Sweepstakes? For who?

[sfcspencer]

Seems unfair to those who don't twitter or tweet, cant enter the sweepstakes? My online presence is Fantasy Grounds. Is there any way to enter the sweepstakes without Facebook, twitter, insta-what ever? Anybody else in the same boat?

[LordEntrails]

The purpose of the sweepstakes is to have the FG community advertise FG to their friends etc. i.e. it's an advertising campaign. Social media provides a low cost approach to advertising (by doing sweepstakes and giveaways like this). How else can the sweepstakes be run at a low cost that would get you to share a few hundred impressions (a media term) with potential FG customers?

[esmdev]

Seems unfair to those who don't twitter or tweet, cant enter the sweepstakes? My online presence is Fantasy Grounds. Is there any way to enter the sweepstakes without Facebook, twitter, insta-what ever? Anybody else in the same boat?

I don't use social media. I am on a handful of forums. I accept that, since I don't participate in those system, I will be excluded from the benefits of using those systems.

It is really pretty simple. Like the lottery, you gotta pay to play.

[Imagix]

If we do win, can we gift the winnings to someone else? (I already have Ultimate licences for both Classic and Unity, as well as the D&D Essentials bundle....)

[esmdev]

If we do win, can we gift the winnings to someone else? (I already have Ultimate licences for both Classic and Unity, as well as the D&D Essentials bundle....)

I would assume that you can gift them if you get them. I don't know for sure, hopefully someone from SmiteWorks will drop in with a yes or no.

[damned]

I have seen a previous winner gift their prize.

[benrayburn]

Yeah, I only actually use social media to enter and gamble (https://mukcheck.com/) on sweepstakes. Like liking an FB page or following a person on instagram or twitter.

[arkanis]

I feel your pain man. Marketing people always take for granted that everybody is connected to some sh1te and if not, they have to else be considered second-class citizens.
Not a single one of them puts any value for privacy, I'm afraid

[similarly]

To be fair, marketing is all about spreading the word quickly. Social media is a great way to reach many people very quickly. Instead of a chain of contact (I contact my friend, they contact their friend), you have a net of contact (I contact all of my friends, who contact all of their friends) and you have an extremely rapid exponential growth of communication.

It would be foolish for a marketing team not to take advantage of it.

[damned]

I feel your pain man. Marketing people always take for granted that everybody is connected to some sh1te and if not, they have to else be considered second-class citizens.
Not a single one of them puts any value for privacy, I'm afraid

we're not second class - we just arent useful to them in this particular endeavor

[arkanis]

To be fair, marketing is all about spreading the word quickly. Social media is a great way to reach many people very quickly. Instead of a chain of contact (I contact my friend, they contact their friend), you have a net of contact (I contact all of my friends, who contact all of their friends) and you have an extremely rapid exponential growth of communication.

It would be foolish for a marketing team not to take advantage of it.

There's nothing in the laws of marketing that says it has to be "Either/or". It just plain lazinesss.

[similarly]

There's nothing in the laws of marketing that says it has to be "Either/or". It just plain lazinesss.
What do you recommend FG's marketing team do? Allow everyone to participate in the sweepstakes whether they use social media or not? Nice for everybody who gets a chance to win, but that doesn't meet FG's goal of getting social media recognition.

Basically, it's a lottery. The price of the ticket is crowd-marketing. The point of a lottery isn't to give away money: it's to raise money through ticket sales. Likewise, the point of the sweepstakes isn't to give away free copies of FG. It's to get people to use their connections to bring more people to FG and get more sales for the company. Allowing people to enter the sweepstakes without furthering the ultimate goal of that sweepstakes takes away the whole point.

[arkanis]

What do you recommend FG's marketing team do? Allow everyone to participate in the sweepstakes whether they use social media or not? Nice for everybody who gets a chance to win, but that doesn't meet FG's goal of getting social media recognition.

Why so? Opening it for the rest of the community breaks facebook or twitter or somethiing like that? Why do you think it has to be BINARY?
I'm part of the community, you know? Why do I have to be excluded for you to be happy?
If feels the same way as with Communications providers, they don't care for you until you are on your way out.
And they basically do the same, trading your so-called "marketing success" at the cost of a PR blunder of having people like me upset

[similarly]

I'm sorry you feel that way, and further sorry that I'm not making my point clearly.

[LordEntrails]

Try and think of it this way, what is the benefit to SmiteWorks running this sweepstakes?

The benefit & purpose of this sweepstakes is to increase FG's user base, to increase brand recognition, and to increase sales.

How do they achieve this? One way is to use social media, that tracks impressions and link referrals, to have the user base spread the word about FG. This basically replies upon those who enter the sweepestakes doing so by creating their own little commercial. Each Tweet/post/etc is a small commercial from a trusted source (the user) to a small audience (their social links). I think that's pretty obvious so I will leave it there, but ask if anyone doesn't get what I'm trying to say.

Allowing someone to enter the sweepstakes without that person advertising for FG does not bring any benefit to SW. It simple dilutes the pool of participants from those who advertise for FG, with those people who already recognize FG but aren't going to advertise or spread brand recognition.

All that said, to enter the sweepstakes has a cost (like with most such 'giveaways'). That cost is a social media account and making your own 'commercial' for FG.

If the ability to enter sweepstakes like this, then you can create a social media account AND not give up any privacy. If you take appropriate measures, and only use social media in conscientious ways, you can completely maintain your online privacy. i.e. don't give the application default permissions, and don't use it like a teenager :)

[arkanis]

Try and think of it this way, what is the benefit to SmiteWorks running this sweepstakes?
If the ability to enter sweepstakes like this, then you can create a social media account AND not give up any privacy. If you take appropriate measures, and only use social media in conscientious ways, you can completely maintain your online privacy.

Forget that notion, that's not possible, but more importantly, my bussiness is with Smiteworks, I shouldn't be forced to give up my privacy to a third party to take part on some promotional action.
I understand perfectly the motivation, you launch a campaign in the social an let the work do itself. Sorry, but it doesn't take much to allow the forum users to participate, anything else is simply laziness.

P.S. I care nothing about the sweepstakes, i already own everything. It's the feeling of being part of the community and absurdily being excluded for not using some questionable 3rd party social media thing

[Trenloe]

It's not a free giveaway with everyone out there standing a chance to win. As has been said many times in this thread, the reward for posting about FG on social media is to be entered into the sweapstake.

It's got nothing to do with excluding people from the community or being lazy - it's a specific marketing campaign and the carrot to get people to participate is to get entry into the sweapstakes. If you don't want to satisfy the entry requirements then you're not in the draw. Choose to participate, or don't - your choice.

I'm closing this thread now, it's run its course. If anyone is truly aggrieved, and don't follow reasoning presented in this thread, then please email [email protected] and air your concerns directly with SmiteWorks.