George Silverman, Duct Tape Marketing blog reader and author of the fabulous book The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, pointed out a word of mouth marketing trend in response to my post earlier today on contests.

He explains what he calls a Consumer Generated Contest (But, I’ve named it Social Contesting – since, even George claims that consumer generated contest isn’t very sexy – so, you heard Social Contesting here first!) Social Contesting is when a customer creates their own contest using your product or service or involving some way to make your product or service more useful or to help solve a greater problem. These contests take on a life of their own when the social media of blogs, rss and search are applied. Think of the implications of a contest that involved YouTube, Flikr or Digg. This is a really interesting idea.

From Silverman’s Blog:

“It’s a “Consumer Generated Contest.” CGC (You heard it here first – I”m looking for a better name). Its implications can be HUGE. A customer has stepped up and put up $100 into a PayPal account, inviting others to join in and contribute. Within a few weeks, it climbed to over $12,000, and got worldwide coverage in the blogs and technology press. Also, someone stands to make a lot of money from marketing the solution itself. As I’ve written before, it would cause sales of Macs to multiply.”