How to make a YouTube Contest?
Hey Everybody,
I know that I haven’t written for a few days, but today’s is gonna be good. It is about the first YouTube contest that I built. It is for WildSmiles. They are a company/orthodontist that sells specially shaped brackets for braces. Kids can get stars, hearts, footballs, diamonds and more.
But, they are a small company that needed to get their name out there. So I poked around and did some research and found that there are already large communities of people with braces. I think that there is something to do with the shyness of this group and the lack of their outlet for their opinions that causes them to amass online. They have thousands of videos and lots of large groups on both Facebook and MySpace.
So we created the WildSmiles Braces Experience Video Contest. On YouTube users can join our group (we are a group not a sponsored contest so ours is free) and add videos. Then other users will join and vote for the winner. We are giving away two Nintendo Wiis as prizes. The contest opened last Friday, April 25.
Here is the video:
So if you have braces or someone you know does, go check out the contest and you could win a Wii.
Results
Well, we don’t have any real results so far since the contest is only 4 days old. But I wanted to share with you some cool stuff that has happened since we loaded the first version of our intro video.
The first time that we ever loaded a video for this contest was on Friday, April 18. This was the first edition of the intro video. I didn’t put it on the contest, just on my account so the client could see the video in the right format. Without any promotion or tags, this video got 500 views by the next Wednesday. Also starting on that Friday, the client saw a doubling in their Web traffic. Now bear in mind that the client doesn’t have huge Web traffic to start with, but still that is an improvement.
Oh and this newest edited edition of the contest intro video has only been up for four days and has about 100 hits.
Enjoy the video, it was a lot of fun to make.
I’ll keep you posted as the contest progresses.
Word,
William Flavell
[...] everybodysagenius wrote an interesting post today on How to make a YouTube Contest?Here’s a quick excerptSo we created the WildSmiles Braces Experience Video Contest. On YouTube users can join our group (we are a group not a sponsored contest so ours is free) and add videos. Then other users will join and vote for the winner. … [...]
Youtube » How to make a YouTube Contest?
April 29, 2008 at 2:07 am
[...] might remember a post that I wrote a while ago when I was launching my first YouTube Contest. You can see the video here if you want. Anyway, I just wanted to report on how the contest is [...]
How to Make a YouTube Contest: Update 1 « Everybodysagenius’s Weblog
July 1, 2008 at 3:17 pm
With this kind of contest, how do people vote?
Neil in Ottawa
November 25, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Hey Neil,
If you have a sponsored contest, there are several options. But if you are running a free (group-based contest), my suggestion would be to add voting as a discussion thread and then update you group info to highlight running totals. If you are willing to monitor closely, you could count favorites or comments on specific videos at votes.
Hope this helps,
Will Flavell
everybodysagenius
November 25, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Thank for this, Will. I work for an NGO that probably can’t afford to pay for a branded/sponsored contest. I was wondering what the group-based contest offered for voting options and you have answered that.
Neil in Ottawa
November 25, 2008 at 9:13 pm
No problemo,
Thanks for stopping by Neil. Let me know when your contest is up so I can check it out.
Best,
Will
everybodysagenius
November 25, 2008 at 9:57 pm
nice tips!
thanks
Frank Delano
June 8, 2009 at 3:14 am