These photo and video contests seem quite popular, of all of a sudden. Why do you suppose so many marketers are choosing to brave the waters of social media and user generated content?

Because it works. And to illustrate that fact, here are ten reasons why video and photo contests are such a great marketing investment:

10. You Start a Dialogue With your Community

For many, a photo or video contest is their first foray into social media. The first time that they have publicly reflected any online participation with the public at large. And that can be a little scary. But when you consider that people will be vying for the attention (and prizes) of your company, and you have the option of moderating entries before they go live, there really isn't much to be afraid of. So give it a shot! It's a great way to start. Bonus Example: Barkbusters, whose photo contest was immensely popular with pet owners, and even got them some air time on a morning tv show.

9. It's Fun

If your contest idea is a good one, people will enjoy entering and collecting votes. What's more, you will enjoy seeing the submissions come in. The quality and quantity of entries may even suprise you. Tourism Vancouver's video contest (still live as of this writing) has collected some fantastic images of the city.

8. They're Good for Traffic and SEO

The kind of activity that photo and video contests attract are great for SEO. You get loads of new and returning visitors who have meaningful interactions with your site. The added traffic will boost your search juice.

For bonus points: Link people to other areas of your site from the contest page, and track their activity in your stats.

Jazz Sudbury's contest now appears on page one in a search for the festival, sending more traffic to the festival site for info, while simultaneously scouting talent who could win a chance to perform.

7. The Public Has Good Ideas

With apologies to your advertising agency, the best idea they could pitch to you this year would be to accept ideas and submissions from your community. A video or photo contest could yield some world class content that is better than you expected. You'll never know if you don't ask. Sex Panther, the hot new scent licensed from ther popularity of Anchorman, the movie, now has a plethora of excellent "spokes growlers" to choose from, after their fun video and audio-based contest.

6. It Gives You Plenty to Talk about on Facebook, Twitter

Often, your company blog, Twitter account and Facebook Page can go a long time with no updates. An exciting contest of this kind mixes things up, attracts new people to the fold, and provides you with many small 'wins' that you can announce. "Check out this great entry!" or... "Only two weeks left to vote..."

Contestants from Ypreneurgene.com and PropertyGuys.com have been lighting up the Twittersphere with their video contest, where the prize is a $100,000 PropertyGuys.com franchise.

5. You Look Cool

We're giving you permission to have some fun with your contest campaign. If your corporate website and marketing materials tend to skew towards the more 'functional' side (read: boring), then a contest gives you a chance to spread your wings outside of that stuffy box, for once. Splash some color into your campaign, and make it stand out from everyhting else you do. Make it looks as cool as you want. This stuff is meant to be fun and engaging, so pull out all the stops.

BCIT cut loose, had a bit of fun and got some great student video submissions with their 3BlogNights event and video contest.

4. You Make "Fans"

You already have fans. You just might not know it yet. A photo or video contest will reflect that community, and bring them closer to you. The ones who place as finalists, win prizes or interact directly with your company will be left with a positive impression. They will become brand ambassadors on your behalf.

From the author's own past: When I was 13 years old, I won a trip to Toronto to attend a (Coca-Cola sponsored) hockey camp with none other than Wayne Gretzky himself. Today at lunch, I ordered a soda with my fish my and chips. Can you guess which brand? (I promise to update this post with photographic proof of my meeting with His Greatness).

3. It Keeps Getting Easier

Each subsequent contest gets easier, for a number of reasons. First, you will have a better understanding of how people respond to contests. You may have thought of an even better idea for the next campaign. You also have a database of people who entered in the past, whom you can invite to participate again. You may even have design assets that can be re-used for future campaigns, limiting your costs to start another contest.

Launch Party Vancouver has used Strutta to power the last several startup competitions, using video, popular vote and judges. Each time, they get a larger number of submissions, votes and views- as more and more community members already have voting accounts, and know exactly what to expect.

