The past two weeks have been a huge lesson in how you can use social media to do awesome stuff.
This all started when I got a call from my sister, saying that she scored us both tickets to the opening gala for the Toronto International Film Festival. A splash of makeup and a cab ride later, we found ourselves indulging in film inspired cocktails and Stella at the Liberty Grand.
I had heard that SKYY vodka was running a contest, where they were encouraging people to post photos and VIP “tips” to Twitter tagged with #SKYYVIP. I took this shot at the party, and decided to throw on the hashtag when I posted it on my Twitter account.
The next day, I was caught up in a subway delay on my way to see some TIFF films, when I got a call from SKYY and Tribute.ca saying that I’d won their contest for the day. My prize? Tickets to the Artists for Peace and Justice fundraiser, hosted by Paul Briggs and James Franco, and a driver to chauffeur us there and back.
Thus began a week of social media inspired party-ing. I later won tickets to a Virgin Mobile TIFF party, which was an opening celebration for the film Janie Jones with performances by Patrick Watson and Abigail Breslin. I finally met the guys behind the Virgin Twitter account, and we had some good chats about their approach to social media (and some of the challenges they’ve had). We ended up getting interviewed on the “black carpet” by the folks at Virgin.
Flash forward a few days, and it was already the end. Saturday night, we went to see Black Swan, which totally blew my mind. I’ve never had a movie-going experience quite like it, and the energy in the audience was infectious. I headed down to Roy Thomson Hall afterwards to take in the closing party for TIFF, where I met some of the folks behind the scenes at the festival and got to chat with the directors of a few of the shorts. Throw in a photobooth, and it was a great party.
And now it’s back to real life. It’s nice to be in the city, where I can immerse myself a bit more into the social media world and connect with people/brands. The fantastic thing about both the contests I won? These companies were tuned into an audience that was likely to tweet from inside their exclusive events, so we both gained from it. I got tickets, and they got coverage online.
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