Snapio.com Uses Universal Language for Contest

The challenge of social networking sites is that eventually the popular destination devolves into a "me, too" proposition. Businesses quickly realize that social sites such as Facebook are free and consume very little time, in contrast to most marketing initiatives. So they climb aboard the bandwagon en masse.

Having a fan page on Facebook is fun and innocuous, but once everyone joins the fray, it will become fairly pointless and soon abandoned. Once everyone starts to horn in on the once-secret fishing spot, as any angler knows, it's time to either go home or switch to a new bait.

Snapio.com did not arrive at the lake earlier than anyone else, perhaps even later than many. But the B2B online printing brainchild of South Jersey native Carl Norton (also known as the chairman and CEO of Houston-based Nationwide Graphics) is using multiple platforms to engage customers, as well as a consensus-building color—green (a.k.a. money)—to provoke creativity, a few laughs and hopefully foster some added business. Norton understands that if you bait a hook properly, it doesn't matter how many lines are already in the drink.

The Snapio500 contest is fairly simple. Create a 60-second (or less) video on why you "dig" Snapio—which provides general commercial printing such as business cards, postcards, stationery, greeting and holiday cards—then post it on the company's YouTube channel (Snapio500). A panel of judges will select the top five entries, and the finalists' videos will be posted on Snapio's home page as well as its Facebook page. For one month, the videos will be weighed on a combination of "likes, comments and views." The winner gets a crisp $500 bill. (Yes, I know, but it sounds better than a set of five Ben Franklins.)

"The Snapio500 contest was created to generate awareness of Snapio.com and its full product offering by having our audience create original, entertaining videos," notes Ryan Burton, marketing specialist at Nationwide Graphics. "We at Snapio thought it'd be great to have a friendly competition whereby people could showcase their creativity in a fresh, new way."