I’m giving away bacon this Christmas. That’s right. This bacon:

Entry Requirements

Please do the following for a chance to win this package of thick-cut Cloverdale Meats Applewood Bacon:

Follow @scottcowley on Twitter
Tweet the following message:

All I want for Christmas is this bacon: http://bit.ly/baconcontest The @scottcowley Christmas Bacon Contest is on!

Extra Entry

For one additional entry, leave a comment on this post naming 2 people you like enough to share your bacon with, who you’ve met because of social media. (This is completely hypothetical. No one expects you to actually share bacon.)

Contest Details

The contest runs from Monday, December 12, 2010 and ends at 1 pm MST on Wednesday, December 14, 2010. You only need to tweet the message once to enter. Multiple tweets about the contest are appreciated, but will only be counted as one entry. At the end of the contest, the winner will be selected using Random.org.

If the winner lives in Greater Salt Lake City or Utah Valley, I will personally deliver the bacon to him/her. If the winner lives elsewhere, I will personally eat the prize bacon and mail $5 USD to be spent on a bacon variety of the winner’s choice (this amount equals the purchase price of the original contest bacon).

The Backstory

More than anything, the contest is a simple way for me to show appreciation to the social media community for what has been a remarkable year. Social media has introduced me to many kind and intelligent new friends. Social media has taught me things that have helped me do my job better and get closer to reaching my personal goals. After all of the many SEO tips, gift ideas, words of encouragement, etc. that I’ve received this year, I feel like I owe something to the social community that has generously helped me in many ways.

I don’t need to explain the bacon part. Bacon is bacon and its awesomeness speaks for itself. I also know a lot of people who like bacon and this bacon is higher-than-average quality.

And thank you to all of those who gave creative input on the bacon: Ted Ulle, Dixon Jones, Alan K’necht, AJ Wilcox, Vince Blackham, Lynn Parsons, and Kiley Newbold.

Even if you don’t take home the bacon, I hope you take time to remember all of the people who have helped get you where you are today and consider ways to better show your appreciation. Nothing would make me happier than seeing a whole ton of weird “appreciation contests” like this one, but I suspect you’re all more normal than that.

Thanks again and Merry Christmas. Now go win some bacon!

{ 68 comments }

SHAZAM! Justin Bieber has the highest Klout score. On Klout.com‘s 100 point scale, the teenage popstar (whose name I recently learned to pronounce) scores 100/100. With more than 10 million fans and placement on nearly 500K Twitter lists, I don’t think you’re going to get much higher than that. (Note: scores are current as of June 24, 2011.)

If you’re looking for other high Klout scores:

Lady Gaga (@ladygaga): 93
Reverend Run (@revrunwisdom): 92
Rihanna (@rihanna): 90
Katy Perry (@katyperry): 89
Pete Cashmore (@mashable): 88
Barack Obama (@barackobama): 85

Like many of you, I’ve been thinking more about social measurement lately and its many drawbacks. Even in the academic world, this is troubling. Last night, I read “The Impact of New Media on Customer Relationships” which provides a solid breakdown of the current challenge:

“A major limitation of existing research on EWOM (electronic word-of-mouth) is the lack of consistent measurement approaches, with existing measures coming from different platforms (e.g., blogs, Yahoo, Barnes & Noble, Usenet), industries, (e.g., movies, books, software), and—for EWOM valence—coding approaches (e.g., stars, text analysis). So, more work on the measurement of EWOM is needed. The same is true for modeling approaches…”

Klout is part of the first wave of solutions taking social measurement seriously and subsequent waves will improve upon the existing ones. The aggregation of reach, amplification, network size, etc. (like Klout provides) is a good step toward finding some common ground (although there’s still tremendous value in dissecting influence on a per social network basis). While there are a lot of people voicing out against Klout because the scoring system perpetuates the age-old popularity contest, runs the risk of gaming, forces people into a caste, etc., I think it’s fantastic for the industry. With these types of scoring systems and the ultra-fascinating approaches companies are taking in rewarding online influencers by Klout, like Disney has recently done, we’re only going to see the advancement of solid marketing theory in this area. Even if it feels like high school all over again.

{ 5 comments }