5 Things To Remember When Setting Up A Video Contest

In my recent blog post How To Set Up A Video Contest I spoke about the back-office and set up of a video contest. Today I wanna give you some great advise for how to execute the contest. What to keep in mind and what I personally learned from own experience.

1. The Goal. Like with all social media campaigns you should first determine why you want to set up this contest.
   Is it to get more subscribers on YouTube?
   Is it to increase the channel views on your channel?
   Is it to provide something great and fun for your audience?
   Is it to impress share holders of the company?
   Is it to make money?
   Drive traffic to your website?
   Whatever it is, write it down, speak openly about it and take notice on the status of the different channels BEFORE you launch the contest to be able to compare the results. How many fans do you have on Facebook, how many visitors to the blog and how many channel views and comments on Youtube for example.
   
   
2. Clear Instructions. Video may seem simple to you and me, but we are definitely not the average internet surfer. Provide clear instructions on HOW to participate. I'm not kidding you here. The last contest we set up we wrote down what formats we accepted and still the majority of the files uploaded were jpegs, docs, excels and power-points. Show HOW to participate with pictures. Make a dummy-guide.
   
   
   People will likely imitate exactly what you have told them, so be creative in your examples and if you can - provide more than one example. Another point here ts to make it EASY for people to participate by not requiring any specific great quality. Let people film with their cell phones and you will make their life's much easier and you'll receive many more videos!
   
   
3. The Prize.Make it something good. If you can't afford it, then you're better of not launching a video contest. It will be more work than benefits because not a lot of people will enter the contest. An iPad, a laptop, a trip, a great gift-card for something online are some attractive prizes. If you can also provide something small for the first 100 participants that's a big plus. In our case we gave away 5eur gift-cards on Amazon to the first 100 people.
   
   
4. The Promotion.Make sure the whole company knows about the contest. Everyone should help promoting it, in their email signatures, to their friends, through their Twitter accounts. Post the contest on your Facebook page, your blog, website, Twitter account and keep posting somewhere on a daily basis.
   
   
5. The Legal Stuff.Make sure the company's lawyer takes a look at the legal notes and make sure you are covered for all types of incidents. Even if putting in there that you have the right to change the rules may sound ridiculous it can be helpful when you bump into something completely unexpected. However, this situation should be avoided and could obviously create a bunch of bad noise and upset people so it's just an emergency case option. Count on people getting upset about their video not having the same success as other participants videos. Make sure you are very clear that you won't accept any double voting, friend campaign-commenting to win and that you have the right to disqualify anyone breaking the rules.

Like a last point I would say, LEARN. Your first contest won't be perfect but take note about what you could have done better and keep it for the next time.

Have fun and Good Luck!

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How To Set Up A Video Contest

We speak a lot about Facebook and Twitter contests and there is tons of information to find on the web about applications, rules and "how to's".
Video and photos are the most popular consumed medias, they reportedly gives you the best edgerank on Facebook and spark the best engagement according to both Facebook Insights and other analytic programs. Yet there is little information to find about HOW to set up a video contest.

I know 4 ways to set up a Youtube contest, maybe you know more ways, if so please comment on this post and share your experience!
First of all you can go through an application, such as Wildfireapp or Easypromos. It's pretty easy, not expensive but the downside is that if your goal is to increase the channel views on your Youtube channel, that's not going to happen with this option. An application let's the users leave their video url from the users channel. Also making it crucial for the participants to set up a youtube account if they don't already have one. Important is to make it easy to enter the contest and to not make it complicated or ask for too much.

Second option is to build a microsite or an interface for your website that lets people upload there videos. Great option but could be expensive I imagine.
Third option is to go through Youtube and pay thousands of euros (I read 5000 in youtube's help forum) for a custom made page that let's people leave upload there videos. Flashy, beautiful, easy and... EXPENSIVE.

But there is another option that we used recently that I really want to recommend.
Sharefile offers a service similar to an FTP server, a customized upload form and a back-office where you can see and download the videos and then manually upload them to your youtube channel. 50-60 eur/month depending on how many videos you expect to receive (how much space you need). Cheap and works great!

In my next post I will give some tips on the actual video contest.
Have a great weekend!

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