followers to spam their followers is, well, spammy. Don’t do it. Don’t be that guy.

Photo by freezelight, used under Creative Commons licensing

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Tagged as: contests, spam, Twitter

Kathleen McDade

So I'm seeing something interesting today: @clevercycles had a contest; the prize was a very nice bike. They did suggest people RT their announcement the day before, but you didn't have to retweet to win (you had to guess a number). And yet many people, self included, retweeted the contest announcements -- presumably because we love @clevercycles and think they have a great business. It was content we thought was worth passing on.
Aaron Hockley

That's a great observation... if folks choose to tweet or retweet about a contest on their own, I view that as a brand having a great following. Where it crosses the line and seems spam-like to me is when the tweeting is a condition of entry.

I think that Lyza indicated a very similar viewpoint on this week's podcast.
Kate

I completely, 100% agree. I recently retweeted a contest and felt absolutely dirty after. I regretted it the moment I retweeted ;(
brianenigma

Repost this blog comment on all of your friends' blogs for a chance to win a free tin of potted meat!

There are times that I really want filters on Twitter. It seems that every few weeks a new spammy contest or spammy game makes the rounds. Of course, filters only patch the symptom, not the fundamental problem. With the "new retweet" syntax and style, at least in theory, people will only see the spam once, but few people use the new style yet and once is still too much. The real fix, as you point out, is for everyone to not be spammy in the first place.