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New Update: Boost Social Proof with Reviews & Automation
Stacey Corrin
Stacey Corrin
John Turner
John Turner
With more and more businesses using video content to increase brand awareness across social media platforms, learning how to run a video contest makes a lot of sense.
Running an online video contest is a great way to gather user-generated content (UGC), grow your followers on social networks, and drive traffic to your website. And with UGC, you’ll have more high-quality content for your digital marketing campaigns to attract more potential customers.
This article will show you how to run a video contest online and embed it on your WordPress website.
TLDR – How to Run a Video Contest:
Online video contests are competitions held on the Internet in which participants submit videos to compete for a prize. The videos can be on any topic and can be created using various mediums, such as smartphones, cameras, or professional equipment.
The videos are usually judged by a panel of experts or by public voting. Prizes for winning videos can range from cash, merchandise, and gift cards to recognition and exposure in the industry.
You can learn how to run a video contest on almost any social media network, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and your business website.
There are several reasons why a company or organization might want to run a video social media contest:
Wondering how to do a video contest yourself? Follow the steps below to learn how to run a video contest in WordPress:
It’s hard to create an online contest without setting goals. Goals help you determine your success and measure the results after the contest is over.
For example, you might decide to run video contests to:
Choose a goal that aligns with your business and marketing motivations. Once you have a plan, running your giveaway campaign is much easier, and you’ll get the results you need.
Your audience plays a part in how you set up your video giveaway contest. If you don’t know what your audience wants, you can’t offer a giveaway prize or experience people can get excited about.
Before creating your video contest, reach out to your audience and ask them what type of prize they’d go wild over. eCommerce sites could send an email survey to recent customers, bloggers can create an online survey for filmmakers and add it to a blog post, and YouTubers can run a video poll.
Once you know what your audience likes, you can use that information to choose an excellent contest prize, which we’ll cover next.
Check out these top WooCommerce plugins for other tools to boost your eCommerce website.
As we just mentioned, contestants won’t make an effort to enter your giveaway if your prize isn’t desirable. So, if you want to run a successful video competition, choose a grand prize that attracts many people. Remember to use the ideas you collected from surveying your audience when picking an award.
Some of the most popular contest prize ideas include:
Check out our complete list of contest prize ideas for more inspiration.
You’ll also want to ensure your prize is relevant to your target audience and brand. Silo Fit App offered a bundle of fitness goodies in this video contest example.
Choosing a prize you know your target audience will love helps you attract more contest entries from your ideal customers.
Creating a theme for your campaign is another way to increase participation. Having a contest theme makes taking part more exciting and gives entrants the sense of being involved in something worthwhile.
Here are some fun video contest themes for inspiration:
With a video app in their hands, you’ll be surprised how creative people can be and how popular a fun video contest can get.
Check out these video contest ideas for inspiration.
Another critical step is setting out your video contest rules and regulations. Will people have to submit a video for a chance to win, or will they have to share the contest on social media to enter?
Lucas Botzen, HR Expert and CEO of Rivermate, says:
When writing compliant rules and guidelines for running a video contest, clarity, legality, and fairness are the main considerations.
First of all, I make sure that these contest rules are simple and easy to read for any prospective participants. Without a doubt, this means avoiding annoying, complicated legal language and instead using language that makes sense to lay out as transparently as possible:
One shall also know and fully comply with the relevant laws, rules, and regulations of the jurisdictions where the contest will take place regarding privacy, intellectual property, and advertising standards.
Consulting with attorneys can help clarify many of the complexities of a decent sweepstakes and ensure all bases are covered.
Most importantly, fairness should prevail. To ensure transparency and trust, I always mention the selection process, the details of the prize, and what to do in case of disputes.
With due attention to these five elements, you should be able to construct a solid framework designed to protect both the organizers and the contestants and guarantee a legally sound, successful video contest.
