The Authentic Jobs “no retweet necessary” contest

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with using social media like Twitter and Facebook to get people to participate in contests, but Cameron Moll’s nickname for the recent Authentic Jobs contest does raise an interesting point.

You won’t win through frivolous activities such as retweeting, posting a comment, or Facebookery. You’ll win by actually using Authentic Jobs in a way that benefits you. Use the site to set yourself up to find a job or land some freelance work anytime between now and December 4, and you’re automatically entered to win.

The contest makes its participants discover the product it’s promoting. Sure, retweeting and refacebooking to win prizes does spread the buzz, but if you’re confident enough in what you’ve built, it will do the talking. And so will its satisfied customers on Twitter and Facebook.

Plus, it helps to have fabulous prizes at stake.

Does your insanely brilliant product have to shun the marketing machines of Twitter and Facebook? Of course not. But you can always be a little more creative with your promotions, can’t you?

Google Doodles, a Brilliant Marketing Ploy

Google, have you heard of them? Of course you have, they’re the strongest brand online today. When you google something, you search the web. Just like playing Nintendo was videogames (and perhaps still is, given the success of Nintendo DS and Wii).

One thing Google does better than the rest is using their brand, the logo in particular, in a playful way. It’s called the Google Doodles and you see it every Holiday season, or when something interesting is happening. Check out the Doodle archive to see what I mean.

So what’s so great about that? Well, besides the fact that it’s something to react to when visiting google.com, it’s also a very viral marketing ploy. Think about it, how often have you seen tweets or pownces, perhaps even full blog posts, or just short IM messages letting you know what those zany Google people’ve done now.

The Google Doodles spread across the web like a wildfire. It’s a brilliant marketing ploy, simple yet effective. The best ones usually are.