While Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the popular interactive communication channels, they are not the only kids in town. An online contest to spread the word about your product or service is an incredibly effective tool when it comes to social media marketing and is significant part of any serious advertising toolkit.

Join your online competitions with attention-drawing prizes, using these broadcast giants through word of mouth techniques, and you are achieving phenomenal viral effect.

The term Viral in techno lingo is real, with technology wiring our planet to create a virtual community, a global village where everyone is talking to everyone through computer world, making contacts at dizzying speeds.

Global Friendship is now spreading through smart phones, ipods, ipads, xbox and laptops, using social media writing on walls, tweets, retweets and linking the world over and over. A world where a billion friends are the target, and millions of followers and friends are possible.

This virus is a global pandemic of vast proportions, and word of mouth is an unrestrainable virus that touches off an invisible yet uncontrollable flurry of activity that switches over into colossal purchasing power.

An excellent tactic of using social media in promoting your contests to win prizes is a wicket marketing approach, and needs to be in each and every promotion campaign.

Online Interactive Contests that ask participation from contestants create an extraordinary viral powerhouse.

Research shows that half of all of users on-line participate in an online sweepstake at a minimum of once a month, while 80% of users participate at least once a year in a contest online.

Online Contests and Online Sweepstakes are pretty comparable. The only distinction is contests are give-and-take and sweepstakes are not interactive, and winners chosen at random

Your objective is to use social media marketing to advertise your contest or sweepstakes and announce through each contestant referring a friend. Your secondary goal must comprise collecting contacts, and following your site visits by informing each competitor the value of your product and service.

Contest Forms must be kept simple, therefore asking for an email address maintains it extremely easy for each contestant. One of the simplest entry forms can be seen here at itellafriend.com

It is good to only require more contact information from winners, to be able to deliver their rewards to them.

The focus of your contest must be created for participants to visit again and again to your website, and consequently increase your visibility for your product and service.

Recognize that forcing your visitors to buy something so they can participate is not a good practice. Plus you cannot incentivize the contest in any way.

You Need as many participants in your contest, so it is a good idea to project extra marketing and promotion so you bring the maximum number of contestants into your contest to win awards online.

Utilize social media such as LinkedIn or Twitter to have your participants spread the word, and use viral email advertising through opt-in lists to invite a friend. Also use ads on similar web pages to appeal to more contest interaction.

Use a Facebook page to announce to their friends about your contest too. Write a couple of lines to encourage people into promoting it on your behalf by inviting people they know.

It is best to refrain from cash sweepstakes, online sweepstakes, sweepstakes and giveaways online sweepstakes, giveaways, sweepstakes and cash sweepstakes giveaways, cash sweepstakes, online sweepstakes and sweepstakes and implement some interactivity in your online contest where participants are active.

Give your contestants several incentives to return to your websites time after time, where they run for awards and participate to win. This online contest at itellafriend is an prime example of blending an interactive contest with social media.

An internet sweepstake to win prizes is too passive and does not challenge your participant to compete with each other. But a contest to tell a friend and compete with that friend to win a prize is preferable in your choice to put in effect sweepstakes and contests on your website.

After the contest and sweepstake, after the winner is picked, an excellent move for you is to invite all the contestants to opt-in for future contests. In this way you can use your contest list time after time.

The entire notion behind this is to build up customers. In most cases show appreciation, be friendly, win them over as pals.