Before launching your video competition, you need to build anticipation in your followers. Generating a buzz for your giveaway gets people excited and eager to enter and makes it more likely you’ll attract more entries when the contest is live.
The best way to build anticipation is to release a series of teaser updates on your online video platform of choice. Here’s a timeline you can use for inspiration:
You can also share your prelaunch announcements on your other social media channels to encourage maximum participation when you publish your contest.
Earlier, we discussed creating a theme for your giveaway, but you can go further by turning your online video contest into a colossal event when launch day arrives. Doing so can drive more entries while promoting your contest to people who aren’t aware of it.
Besides broadcasting your giveaway on all your social media channels, you can use apps like TrustPulse to display popups on your site whenever someone enters your giveaway. When other users see those notifications, it encourages them to follow suit, boosting your entries.
Another way to make your viral video contest an exciting event is to host a live stream showcasing people’s examples as you collect video submissions. That can prompt entrants to get more creative and competitive with their entries and improve the quality of the UGC you gather.
Let’s not forget the power of social media in making your competition successful. Besides having your audience submit video content to enter your giveaway, it’s also worth adding entry methods like sharing the giveaway on social media to make your contest accessible.
RafflePress is the best video contest app because you can give users multiple ways to enter. Those actions will also help you reach the goals you initially set.
For instance, you can allow users to receive 1 contest entry for submitting a video, a 2nd contest entry for visiting your YouTube Channel, a 3rd entry for sharing your contest on social media, etc.
You can also use the “view a YouTube video/post” action to embed a video directly inside your giveaway widget. That way, users can complete the entry without leaving your site but still generate views for your channel.
The majority of people will take all the actions they can because it gives them more chances to win. And in doing so, they’re promoting your giveaway to their network of friends.
The pricing for RafflePress starts from $39.50 per year; however, you can try the limited free version for a test run first.
Here’s a quick overview of how RafflePress compares to other video contest tools
| RafflePress | Alternatives | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | WordPress | Broader platforms |
| Price | Free & paid | Mostly Paid |
| Ease of Use | Beginner-friendly | Learning curve |
| Entries | Social & website | Fewer options |
| Landing Page | Paid plans | Require separate tool |
| Video | Watch video/visit channel | Similar video features |
| WordPress | Deep integration | Limited or separate plugin |
When you’re ready to publish your contest, the best place to do so is on a dedicated giveaway landing page.
If you were to host your giveaway on video platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, it would be easy for entrants to get distracted by other content. It would also be harder to track entries, making it difficult to pick a winner.
A giveaway landing page is a web page created specifically for your contest, linked to your main website. Creating one removes the distractions that prevent people from entering and makes it easier for contest builders like RafflePress to track entries all in one place.
Then, when you begin promoting your contest, which we’ll talk about next, all you need is to share the landing page’s URL. A giveaway landing page also helps with automation since it allows easy integration of an entry form.
You can’t sit and wait for people to enter your video contest, as tempting as it sounds. Instead, it would help if you promoted it to spread the word and secure more entries. An excellent contest marketing strategy helps your contest go viral so you can grow your audience and get tons of new leads.
There are plenty of ways to promote your video contest, but the easiest way is to share it on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and ask people to tag a friend in the comments to raise awareness.
You can also promote your contest with the following methods:
It would help if you began promoting your video contest weeks before it goes live to get plenty of traffic and entries the day you launch. Remember to track your key metrics to understand what’s working and where to adjust your strategy.
“You can make a schedule of diverse promotional posts on your brand’s social media handles ahead of the contest, informing potential contestants about the contest and what it is all about, the launching date and the deadline, and what they stand to gain out of it. This should be at least a week before the contest begins.“
Neal Schaffer – Social Media Marketing Consultant
Check out our article on more contest promotion ideas to make your giveaway viral.
Contest promotion websites are sites dedicated to listing current contests, giveaways, and competitions for people to enter. Adding your online video contest to these websites is a great way to promote your new giveaway and increase the number of people entering.
