Last year our clients all wanted a Facebook Sweepstakes app, the year before it was YouTube video contest. This year, our clients have a whole new slew of requests for what they want to do or have in their promotion. Here is the list of what clients asked for the most in 2013:

1. Instagram and Pinterest – This was the year of the brand on Instagram and Pinterest. As each brand rolled out their social presence on these two platforms, their next question was how do we get people to interact with us? And the answer was inevitably a promotion. MK worked out best practices for Pinterest and Instagram, and then helped clients to identify a promotion, including collecting entries and confirming winners.

2. The UGC Contest – clients want more content! Photos, essays, videos – they want it all to use on their social sites or for their other campaigns. And a contest or qualified entry sweeps is the path many of our clients took this year to get it.

3. The Hashtag Sweepstakes – hashtags were in big demand this year. Clients ran sweepstakes on Instagram, Twitter and Vine (with Marden-Kane pulling entries via the platform API) with the hashtag of their choice.

4. Facebook Timeline Promotions – with the Facebook promotion guideline changes, our clients immediately wanted to capitalize on the ease of running timeline promotions. MK developed quick rules templates and a tool to collect and moderate entries for our clients.

5. iPads (aka Tablets) – iPads were the number one requested prize giveaway for 2013. Unfortunately, Apple has very specific rules when it comes to using the iPad name in conjunction with prizing, so many promotions touted a “Tablet” as a prize instead to comply with Apple’s guidelines.

6. Responsive Design – Marden-Kane’s interactive department made responsive design a standard for all MK built promotions. Clients wanted the best experience for all customers no matter what device they were using – PC, tablet, or mobile – and Marden-Kane developers responded by developing scalable sites.

7. Electronic Gift Cards –  2013 was the year of the electronic gift card, with more than half of all lower level prizes being awarded using this method via custom emails we sent on behalf of our clients.

8. Data Security – In 2013 we saw more requests from clients for security audits and file encryption standards. Marden-Kane has had an intense security and privacy policy in place for years, and we have followed PCI standards since their introduction, so we were happy to see many of our clients step up their data requirements.

9. Privacy – With the increase in privacy awareness and enforcement of standards in the past few years, this seemed to be a hot button for most clients this year.  Marden-Kane is Safe Harbor and TrustE certified, and we worked with every client to ensure that every single promotion we worked on this year had a clear and conspicuous privacy policy attached to it.

10. Other Emerging Social Platforms – the big question this year is: what’s next? MK worked with companies to identify the right social platform for their brand (Pheed, Snapchat, Tumblr, Spotify, Vine, etc.), and then to develop ideas for that platform.

We can’t wait to see what 2014 will bring – and how we can help our clients make it happen.