2. Find Out More About Your Customer

With the option of adding survey questions or customer-specific contest requirements, you can ask and obtain more information from the folks who enter your contest. Choose carefully what you ask, because each form makes entering a little bit more difficult. But there may be questions that your marketing department would love to learn: ie. zip code, profession, preferred breakfast cereal. If you're on the ball, you'll also ask for permission to send updates about your company, or about future contests.

1. 'Free' Marketing

Yes, this is number one for a reason. There simply is no better way to spread the message about your campaign than to have the masses do it for you. And if your video or photo contest has a popular vote element, people will be climbing all over themseves to spread the word on your behalf. Think of all the tweets, Facebook wall posts, and personal emails to uncles and aunties that will bear your name and brand. When you look at it that way, it's easy to see why contests (especially those with user content and popular vote) are such a great marketing investment.

Family Video's "Hotel for Dogs" photo contest generated an average of over 100 votes per entry among their top vote-getters, creating a voting frenzy among proud pet owners. This month, Family Video published a new contest- this time it's a movie review video contest. They know from experience that with a fun and topical contest, the community will do a lot towards spreading the word about the campaign.

Contests are a great marketing tool. Like any other tool available to you, it can be extremely effective when handled properly. If you reflect on the above list, you will likely realize your own reasons why contests will make sesne for your company. And that's the beauty of a contest promotion- it can be very unique and specific to your message, be fun and engaging for visitors, and still accomplish your overall marketing goals.

We hope this helps you see the value in using contests in your marketing, but we understand if it doesn't answer all of your questions for you. That's where we come in.

Contact us at 1-877-477-5717 so we can chat about how to make a contest part of your campaign.

You're a savvy marketer. You know your stuff. You probably already have a company blog, a Twitter account you update regularly and you may already be building a fanbase on your Facebook Page. You're happy with the way these tools let your company and its people interact with the public, but you wish you could grow your numbers a bit.

It's no secret that we believe in the effectiveness of online contest promotions, especially those involving user generated content and popular vote. With the right mix of theme, prize, and outreach, an online contest can be the most effective marketing investment you make. You have to do things right though, or you risk running afowl of the community you're working so hard to foster.

Online contests have even gained a reputation in some circles as being just a shortcut as a lead generation tactic. Admit it- you think twice before filling out any online form, and one of your biggest fears is being bombarded with unwelcome marketing messages after the fact. Not every marketer in the world conducts themselves as ethically as they ought to, so like any other marketing tactic that gets abused, contests can get a bad rap.

But when done properly, there's no denying that video and photo sharing contests can be good for community interaction, for brand visibility and yes, dear friends (I'm going to say it, and I'm not going to apologize); they're good for data collection too. It's how you use that data and how you interact with your new community that matters.

Starting at the Beginning

We've said it before, but it bears repeating. Before proceeding with your promotion, decide first what your goals are for the campaign, and let those goals determine the decisions you make in putting to the contest together. If you're after the perfect piece of user generated video, for example, your tactics might be different than if you were just trying to boost your online traffic.

Theme

Your contest theme and prize should be relevant to your company and its fans. Your campaign should attract the kind of people that you want to stay in touch with. Ask yourself: Who are we trying to attract? What ideas do we have that will motivate that community to get involved and interact? If you are lucky enough to make it fun for the right kind of people, you're miles ahead. And make no mistake, they'll appreciate your attention to detail. Let the answers to these questions guide your decisions about prizing and entry requirements. Remember to include an "opt-in" question, to obtain permission to keep in touch with people in the future. Since you've already considered the audience for your promotion, you should be able to convert a percentage of people to your email lists, especially by offering some especially useful information in the mailings.

Outreach: Spreading the Word

If you've dabbled with Facebook Groups or Pages, and you have a company Twitter account that you've been using for while, then you may already have some idea as to how to correctly communicate with an online community. If you're a fan of any Pages or Groups on Facebook, then you likely also have firsthand experience with marketers that are DOING IT WRONG. Your marketing messages and interactions should provide value for your community, not barrage them with information that only benefits you. Remember this fact: Facebook, Twitter and other social networks require that people first give you PERMISSION to contact them. If you conduct the rest of your online marketing with this same guiding principle, people will respond more positively.

