How to Make a YouTube Contest: Update Halfway Point
Hey Everybody,
You 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 doing. Today, we have reached the half way point. We are two months into the four month video submission timeframe. We have 51 group members and 30 videos. Not too shabby for a contest promoted totally through social media (no ads and no pr). All I did to promote it was tag other people’s videos that related to the subject matter (braces) and tell them to submit their videos to our group an win.
At first, the contest was going pretty slow, but I think that we are finally reaching a tipping point of organic growth. At this point I have probably joined about 20 themed groups on various SNSs and sent them contest info. I have probably tagged or seeded about 250 videos. But the great part is that by now, people are telling other people and seeing the invite to submit on other people’s videos. This is increasing traffic to our contest and the comments and messages sent to me (contest coordinator). So word-of-mouth is finally starting to kick in.
We are lucky though, there is already preexisting online community of braces wearers. And our client (who makes custom brackets for kids braces) really wants to get the idea of his product out to them. So it really is a nice marriage of an existing online community of conversation and a fun way to access them.
Our client is called WildSmiles, check out their custom braces here.
Oh and here is our intro video. Please have mercy on it. I shot and cut it and I am not a video guy. I was just trying to make the video very cost-effective, as it is not as important as the actual promotion. I also know that it is a little hammy, but it is for kids.
Thanks,
Hope you enjoyed the post,
Will Flavell
So how did you do it? Is there a YouTube tutorial for setting up the contest? I’ve set up a group, but I think I’m missing the contest component…
Thanks!
brian
January 15, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Good Morning Brian,
You can buy a sponsored contest, some of the big advertisers do that. But instead, just leverage your group as a contest. Make your channel into a contest hub and talk about the contest in info section. Now, just do a little social media outreach and blogger outreach to get the word out and watch the entries coming in. Please let me know if you have a more specific question.
Best,
Will Flavell
everybodysagenius
January 15, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Hey Will,
Thanks for the response. I guess I’m wondering more about the setting up of the contest hub and the voting. So I would use my personal channel to host videos… is voting part of that? Are you simply keeping track of the vote counts yourself? Or do you have a database attached?
I was thinking that I might have to use the channel to host videos and set up a stand alone site that references the videos… with a database backed voting mechanism. Does that make sense?
Thanks a bunch for your time!
brian
January 15, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Hey Brian,
On the contest that I did, I didn’t even use a database. I just opened a discussion question in the group and let people write in to vote.
I think that you will be surprised in the lack of voting. So, when you write official rules make sure to include several criteria for winner selection. (in case you get like 3 votes) This will cover your but legally. Say the winner will by judged by votes and a panel selection.
Best,
Bill
everybodysagenius
January 15, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Awesome! Thanks Will…
-B
brian
January 15, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Hello webmaster
I would like to share with you a link to your site
write me here preonrelt@mail.ru
Alexwebmaster
March 3, 2009 at 8:50 am