image One of the best tests of a good brand:  Does your mom know what you do for a living? (Mom, I teach word of mouth marketing.)

Get Satisfaction is one of the smartest companies in the user-generated feedback business. But their model is a little unusual.

That’s why I love this contest:  “Describe Get Satisfaction to Your Mom. Win $150 Zappos Gift

To enter, just reply in a topic they’ve set up.

Too many companies are over-complicating this “let’s get our customers involved” thing.  They do crazy-viral video contest, create a recipe contest, jump through hoops contests.

Here’s how to know if your social media contest is too complicated:

  • You need an ad agency to run it for you
  • It costs a lot of money to put it together
  • It takes more than 30 seconds for a fan to enter the contest

The best social media contests are:

  • Simple
  • Fast
  • Cheap
  • Fun

Here’s how you know your contest is a success:

Social media contest success = New fans / Cost

I’d rather get 1,000 new fans for free then 10,000 fans for $100,000.

P.S. Here’s the text from the Get Satisfaction Contest.

We love working at Get Satisfaction. We’re building this cool Web site and trying to change the way companies do customer service, while helping loads of customers get the informal, authentic help they’ve always wanted.

Because we’re building something that’s never existed before, we sometimes have a hard time explaining how our system works — especially to our moms. Not all of them have experience with social networking or the conventions of the Internet. Some of our moms are savvy enough to follow us on Facebook (yikes!), but some of them wince when we utter the phrase “Flash movie” in mixed company. Maybe you can help.

Let’s make this a contest!

Your mission: Describe Get Satisfaction so our moms will understand what it is we do — and why they might want to try using us the next time they need customer-service help.

One entry per person, please.

How do you enter? Super easy. Enter by adding a reply to this topic.

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3 comments. Read them below or add one. (Trackback)

{ 1 trackback }

Demand Satisfaction! » Our “Mom” Contest Gets Judged — by Moms
December 7, 2009 at 10:53 pm

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Eric Suesz August 24, 2009 at 10:12 am

Hey, cool! One of my favorite bloggers is writing about us. Thank you!
E
Eric Suesz
Community Manager
Get Satisfaction

Daniel August 27, 2009 at 10:05 am

I love GS. I started GS pages for Tribune newspapers when they underwent Web site redesigns. Lots of activity there!

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I'm Andy Sernovitz, a fairly helpful marketing guy. I write about word of mouth marketing, ethics, common-sense business, and entrepreneurship.

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