I usually abhor any kind of Facebook contest. While I have zero issue with the companies that run them, as I know they are trying to get their fans to promote their products, after participating in my first one ever, I’m a bit disappointed in the process.

First, a bit of background: PopChips offered $50k for one “VP of Pop Culture” to attend a few geek/music events throughout the year and write about them. The winner would also hang out with media-proclaimed Twitter king Ashton Kutcher, as well as a bunch of other celebrities. Cool gig for anyone with some writing skills and an appreciation of pop culture. At the suggestion of local PopChips rep Monica Picard, and because it seemed like fun, I entered my video and asked people to vote for me.

After almost two weeks of annoying my friends trolling for votes campaigning, voting ended yesterday. My total was nearly 250 votes, which is about 245 more than I thought I’d get. Voters DID receive $1 off a bag of PopChips, so voting did help them a bit.

Then I saw the winners.

-Jesse Csincask – Winner of Bachelorette #4, professional snowboarder.
-Simon Rex – ex-MTV VJ, kinda rapper
-Dave Peck – PARC strategist with 48k Twitter followers

In all, nearly 250 people entered, but let’s face it, most of us didn’t stand a chance. In fact, I bet 225 people had absolutely zero chance to win. The winners had nearly 10k votes each. While the odds were better than buying a lottery ticket, they weren’t better by much.

So what was in it for me? I DO get a case of PopChips (which are very good) and the satisfaction that I can say I tried. But to be honest, I don’t see myself entering in this type of contest ever again. They’re good for the company, bad for anyone not already semi famous.

But they sure are good PR.