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I worked at a small company for a short period of time where we would run a "contest" on social media, but then our social media guy would just comb through the

I worked at a small company for a short period of time where we would run a "contest" on social media, but then our social media guy would just comb through the entries and find someone attractive, in the right demo, and very active on social media and just give them the prize as a way to generate more social media buzz.

llampx 6y ago
That's pretty much how I figured most small contests are done.
alexpotato 6y ago
Back when the mafia used to have their own lottery (aka "the numbers"), there were two ways to pick the winning number (usually between 1 and 100). Option 1: Use the last two digits of some commonly available public number that was, essentially, random or at least unpredictable and not controllable. A good example today would be the cents portion of the SP500 index. Options 2: Tally up which of the numbers had the least amount of money bet on it and then make that the number. You can guess which of the two options the more nefarious organizations used. Interesting related note: back in the first half of the 20th century, there used to be a game in the newspapers where you were presented with a grid of faces, each one being numbered. The goal was to pick the face that you though OTHER people would pick most often. In other words, if you picked the most popular face, you would win. This led to lots of "well which face do I think other people will think is most popular etc" John Maynard Keynes used the game above as a proxy for the stock market with stocks being the faces e.g. you were trying to pick the stock you thought that everyone else would buy.
- frenchy 6y ago
  > Tally up which of the numbers had the least amount of money bet on it and then make that the number. I mean, pretending that it's random is fraud, but if you were honest about the affair, that would actually make for a mildly interesting game.
  - thisisnico 6y ago
    I'm almost certain the Mafia does not care about committing fraud.
    - monknomo 6y ago
      I think the numbers runners need community trust though, so it has to be the right kind of fraud
- im3w1l 6y ago
  That's spot on for the crypto currency market.
- andi999 6y ago
  The case you describe doesn't lead to this chain thinking. You just choose the most attractive. But if the game were that you need to pick others consider the least popular....
TeMPOraL 6y ago
I worked next desk to a bunch of social media marketers, and then dealt with some individual social media marketers later on. My entire experience makes me immediately distrust anything such a person says. The only thing you can trust is that they'll do the thing that creates most engagement.
nucleardog 6y ago
In a past life I worked at a marketing agency. When we'd run random drawings, I'd (properly) randomly select and provide a winner. It happened more than once that the marketing side would come back and ask for a new winner because of a situation like us doing a drawing for a prize from an ISP, and the winner's email being "@competitorisp.net". As far as I know (and I've got a reasonable basis for this), the clients never requested this or anything. It was purely our marketing guys not liking the optics of telling the client that a competitor's customer won. And yeah, for some giveaways and stuff they'd take a list of people and trawl through their social media accounts to figure out who'd have the most impact. Again, don't think the clients had requested this, it just made the job we're doing look better to show the client "Yeah this person won and look at all the social media buzz it created!" rather than "Yeah we gave it to someone that looks like a troll, has no media presence, and the only people that will probably hear about this are a few people in an IRC chatroom." If it's not regulated (or small enough that the regulators won't notice), I'd assume any contest/etc like this is probably rigged. Marketing is, generally, an industry full of lies. The contests are no different.

llampx 6y ago

That's pretty much how I figured most small contests are done.

alexpotato 6y ago

Back when the mafia used to have their own lottery (aka "the numbers"), there were two ways to pick the winning number (usually between 1 and 100). Option 1: Use the last two digits of some commonly available public number that was, essentially, random or at least unpredictable and not controllable. A good example today would be the cents portion of the SP500 index. Options 2: Tally up which of the numbers had the least amount of money bet on it and then make that the number. You can guess which of the two options the more nefarious organizations used. Interesting related note: back in the first half of the 20th century, there used to be a game in the newspapers where you were presented with a grid of faces, each one being numbered. The goal was to pick the face that you though OTHER people would pick most often. In other words, if you picked the most popular face, you would win. This led to lots of "well which face do I think other people will think is most popular etc" John Maynard Keynes used the game above as a proxy for the stock market with stocks being the faces e.g. you were trying to pick the stock you thought that everyone else would buy.

frenchy 6y ago
> Tally up which of the numbers had the least amount of money bet on it and then make that the number. I mean, pretending that it's random is fraud, but if you were honest about the affair, that would actually make for a mildly interesting game.
- thisisnico 6y ago
  I'm almost certain the Mafia does not care about committing fraud.
  - monknomo 6y ago
    I think the numbers runners need community trust though, so it has to be the right kind of fraud
im3w1l 6y ago
That's spot on for the crypto currency market.
andi999 6y ago
The case you describe doesn't lead to this chain thinking. You just choose the most attractive. But if the game were that you need to pick others consider the least popular....

TeMPOraL 6y ago

I worked next desk to a bunch of social media marketers, and then dealt with some individual social media marketers later on. My entire experience makes me immediately distrust anything such a person says. The only thing you can trust is that they'll do the thing that creates most engagement.

nucleardog 6y ago

In a past life I worked at a marketing agency. When we'd run random drawings, I'd (properly) randomly select and provide a winner. It happened more than once that the marketing side would come back and ask for a new winner because of a situation like us doing a drawing for a prize from an ISP, and the winner's email being "@competitorisp.net". As far as I know (and I've got a reasonable basis for this), the clients never requested this or anything. It was purely our marketing guys not liking the optics of telling the client that a competitor's customer won. And yeah, for some giveaways and stuff they'd take a list of people and trawl through their social media accounts to figure out who'd have the most impact. Again, don't think the clients had requested this, it just made the job we're doing look better to show the client "Yeah this person won and look at all the social media buzz it created!" rather than "Yeah we gave it to someone that looks like a troll, has no media presence, and the only people that will probably hear about this are a few people in an IRC chatroom." If it's not regulated (or small enough that the regulators won't notice), I'd assume any contest/etc like this is probably rigged. Marketing is, generally, an industry full of lies. The contests are no different.