Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

In order for me to put this into perspective for you all, you'll need to understand two things:

1. We only rarely add a social media component to any of our contests. It certainly isn't a new direction or the norm for us. I believe this is our second contest ever to use it.
2. Our use of social media is not as a means to collect personal information but to reach out to the gaming community and draw traffic.

We appreciate the support of our premium members, and we offer an advertising- and gold-ad-free experience as a thank you for that support. However, as much as we wish it did, our sales of premium memberships don't pay this network's bills--advertising does. And in order to secure advertising contracts any website needs traffic and lots of it. The viral nature of social media drives traffic, but you have to have critical mass (which is to say, lots of fans/followers) for it to be effective. In order to get fans/followers, you need to give them some incentive. Enter a social media-oriented giveaway like this one.

So, social media for us isn't about processing anyone's information or making you jump through hoops, it's about outreach. Sure, we get metrics (we can see how many fans we have in North America versus Europe, for instance), but they're collective and not personal, and they help us target our audience.

The bottom line is this: we want to keep you informed and let you know when we've published content you'll be interested in. Social media is a great way to to do that. If you don't like to use it, we'll surely have future giveaways that don't require any social media interaction. It just happens that this one does.