Losing To Win: The Open Web Awards

Posted: October 15th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Media And Advertising | No Comments »

Mashable opened nominations today for their Open Web Awards. The phrase “open web” indicates that this is basically a popularity contest, like the People’s Choice awards. Nominations extend through November 15th, at which point the people, sites, and applications with the most votes in each category will compete (again, for popular votes) to win the awards.

So, I nominated Revolving Floor, the small but promising site of which I’m publisher, for the “best online magazine award.” And if you’re involved in the promotion of any online entity, including yourself, you should act similarly.

To be clear: Revolving Floor has no chance of winning the award. It just doesn’t have the audience of hundreds of thousands that sites like Epicurious have.

But that doesn’t matter. Just getting nominated brings exposure. Every nomination for “best magazine site” ends up here. And you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think that there are people all over the world idly refreshing that page, checking out various nominated sites. (Mashable: you should have made those links clickable, though. God forbid you give up your own sacred Google juice so easily. Lame.) That page will stay up for at least a month, i.e. as long as the nominations last, and it might stay up a lot longer. Who knows how many times over the next month, or year, or five years, someone will scroll through that page, decide to look at your site (or Revolving Floor), and end up posting a link to it somewhere that brings you more traffic? Once? Five times? Ten times?

It depends on how many times your site is nominated, of course. But there is no way to cheat in this contest. Each person can vote once per day (per Facebook/Twitter identity). And the more days in a row that you vote (for Revolving Floor, in the “best online magazine” category), the more exposure you get for your site (or for Revolving Floor).

Of course, you can always post links to your own project on some other site, any time you like. But the question is: how good are you at creating a context that is conducive to people taking note?

It’s a simple idea, but one that many people in the online business world have yet to grasp. There doesn’t have to be a winner and a loser. The most obvious benefactor here is Motorola, who is sponsoring the cotest to promote their Motoblur social media platform. Surely, Mashable is getting paid, but even if the contest had no sponsor, it would still be worthwhile, as it’s bringing them traffic and reinforcing their status as the go-to source for who’s who in social media. By sponsoring the context, Motorola is sharing that glow, and their semi-related product more or less gets some implied credibility.

But the real benefit is to the participants. If the campaign were a conversation, it would go like this:

MASHABLE: I’m the most popular website in the English language. Everybody thinks I’m awesome.

MOTOROLA: I have a new platform that I’m about to sell. I sure hope that people think it’s cool, in a social media way, kind of like how Mashable is cool.

REVOLVING FLOOR: I just want more traffic. This month we have a controversial essay about North Korea, and a really awesome Halloween cartoon, and some other stuff.

MOTOROLA: What’s that buzzing sound?

MASHABLE: Well, Revolving Floor, you can nominate yourself for Best Magazine Website in our new contest.

REVOLVING FLOOR: What’s the point of that?

MASHABLE: People will see you listed on the nomination page, and some of them will get curious and check you out. And you can nominate yourself over again every day, one vote per Twitter/Faceboook identity.

MOTOROLA: Mashable, who are you talking to?

MASHABLE: Revolving Floor. It’s a website that’s too small for you to notice.

MOTOROLA: If it’s too small for a major sponsor like me to notice, then why are you, a major media property, giving it a leg up?

MASHABLE: Because, from my point of view, “voting for yourself in the contest” and “visiting Mashable.com and engaging with the sponsored content” are exactly the same thing.

REVOLVING FLOOR: So basically, by voting for myself in the context, I’m helping you demonstrate to your client that they’re sponsoring engaging content.

MASHABLE: Yes, but you’re also helping yourself. The more you nominate yourself for the contest, the more exposure you get. And if you make it to the voting round, we’ll mention you in a widely-read announcement, and your profile will go way up.

REVOLVING FLOOR: So what’s the catch?

MASHABLE: The catch is that, in exchange for this publicity, you and your friends agree to spend a few seconds of every day looking at the logo for the new Motorola social media product, thus arguably internalizing the association between Motoblur and Mashable.

REVOLVING FLOOR: Why would you want me to do that?

MASHABLE: Because it’s conceivable that, at some undefined point in the future, you will be considering the purchase of Motoblur, and you’ll be subconsiously pushed over the tipping point because of the psychological residue of this experience.

REVOLVING FLOOR: Are you fucking serious?

MASHABLE: Yeah. That’s how brand advertising works.

MOTOROLA: Mashable, dude, you need to see a dotor. There’s nobody there.

REVOLVING FLOOR: Peace out. Yesterday’s cookie just expired, and I’m going to vote for Revolving Floor for best online magazine in the contest again.