360DigitalInfluence

The Ad Council and Google DC recently held its latest Seminar Series briefing, Online Contests: A New Way to Raise Awareness and Engage Audiences! The content was pretty 101 for anyone who’s been a Facebook Page administrator but several panelists and attendees offered great tips for video contests; I’ve compiled them below with attribution.

Tips: YouTube Tools
From: Ramya Raghavan, YouTube

• YouTube’s Moderator tool helps you moderate dialogue and organize your videos and response videos together.
• YouTube Direct allows visitors to your website to enter a contest or upload their videos to your YouTube page without ever leaving your site, pretty nifty.
• YouTube contest modules will run you about $50-100 k but simplify the process a lot and you can find out more by contacting their sales department.
• Advertising on http://www.studentfilmmakers.com/ or http://www.onlinevideocontests.com/ can bring interested talent to your contest and cost less that $50.

Tips: Contests with a Small Budget
From: Ramya Raghavan, YouTube

• Research organic activity online for user generated content and reach out to active audiences to invite their participation.
• Keep it simple in terms of concept and submissions to cut down on admin and legal fees.
• Create incentives other than a cash prizes such as recognition or special access.
• Create a great call out video to spread the word and use an appropriate spokesperson (celeb, intern, CEO, partner, etc.).
• Invite high influence bloggers in the subject area to participate as judges to cross promote the program.

Tips: Government Contests
From: Staff, GSA’s Center for New Media and Citizen Engagement

• Check out challenge.gov where GSA will soon have instructions for federal employees on crowd-sourcing challenges similar to innocetive.com.
• Check out what USA.gov is doing to crowd-source website improvements.
• Create social media engagement guidelines or update them to include information about crowdsourcing and contests, take a peek at EPA’s or NIH’s for ideas.

Tips: Connecting Online Contests with Offline Action
From: Collective

• Make the action part of the video, such as making video evidence of downloading a widget a necessary part of the submission.
• Be creative about where winning videos go: movie theaters, TV, offline events, offices.
• Tie a pledge or a checklist to each entry, you’ll have to trust that people completed it for their entry.
• Make videos instructional for the desired action: how to prepare your house for floods, etc.