I enjoy Twitter. It’s handy for filling those moments while you wait for a meeting to start or queue in a café. It also makes me laugh and I love the insights it gives you into other people’s lives. Of course, it’s useful professionally, too, especially for making connections. Naturally I monitor what my clients are tweeting about and what other brands are up to, but if you work in the prize promotions sector as I do there are a number of accounts which you should definitely follow.
Advertising Standards Authority – AKA the ASA
Every Wednesday, the ASA publishes its latest rulings on recent complaints and every Wednesday it helpfully tweets a reminder that they’re available online. It often retweets media coverage of adverts and promotions, and what other regulatory bodies, such as Ofcom or the Competition and Markets Authority, are talking about. In other words, for someone who’s borderline obsessive about compliance and promotions it’s essential. There’s a separate account for the CAP Committee, which is responsible for the CAP Code itself.
Like many of my clients, I also work across Ireland, so the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland is the same as the ASA but slightly different, because the regulations in Ireland are slightly different, so I aim to check that regularly, too.
Lewis Silkin
So Lewis Silkin is a high-profile commercial law firm. It works across several sectors, including advertising and marketing, which is why I’m interested in it. Its staff tend to be well-informed and the company’s tweets often direct you to its Adlaw Insights blog. This picks up on relevant topics in the news and usually has a thoughtful commentary on them.
The Drum
There are lots of general marketing publications around. I like to keep an eye on most of them – Influence Magazine is pretty good for influencer marketing, for example – but The Drum is my go-to. I’m not sure I entirely go along with its mission statement ‘Marketing can change the world’, but it covers a wide range of marketing, advertising and media well, and I find its Twitter feed very handy for tipping me off to new content. The DMA, of which Prizeology is a member, is also a valuable source of information for data, marketing and advertising news. It does interesting research and is very forward-looking, and it’s particularly hot on best practice, as I am myself. Still in more or less the same kind of area, I also recommend an AI company called Phrasee, for some great insights, generally delivered with humour and an amusing gif.
@TheDrum, @InfluencePRMag, @DMA_UK, @Phrasee
Friends Against Scams
Anti-scam campaigning is close to my heart, because any one of us can fall victim to a scam and, believe me, it can be devastating. Scams also undermine the promotions industry, so I’m doubly committed to raising awareness of scams that are currently doing the rounds (you may recall that I’m a Scambassador). Quite simply, Friends Against Scams does great work. The Government’s Cyber Aware account can be a good source of information and I’m also part of the Fraud Women’s Network – we’re women and we share good practice on combatting fraud – so if that’s an area you’re interested in I rsuggest you click to follow us.
@AgainstScams, @cyberawaregov, @FraudWomensNet
Prizeology
Unsurprisingly, I’m going to finish by highlighting the Prizeology Twitter account. If you feel your Twitter feed is already too crowded, this is the one to follow, because it signposts you to all the important prize promotions stories, including our latest blog posts. I also tweet in a personal capacity under the moniker Pocket Burns. It’s not always about prize promotions because I do have a life outside work (just), but reviewing my feed I realise that may not be apparent…
Hashtags
And finally, a brief note on hashtags. As I always explain to clients, if you’re running a prize promotion on social media you need a unique hashtag. However, that means there isn’t a single subset of hashtags that will deliver prize promotions content in a neat package, but the obvious ones are #prizepromotion(s), #prizedraw(s) and #competition(s), and a search on those will turn up a good selection of the latest promotions. Of course, I make sure I check them all regularly and I am constantly amazed – usually in a good way – by what I discover!
Sarah Burns is Prizeology’s Chief Prizeologist.
