This post was written on November 9th, 2010, a time when I overestimated the IQ of masses.

First of all, I have nothing against them. They attract visitors, followers and fans and make people do stuff, sometimes go out of their routine a bit.

But using them wrongly makes me act like an angry panda.

Let’s say you tweet that the X follower will get a free ticket to a concert, or the Y fan will get a free pizza. The next thing will happen is that you will LOSE followers and fans because, hell, they want to win so they’ll follow or like you when that number gets close. And can get worse…

If you then encourage users (by tweets, posts, whatever) to follow or like you SO THAT the X or Y user will win, well, I really don’t think they’ll do that, because they want to win.

Oh, wait… and you want users to tell their friends to follow you so that they’ll win? Sorry, mister Brand, but when those friends will find out about the promotion, they’ll unfollow or unlike you and do the same to their friends and so on. Eventually, you’ll get X followers or Y likes after a while, but you might lose something more important here.

IMHO, ‘campaigns’ like that make users frustrated, hold back graphs in social analysis, delay brand appreciation, maybe even lowering it.

So next time you have a prize for your customers, don’t tell them who’s going to win it.