Not really. That's a great headline though! Looks like it got you here. :-)
But I am pouting a little bit. So, what's all this fuss I keep hearing about my latest article being discarded on Sphinn? I just got an email from a Sphinn mod (mods[at]sphinn[dot]com) telling me my latest article was pulled because "it violates the guidelines about giveaways."
SUBJECT: "Submission Discarded"
Body: "Hello -
Your submission at Sphinn:
YouTube Video Giveaway Case Study - Giving Away $100,000 For A Video
was discarded by a moderator for the following reason:
Submission pulled because it violates the guidelines about giveaways.
Sincerely,
The Sphinn Moderation Staff"
To be sure, it was a lovely email. But the article in question (directly below this one in fact) is a "How To" about running giveaways on YouTube. It talks about our methods and what our expectations are for the $100,000 YouTube giveaway. It actually mentions two separate contests we are running on YouTube and how they differ.
The article is here: "How To: Extreme Video Marketing! $100,000.00 YouTube Video Giveaway Case Study" - http://blog.gallucci.net/2009/10/extreme-video-marketing-10000000-youtube-video-giveaway.html
I just sent a response to the mod email list (don't know who actually pulled the article) asking the following:
"Can you please pull the text from your guidelines and show me what rule I violated?
http://sphinn.com/guidelines/
I'm not seeing it...."
If you search for "giveaway" on the Sphinn.com site you get zero results. If you search Sphinn.com for "giveaways" you get two results.
The two results you get are from submissions, not a guideline from the Sphinn administrators.
I'm whining about this because it went to number 1 on the homepage of the site (Sphinn). I'm assuming it was the title I used on the Sphinn submission, but if the mod even read the description of the submission they could have seen it was referring to a case study. Not sure what's going on with this one. Trigger finger maybe? If not, does that mean we can't even talk about giveaways in the context that as marketers we are using them and would like to spread around the knowledge about how we execute our campaigns?
If anyone here can point me in the right direction I'd be appreciative. As soon as I hear from someone at Sphinn, I'll post the response here.
UPDATE: Danny Sullivan sent me a response pointing out this line in the Sphinn Guidelines - “Sphinn does not allow posts promoting competitions, or submissions made as part of a contest.”
I wasn't really "promoting" the contest, but I see the very murky area they are looking at. I just responded with "Well, I'm officially pouting. I hope you're able to sleep tonight!"
The little Miss Emily Litella in me responded with "Oh, well, well that's very different. Never mind. ..."
:-D
