Method and system for providing online promotions through a social network-based platform

Abstract

Systems and methods for providing online promotions integrated with social network-based platforms are disclosed. Promotion details such as rules, offered prizes, incentives and descriptions, survey questions, display banners, terms and conditions, privacy policy, and social networks to integrate the promotion with, are provided by the sponsoring organization to a server. The server generates a custom promotion application and/or widget for integrating with the organization's social network webpage and/or webpages external to social networks. A participant enters the promotion through these webpages or other links and lists friends in the social network to receive an invitation to enter the promotion. Viral features are used to deliver messages to members of the one or more social network-based platforms so as to further spread the word about the organization's promotion.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
 receiving first information about a promotion, the first information including information describing details for promotion parameters and content for inclusion in an interface element that is to be displayed in association with the promotion;   providing the interface element including promotion content to a first user;   receiving an indication from the user to enroll in the promotion;   presenting the user with an opportunity to share the promotion with other users; and   upon receipt of confirmation from the user, identifying second information associated with the promotion including information that indicates that the user has entered the promotion and disseminating the second information to one or more different users connected to the user.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein disseminating the second information advertises the promotion. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the second information includes information about an organization associated with the promotion. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the second information includes information about a good or service associated with the promotion or the organization. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein providing the user interface element includes providing a control to facilitate actively interacting with the promotion to enter the promotion including receiving promotion entry data, and further wherein promotion entry data includes one or more of: name, email address, address, city, state, zip code, country of residence, birth date, gender, survey responses, or selected friends to be invited to join the promotion. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein disseminating includes disseminating the second information using one or more viral features of a social network that is associated with the user and wherein the viral features include at least one of a group consisting of: friend invite features, newsfeeds, minifeeds, other features that display online activities of users and people in the users' social network, notifications, requests, other social network-based platform features to deliver messages to members of the one or more social network-based platforms, or an indication of a user's selected applications on the user's social network profile page. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the first information includes one or more of: rules of the promotion, requirements for entering the promotion, offered prizes, discounts, other incentives for entering the promotion, promotion start and end dates and times, terms and conditions, a privacy policy, one or more social network-based platforms to integrate the promotion with, or banners. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the promotion permits the participant to upload participant-generated content, and the participant-generated content is integrated with the second information. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising providing software for establishing an entry point to the promotion, wherein the entry point is external to one or more social network-based platforms associate with the user. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9  wherein the software comprises software code that displays a widget or one or more interactive webpages for interacting with the promotion. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10  wherein the entry point is a banner or link to the one or more interactive webpages. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 10  wherein the widget or the one or more interactive webpages integrates the promotion with the one or more viral features of a social network-based platform associated with the user and accesses data contained in the participant's social network-based platform profile. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12  wherein the widget or the one or more interactive webpages does not require the participant to migrate away from the widget or the one or more interactive webpages to enroll in the promotion. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising accessing personal data contained in a participant's social network-based platform profile to pre-populate a promotion entry form or create other methods to simplify interactions with the promotion. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising using a participant's social network based-platform profile data to suggest other promotions related to the participant's profile data. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising using a participant's social network-based platform friends list to provide the participant with information about the participant's social network friends' interactions with the promotion and other promotions. 
     
     
         17 . A tangible computer-readable medium storing processing instructions for implementing an operation performed by a computer, the operation comprising:
 receiving first information about a promotion, the first information including information describing details for promotion parameters and content for inclusion in an interface element that is to be displayed in association with the promotion;   providing the interface element including promotion content to a first user;   receiving an indication from the user to enroll in the promotion;   presenting the user with an opportunity to share the promotion with other users; and   upon receipt of confirmation from the user, identifying second information associated with the promotion including information that indicates that the user has entered the promotion and disseminating the second information to one or more different users connected to the user.   
     
     
         18 . A system for running a promotion integrated with one or more social network-based platforms, comprising:
 a communications module configured to receive first information about a promotion, the first information including information describing details for promotion parameters and content for inclusion in an interface element that is to be displayed in association with the promotion; and   a promotion generation module configured to generate a promotion application responsive to the first information, provide the interface element including promotion content to a first user, receive an indication from the user to enroll in the promotion, present the user with an opportunity to share the promotion with other users associated with the user and, upon receipt of confirmation from the user, identifying second information associated with the promotion including information that indicates that the user has entered the promotion and disseminate the second information to other users associated with the user.