Thanks for getting #influenceSD off to such a stellar start. From one tweet sent on Saturday, we spawned nearly 500 mentions of our hashtag, 1,000's of Unique Visitors overnight, and quality submissions to San Diego's first social media awards. It was great to see all of the leaders in San Diego support our community by rallying behind this new idea for local recognition.  

Now that we are off and running, I will offer a few points of clarity for everyone. I've been asked how often can one vote? The rules for voting state that you can vote one time per IP Address for the life of the contest. Yes, we know this isn't a perfect system, but it is working. One of the primary reasons we've built in the judging component was because we did not want to turn the contest into a battle of who could spam and break the rules. I suggest you focus on driving your nomination in the top five by keeping pace with the leaders in your category. The final judging round with the extra layer of editorial review and care will and ensure an inarguable and uncontested award winners. We believe the system will procure the best candidates and the influencers will rise to the top without games or shameless self promotion.

An event like this doesn't come together without effort or a little cash. And frankly, we are creating some really amazing advertising opportunities for businesses who want to get their name out there to early adopters. When we close the open voting, we will publish the top 5 finalists for each category. In addition to the 5, we will be accepting one sponsor per category. Sponsors will have an opportunity for the award to be presented to the winner on behalf of their brand. In addition to creating highly localized and contextual advertising opportunities, we also are giving sponsors a special tabletop to present and display their wares at the event. If you are interested in learning more about his opportunities, please contact matt[@]brownemedia.com for a media kit.

Finally, I just want to say THANK YOU on behalf of myself, Gary, Chris and Mel. We love our San Diego community and we are so happy you've embraced this idea to come together and recognize our all stars. 

And lastly, we've got a few tricks up our sleeve to generate buzz and create a very memorable evening on April 7th. Make sure you save the date as tickets will be going on sale for nominees only on March 1st. We will make tickets available to the general public one week later on March 8th. You'll want to be sure to you grab your seat to what we know will be a very special evening before the event sells out. 

If you haven't dropped a nominee badge on your blog, there's some pretty cool widgets available. Stay tuned; as there is much more to come next week!

Matt Browne