Chris Banyas
Staff Writer
Students at Idaho State University will have a unique opportunity to win prizes by interacting with the school’s social media platforms through a contest called Ultimate Bengal.
Beginning Jan. 14, and ending April 25, students will have the chance each day to earn entries into a giant drawing by visiting ISU’s Facebook page and interacting with ISU over social media.
“Ultimate Bengal is a challenge for students and family of Idaho State University and essentially we have a huge prize that we’re awarding,” said Teresa Borrenpohl, development officer for the college of education. “It’s a year of in-state tuition, a year of housing, a meal plan, a parking pass, an I-Pad, head to toe ISU swag and $1,000 to the bookstore.”
Entry into the contest is not limited to current ISU students.
“Idaho State University is a global university,” said Stuart Summers, director of marketing and recruitment for the ISU College of Technology. “We have alumni that are all over the world and so the exciting thing about this is any of those alumni, what we call the ISU family, they can enter the competition and give their award winning entry to someone else.”
The idea for the contest came out of meetings between the ISU Social Media Committee, which meets on a bi-monthly basis, and includes many groups from across campus.
“The biggest thing that ISU needs to do, is we need to have some sort of a campaign promotion that is so big and so expansive that you can’t look away from it, that you have to enter it,” said Summers.
An overwhelming majority of seniors in high school using Facebook also led to the contest.
“96 percent of high school seniors are on Facebook. That’s a huge number. We assume that when they come into college that those numbers stick,” said Borrenpohl. “We also know that 76 percent of high school seniors looked at Facebook at some point during their college decision making process.”
The contest was funded in large part by contributions from entities already present on campus.
“There’s no exchange of money or cost associated with it,” said Summers. “Housing stepped up and said, ‘we realize this is so important and so revolutionary and it’s a great way for us to show off housing, so we want to give a year of housing.’ And Chartwells said the same thing.”
Many of these entities will be doing special promotions during the course of the contest.
“It’s great to see the university giving back to the student body,” said Cole Morrison, a junior in the biology department. “However, I don’t believe that Facebook alone should be the only major venue for participating in the contest.”
While Facebook is the first step in the process, it is not the only way to accumulate entries into the grand prize drawing.
Once the Facebook page is liked, participants will then be prompted to follow ISU on Twitter and Instagram, among other options. The more ways that you connect with ISU, the more entries you receive.
For all things Ultimate Bengal related visit ultimatebengal.com.
