On June 1, The Business Journals kicked off Social Madness, a social media event which pits brands against each other in an NCAA-style tournament bracket to measure the growth of a company’s social presence.

The contest will be sponsored across 43 cities, with participants judged on the number of connections they make on well-known social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as the amount of votes they receive on their Business Journals Social Madness pages.

Companies involved range from large brands like General Mills and Target to small businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Consumers have the opportunity to vote for their favorite businesses on their social media pages to help them advance to the next round.

This event is a good way for brands to increase engagement with followers and potential followers—emphasizing the importance of how social media campaigns can help extend a brand’s reach.

“Social media marketing has become a must-have tool in the marketing communications toolbox,” says Jacqui Harnett, president of marketing agency Starmark. “It allows companies to engage in real-time conversations creating relationships between the brand and the consumer. The (Social Madness) event encourages companies to learn by doing and have fun while they are at it.”

Fision has been using our social media platform to assist our distributed field sales team in becoming more social media minded. Having a social media platform that allows you to manage, personalize and distribute social content that is fully integrated with your other sales and marketing efforts has provided us a unique advantage. Our marketing and sales teams have really come together to collaborate in the Social Madness contest. Having the Fision platform as a bridge to keep both departments updated has been really helpful.

$7,500 will be donated to charity on behalf of the winners, which will be named on September 11. Phase I ends June 18th, so be sure to visit and support Fision so we can make it past the qualifiers to the official bracket.