'BtoB's' Social Media Marketing Awards: Aon, CenturyLink grab People's Choice honors

San Francisco—Aon Corp. and CenturyLink Business were social media marketing headliners at BtoB's third annual Social Media Marketing Awards, held here March 20 as part of the BtoB Digital Edge Live conference. Both topped their categories in People's Choice Awards balloting as the top b2b social media marketing programs of the year, joining a lineup of award winners in a variety of social media segments.

Aon took honors in the non-tech company category for its “Pass It On” program. Its mandate—to find a way to share knowledge and create a sense of common purpose that transcended geographic and cultural boundaries—led to a contest challenging employee teams in three regions to compete on their knowledge, creativity and teamwork, then share the best results with customers and prospects.

Teams earned points for such actions as answering a daily question, uploading Aon-related videos and photos, and sharing details of local events with a scoreboard, AonPassItOn.com, keeping track of their progress.

Uptake has been high, with more than 400,000 questions answered in the first three months. Engagement with external audiences is also up dramatically on Facebook, Twitter and the host website.

CenturyLink Business won its People's Choice award in the tech company category for its “Ultimate Problem Solver” program. Knowing that its technology-oriented customers enjoy challenges and puzzles, the company created an interactive, 50-stage trivia game that rewarded players who worked through a series of increasingly challenging clues.

UltimateProblemSolver.com presented players with puzzles they must solve to unlock passwords that lead them to the next level in the game. Some answers involve Web research or digging through CenturyLink marketing material. Players were encouraged to interact and share their experiences.

Over an eight-month period, almost 90,000 people played the game and 46,000 registered on the site, giving CenturyLink a valuable well of leads. About 17,000 players answered all 50 questions.

Other People's Choice finalists included Corning Inc. for its “A Day Made of Glass” social campaign; Hobart Corp., for “Get Back to Scratch”; IBM, for “Information on Demand”; and Ultimate Software, for “LinkedIn Engagement Initiative.”

Visit BtoBonline.com for a full listing of the companies honored during BtoB's Social Media Marketing Awards.