Two completely different and completely brilliant uses of social media.
This week has seen two perfect examples of why social media has become so huge in recent years. On the one hand we had a political party using Twitter as a tool for a live questions and answers session. At the other end of the economic spectrum we had Orange launching their ‘Spot the Bull’ competition. How did I find out about this comp? Twitter of course.
Put Your Question To David Cameron:
Conservative party leader David Cameron had an early shot at connecting with the ‘yoof”, but this ended in media ridicule following his ‘Hug a Hoodie’ speech.
On Tuesday May 26th, the Conservative Party website hosted a Q & A session allowing members of the public (with internet access) to ask questions by leaving comments on the page or via Twitter.
Using the functionality of CoveritLive the Conservatives pulled off a slick and well worked method of conversing and interacting with their online audience. Will it gain them any voters? Probably not but it improved my opinion of them.
Orange launched their now annual Spot the Bull competition, giving people the chance to win tickets to Glastonbury. Heres how it works (courtesy of Suzanne Bearne at NMA) “The competition, in its third year, challenges players to guess the location at 3pm each day of a bull, Desmond, whose position in a field is being tracked online…On choosing a location, players will be given specific information about the percentage of time Desmond has spent in that area and the percentage of people who have chosen that part of the field.” I’ve entered every day and am yet to guess the correct square but its still fun none the less.
Orange have employed a PPC campaign with ads appearing for search terms such including ‘glastonbury tickets’. There was also mention of it round the Twittersphere and there is an Twitter feed called @spotthebull. This year Orange have made good use of mobile by allowing people to submit their guess by text. There is also a widget “available to download for personal social networking profile pages and blogs, this features a countdown to the next ticket giveaway, the Spot The Bull twitter feed and images direct from Desmond’s field.”
Digital agency Poke are responsible for this great campaign.
So all in all two very innovative social media campaigns used in two very different ways going to show the versatility of social media as a platform.
Social Media Mashup 