There are even platforms dedicated to video giveaways.
It isn’t always easy to find legitimate sites that let you submit a giveaway. Luckily, we put together a massive list of the best online sweepstakes websites here to help you out.
Before submitting your contest, make sure the site accepts listings from your country, as some are limited to specific locations.
When you build your video contest, think about how you’ll choose the winner. There are many ways to pick a winner, some straightforward and some more complicated.
The best way to choose a winner is to keep things simple by randomly drawing a winner from all video entries. You can save precious time and give the winner the good news quickly.
RafflePress makes it easy to choose a contest winner. When your giveaway ends, head to RafflePress » Giveaways and click the Needs Winners link on the right.
Then, you can see who entered your contest and how many entries each person has. To choose a winner randomly, click the Pick Winner button, select your options, and click the Choose Winners Now button.
RafflePress highlights the winner instantly, and you can easily click to email them and tell them the good news!
Here are a few other ways to pick a winner:
Your video contest doesn’t have to end when the prizes are handed out. In fact, the period after your contest is a golden opportunity to nurture relationships with your participants and get even more mileage out of the awesome content they created.
Here are some ideas to keep the engagement going:
Remember, the relationships you build during and after your video contest can be just as valuable as the contest itself. By continuing to engage with participants, you’re fostering a loyal community that will eagerly anticipate your next exciting campaign.
After your contest ends, don’t overlook the wealth of creative submissions from your participants. With proper permissions, you might repurpose these pieces as engaging content for your business. This strategy boosts your traffic, followers, and leads.
User-generated content has multiple benefits. It reflects your customer’s views, leading to better engagement. Current consumers trust their peers more than brand advertisements. Plus, using this content helps diversify your brand’s visual impact without breaking the bank.
So, how can you repurpose this content across various platforms?
You can recycle this user-generated content in several ways.
Doing so not only makes your content updates more vibrant but also gives them a personal touch that’s likely to entice your audience.
When your contest is over, you’ve picked a winner and figured out how to use the UGC you gathered; our last tip is to analyze your results. Then, you can run an online video contest that’s even more successful next time.
The easiest way to get the information you need to optimize your contests is to use MonsterInsights, the best WordPress Google Analytics plugin.
MonserInsights makes it easy to track visits to your contest landing page, traffic to your entire website, website activity, etc. Plus, you can see MonsterInsights’ reports right from within your WordPress dashboard.
By reviewing your website data with MonsterInsights, you can learn which strategies sent the most traffic to your giveaway page and use that data to improve your next giveaway.
You can even use MonsterInsight’s real-time stats to monitor your site traffic during your contest. Then, you can make adjustments as you go.
You can ask users to upload their video submissions to an online video hosting site like YouTube. Then, they can post the video link in your RafflePress giveaway widget.
Popular platforms for hosting video contests include YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. You can also use contest-specific platforms like RafflePress, which can help you create and manage your contest with ease.
The duration of a competition can vary depending on your goals and resources. A typical contest might last two weeks to a few months. When determining the contest timeline, consider factors like the time needed for promotion, participant engagement, and judging.
If you’re running a video contest on TikTok, you can use RafflePress to create it with actions requiring users to watch a video, follow you on TikTok, and more.
You can follow the steps above to run a YouTube contest with RafflePress’s powerful video contest templates.
That’s it!
Now that you know how to run a video contest, get started! Running one delights your target audience and benefits your business with more targeted traffic, increased brand awareness, and engagement.
You might also find the following giveaway guides helpful:
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Can the contest run for like two to three days on my YouTube channel.
Hello,
No, it is not possible. Here is the article on how you can publish your giveaway/contest: https://rafflepress.com/docs/publishing/
This is a very helpful article and video. Thanks for sharing your insights.
Thanks for your feedback Carey. We’re so glad you found it helpful.