Although Westbury National sales manager Brock McGinnis missed the NSCA Business and Leadership Conference for the first time in many years, his influence was all over the list of winners in this year’s Twitter hashtag contest for the 2017 edition in Phoenix.
McGinnis’ niece, Ashton, of AVI Systems earned top honors for her social media prowess, tweeting 140-character pearls of wisdom using the hashtag #BLC2017 73 times during the three-day event.
McGinnis joins an illustrious group that also includes her uncle in 2014, Kourtney Govro of Sphere3 and All Systems in 2015 and Advanced AV VP of sales and marketing John Greene in 2016.
Here are a few examples of Ashton McGinnis’ championship tweeting form:
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#teambossy dancing it up. #blc2017 pic.twitter.com/HiTh8UG6sA
— Ashton McGinnis (@Ashton_AVI) March 2, 2017
#teambossy #blc2017 @BNDSDAD @BlakeP_AVI pic.twitter.com/JUErHUvMuE
— Ashton McGinnis (@Ashton_AVI) March 2, 2017
Damn that law of diminishing returns. But we want to do it all!!! #BLC2017 pic.twitter.com/TCltMkaiL0
— Ashton McGinnis (@Ashton_AVI) March 3, 2017
A whole new perspective on ‘you must be present to win’ …… as I tweet. #blc2017
— Ashton McGinnis (@Ashton_AVI) March 4, 2017
We’re all just humans, so let’s act like it! Title, experience, department, whatever! Just be human. #blc2017
— Ashton McGinnis (@Ashton_AVI) March 4, 2017
Greene actually out-tweeted McGinnis in terms of pure volume before, during and after BLC 2017 with 87 tweets in three days and many more leading up to and following the event, but McGinnis earns this year’s prize for her ability to sprinkle fun among several lightbulb moments during the keynote sessions, as well as her willingness to engage with those who retweeted or quoted her tweets.
She won despite not being able to tweet during her breakout session on the final day of the conference, when the stakes were highest and the push for tweeting supremacy was at perhaps its most furious.
As if Ashton’s win wasn’t enough pride for her uncle, imagine the smile on his face in knowing the man who essentially took his place at this year’s BLC, Westbury account manager George Puthenkulam, finished just short of the younger McGinnis with almost 70 #BLC2017 tweets from March 2 to 4.
Verrex director of global managed services Michael Shinn changed jobs since last year’s BLC but his tweeting fingers didn’t slow down too much. He finished third with almost 60 #BLC2017 tweets, some of which harkened back to the 2016 BLC, when Shinn knocked over the event’s awards table—twice.
Each of this year’s Twitter hashtag contest winners will get a customized NSCA and Drunk Unkles swag packet, featuring authentic Unks apparel and VIP treatment at the upcoming gig in Orlando during InfoComm 2017 on Wednesday, June 14.
For those who are worried Greene is going home empty-handed this year despite outpacing the rest of the competition with his tweets, fret not. We’re giving him a Twitter lifetime achievement award, and from this day forward, the winner of this annual contest will know they’re getting the John Greene Award.
