Can I be penalized for offering incentives for links and social followers?

[dfeemster]

A competitor of mine is using contest/loyalty software like ContestBurner or PunchTab to generate social followers and links.  This has been very successful, and over the past several months his rankings have improved.

Does anyone know if Google is "OK" with this type of program?  I'm trying to decide if I should start one myself.

[JohnW-UK]

ContentBurner looks dodgy as hell!!! - Punchtab looks ok.... Social and likes are becoming more and more important - at this stage I'm not sure if Google has a way of tracking "fake" or "forced" social followers/likes. The whole point of a social campaign is to generate interest it is better to have 100 engaged followers than 10000 followers who ignore your brand. Look at paddypower or dawsons music as they have successful social campaigns.

[GeorgeAndrews]

If Penguin has taught us anything it's that low-quality links will hurt you. So whatever you do, I suggest being very careful. If you think you might be getting low-quality links or shares, don't do it because it's not worth it in the long run. Also, Facebook has recently begun purging fake "likes" and Twitter often purges fake followers. I'm not saying "don't experiment" if that is something you are wanting to do and you are willing to accept the risks, but I am saying you should stick to quality versus quantity.

Maybe it's time to run your own contests.

[Chenzo]

Link bait is always one of the most challenging yet very rewarding task.

I do agree with George below though -

Try implementing your own contest - if you need help with any ideas let me know.

your pal

Chenzo

[TheeDigital]

I would think that the links have more value than the likes, as Google still isn't able to truly crawl Facebook.  Like George said, I'd hold off from following any of these quick get rich schemes as they might hurt your website in the log term.I would instead say you should engage your audience and get them to comment on your posts and talk back to you more.  Having a more engaged audience will have more benefits over a bunch of quiet followers long term.