jonnygoldstein.com

I won the contest that Rohit Bhargava organized to promote his new book, Personality Not Included.

To win the contest, you had to get the greatest amount of votes on two webpages Rohit had set up. Here’s how I won:

1. Wrote 5 questions for Rohit to answer, as per the contest instructions. I did not have much time, so I did the best I could in between weekend activities. I feel like I had three excellent questions and two decent, but forgettable, questions. But hey, better to throw an imperfect hat into the ring than spend your time crafting the perfect fedora and never entering the contest.

2. Visual communication:

-Created a “Vote Jonny” twitter icon, so every time I tweeted, people would see that message.
-Created a red, white and blue “Vote Jonny” graphic which included an old photo of me mugging in front of the Capitol Building.

3. Video

-Created a YouTube campaign video of me running around an office with a megaphone telling people to vote Jonny.

4. Messaging:

I made “Making the world a better place for puppies and children” a consistent theme in my campaign efforts. I also used the phrase “Vote for Jonny in ‘08″ with the goal of piggybacking on the political campaign energy that’s out there now.

5. Audio

-Used Utterz Recorded a woman on the street audio interview with a supporter using my cell phone. I posted the audio on my blog and to twitter.

6. Email

-Emailed a group of contacts I had used to promote a previous project.
-Created a new group of contacts specifically for this project and emailed them.
-Emailed coworkers
-Sent personalized emails to a few select people I thought might forward my request.

7. Facebook

-As part of my regular weekly message to the Jonny’s Par-tay group, I added a request that people vote for me to the standard announcement of the week’s guest.

-Messaged a select group of around 15 FaceBook friends. I did not want to send duplicate messages to the same people who I had reached through other means, so I tried not to send them to people I had already emailed.

-Created a series of “Vote Jonny” status messages

8. Live chat:

I reached out to a couple of people via my gmail chat. Also put a link to for people to “Vote Jonny” as my gmail chat status message.

9. Twitter:

Used twitter to ask people to vote. Also directed them to my campaign messaging (blog, audio, video).

10. Online forums:

11. Live video:

during my weekly live web video talk show, I asked for the support of my viewers in the contest.

I solicited peoples votes on my grad school alumni listserv, the DC Media Makers Yahoo group, and the Videoblogging Yahoo group.

11. Crazed fans.

Thanks for voting Jonny. And thanks for going the extra mile and asking your friends to vote Jonny.

As you can see, I poured quite a bit of energy into this contest. It reinforced for me the power of competition to drive engagement. It was like crack. I couldn’t stop. I got to know some of my fellow competitors a bit which was great. I’m proud to win against a pool of marketing folks in a contest run by a marketing guy. Makes me feel special.

I’m going to do something good for the puppies and the children.

I am looking forward to reading the copy of Personality Not Included that I am going to get as a prize for excelling in the contest. I infused my personality into my campaign efforts, and it worked. Maybe Rohit’s onto something.