Bing photo contest
Microsoft was rebranding its search -- again. The company needed to differentiate a commoditized, also-ran product and get people excited about it. To address the first problem, it chose a happy new name, Bing, and did a 360 from Google's stripped-down interface by splashing a new, lusciously colored photo across the homepage each day.
The company had already worked with Context Optional on Quiztopia, an app that showcased Live Search, so it came back to the social application developer to help build awareness of the new Bing. They created a contest that lets people submit their photos via Facebook, with winners to be featured on Bing. During the submission period, entrants were encouraged to get their friends to vote, and anyone could rate the submissions.
While there are contests every day that get people to click on a link and end up on a microsite, Kevin Barenblat, co-founder of Context Optional, says that Facebook amplifies the media buy. In the Bing contest, more than 10,000 photos were submitted, and they received more than 450,000 ratings. Remember, each time someone rated a photo, the action showed up in his or her news feed.
"Photos and images really stand out in Facebook feeds," Barenblat says. About 29 percent of those who participated in some way came from a media buy of display ads on the login page or on the right-hand side of the interface. The rest was organic, from friends asking friends to vote, seeing it in the streams, or reading discussion boards.
When campaigns don't tie into Facebook's potential for sharing, Barenblat says, "It's leaving money for branded interaction on the table."
