Social MadNESS

Competition

Semifinalists

June 2013

OVERVIEWAs a St. Louis-based company with a wide-reaching socialmedia presence, we were excited to be nominated to

participate in the Social Madness competition hosted by theSt. Louis Business Journal. The contest lasted several months,generating thousands of impressions for us, and created sucha buzz that the organic reach spike continued long after the

contest was over.

COMPETITIONThe companies are grouped based on the size of their collectivesocial following at the start of the local competition (this is a newfeature we added this year). The category each participant is placedin is at the sponsor’s sole discretion.

The first two weeks of both the local and national competitions willconsist of an open format, where the top companies with the highestscore at the end of the round advance.

A proprietary Social Madness algorithm will gauge votes onbizjournals.com as well as social engagement on LinkedIn, Facebook,

Twitter and Google+ during the challenge. Facebook page likes,Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections, and Google followers will notcount in the algorithm.

Winner advances to national competition and donates $1,000 tocharity of their choice.

PROCESSRules of the competition restricted several tactics, such asadvertising. Instead, the following actions were taken:

Change all social media branding to reflect thecompetition with graphic, easy to understand imagesinstructing how to vote.

Post about the contest regularly, but keeping the focus onthe content that aligns with our mission and brand.

Posting content frequently, even several times a day.Adding rich media to every post including links, photosand video.

PROCESS(Continued)

One on one social media lessons with employees showedthem how to best participate in this contest with theirpersonal accounts. Talk to friends, family, coworkers, partners, vendors, anyonewho can help you win. You can only do so much askingonline, which is why asking offline holds value, too.

Post photos of other people, who can be tagged, allowingthat photo to show up on their personal profile. People liketo see their friends in new environments, so many likescame from employee photos.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

PRESS

It was great coveragefor Microgrid when our

growth in thecompetition washighlighted by an

excerpt in the printedand online St. LouisBusiness Journal.

CHARITY

This non-profit has a mission to inspire fresh thinking that createseconomic opportunity, social equality, and environmental well-being.

For example, they created FoodHub, which is an online marketplacedesigned to connect wholesale buyers and sellers of regionally grownfood. Donating to this cause is worth your money as 84% of its funds

go towards program costs.

Learn more at www.ecotrust.org.

RESULTSWe eventually took 4th place out of the original 65 companiesentered and enjoyed the coverage the competition brought us.

From what we learned, our engagement rate was already healthy,so this contest was just a matter of nurturing our current fanbase.

We benefitted greatly by networking with companies in our city,extending our reach to new potential markets, and raisingawareness about Ecotrust.

Gained:

203 Facebook Fans191 Twitter Followers35 LinkedIn Page Follows15 Google+ Followers