Inside Facebook

The title of this photo submission: “Why I desperately need a Beautyrest” – mattress, that is.

Mattress maker Simmons Beautyrest has partnered with social media agency Votigo to announce a Facebook video and photo contest designed to encourage customers to generate content and then get their friends to vote for their submissions.

The contest can be accessed via Simmons’ custom Facebook application, a Facebook Connect-enabled microsite, and a contest widget. Through the app, users can submit and vote for entries, as well as share the app on their profile and invite their friends to participate in the contest themselves. Here’s how it looks:

The microsite basically has the same functionality as the app. Once users login to the site through Facebook Connect, they can view a stream of what Facebook users are doing on the site and publish comments they leave to their Facebook profile – but not in the form of a full Feed Form story that is visible to others in the News Feed. This may be a missed opportunity to gain viral traction and pique the interest of the Facebook friends.

But this is a good effort so far, and contests are known to work well. We saw this with BMW’s Graffiti Car Contest. Voting, of course, allows not only contestants to participate, but brings their friends into the picture – the viral factor. Conversations are taking place not only between brands and their customers, but also among customers, making it so that community is naturally built around your brand.

Related Resources:

• Inside Facebook’s Best and Worst Facebook Marketing 2009
• Inside Facebook’s Facebook Marketing Bible