If you've created an online photo, video, text or song contest (with Strutta of course) then it's time to tell the world. Yes, our tools come with the ability for contestants to share their entries with friends, via email and the various networks, but don't sit back on your heels waiting for that to happen. Rally some activity among your Twitter followers and Facebook fans, but remember to keep it relevant. Always be adding value rather than always asking for people to vote and enter.

Ask us about how to include your contest in your Facebook page using our widget (Example in photo above) to spread the message of your campaign even further within the network.

The Extras

Depending on your audience and your outreach, you want to consider additional tools and materials to help you get the message out. For larger scale campaigns, you may include ad buys in your plan, and/or physical materials like postcards or flyers.

The Aftermath

A solid campaign plan will take into account what comes after the contest period is over. So you've collected a bunch of contest data, and you've announced your winner. What next? Well, it's time to start again, but this time you have a head start.

Following Up

Well look at you! You have several online marketing tools in action, and now you're growing a database a folks who have opted in to your future communications (because we asked them when they signed up, remember?) You should be quite proud of how far you've come. But before you start filling those wonderful (relevant, interested) people's inboxes with emails, think about the best and most effective ways of getting in touch.

The list of people who opt-in via your contest promotions are special. They have given you a most precious gift- permission to send marketing info to them. Abusing this permission could be fatal to your business' future success. Careful execution of this outreach could lead to growth, so let's do it right:

1. Consider segmenting these subscribers into groups based on how they first signed up (ie. contest entrants on one list, past customers on a separate list). The goal here is to treat people who have engaged with your company in a different ways a little bit differently. By keeping these lists separate and adding a little mail merge magic, you can keep your communications with them extremely specific to their experience:
   
   

   "Greetings <their-name-here>,
   
   Thank you again for your participation in the photo contest. It was a huge success, and you can bet we will be having others going forward. We also wanted to announce...
   

   
   You get the idea. Keeping these lists properly segmented improves the communication experience for each subscriber. The numbers will prove me right; If you're using email marketing software (we recommend Mailchimp, for their ease of use, affordability and API), this extra bit of time and attention will yield better open rates, and subsequently better click-through rates from your messages.
2. Always remember to keep your information of value. If you know, for example, that all of the subscribers on one your list were from a specific industry or job category, shaping your message to be pertinent to them will also yield better open rates.
3. Have another contest! On the success of your previous efforts, you can continue to improve the ideas and executions of your campaigns, and you can encourage participation among the people how have entered your contests so far. Plus, this gives you more to talk about on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and your email newsletters.

Summarizing, the lesson here is simple. Decide first what the success of your campaign looks like, and devise the best strategy to achieve those ends. Treat your community every bit as good as you would hope to be treated, and reward their faithfulness with information that is of value to them.

They'll love you for it.

Time for another episode of FTW. This one features DoYourGreekDance.com and InsideVancouver.Strutta.com:

This is the first episode of a new show that we plan to air every Wednesday. FTW will feature some of the newest and greatest contests on Strutta, and will include tips on contest building in future episodes. Episode 1 features our very own Tina and highlights 25at25.ca and WhatAreYouMadeOf.ca.

And it starts with some not-so-timeless dating footage from yesteryear:

For the past few weeks, we've been hosting a live show from the couch here in our office, using UStream.

We've now "aired" five episodes, and plan to continue the tradition on working Fridays. Our first episode was more of a test than anything, trying to determine if it was an idea worth pursuing. We generated enough interest in that first episode to beging a tradition, and now we get great guests joining on the couch for some beer and chit-chat.

Subsequent episodes have seen us discuss "Tools" in episode 2, Viral Marketing, Fashion for Geeks and our most popular episode was dedicated to gaming:

Why not stop by the live page on Friday afternoon and ask a few questions? The topic for this week's show is "#followfriday." The popular Twitter meme become the focus of our whole show. Who do you follow that you want others to know about? Why?

Our guests will talk about their favorite micro-scribes, and we'll take suggestions boh from the chat and from Twitter. Join us at Strutta.com/live this Friday at 4pm, and tag your tweets #couchbeers. Cheers!