Contest Ideas

[Jon]

I need your help.. I want to have a very large contest that will give the winner(s) a ton of good shit. Trouble is I want it to really attract a ton of people and keep activity at a max on here. Anyone have any type of contest idea to shoot out that would be able to accommodate some really good prizes?

 

[CLKeenan]

I'm thinking of something as proving who the best publisher is... give us a sites theme (very specific) and see who can generate the most traffic, profit, highest search engine rankings, etc

 

[Pain]

I'm thinking of something as proving who the best publisher is... give us a sites theme (very specific) and see who can generate the most traffic, profit, highest search engine rankings, etc

thats a good idea but a contest like that would have to go on for months for it to be fair.

 

[J-Tag]

I'd say do a bit more for the design / programming crowd.

Maybe something that encourages teamwork between people.

 

[Nathan]

I was going to a suggest a contest to prove your metal so to speak. Have people create a site that generates a profit. The problem there is the people that could do that he most effectively probably don't need to be entering contests.

Maybe a face off comp that has content vs AM sites, but again it reveals sites too much and people may not want that.

A multi facited contest that was open to designers, programmers, AM guru's etc. All part of the whole?

I'll think some more on it

 

[Payton]

Well, you want sustained activity so how about something like Poster of the Month awards? Requirements could include x number of quality posts per day or maybe x number of consecutive days with quality posts? Something like this would be in the reach of everyone and not just the postwhores, might encourage more competition. You wouldn't need to have a mind-blowing prize for this, just a prize each month so everyone has a shot at it.

 

[Dave]

Any posting-related contests will keep activity up, or just more refferal contests - the simple things always work best

 

[Peter]

In a completely different direction, what about a secret sound guessing game? Obviously you record a sound, then people have to guess it. It has been done on the radio countless times and always works well, seen it done on a couple of forums too.

 

[J-Tag]

Why reward the people that are already making the most money of everyone?
That contest concept sounds a bit off to me.

 

[MisterX]

Well, you want sustained activity so how about something like Poster of the Month awards? Requirements could include x number of quality posts per day or maybe x number of consecutive days with quality posts? Something like this would be in the reach of everyone and not just the postwhores, might encourage more competition. You wouldn't need to have a mind-blowing prize for this, just a prize each month so everyone has a shot at it.

Something like this. ^

I don't think that rewards need to be way too great, but what's more important is that the contests are:

1. new user friendly
2. quality/helpful posts friendly
3. prolonged activity friendly

I've seen it happen at different places and it happened to me as well - it often doesn't matter how good you are if you come too late. Some online games I played, for example, only had the "all time top scores" list. Wtf am I, as a newcomer, going to do with that list ?! Some 5-10 fanatics topped it months or even years ago and there's no way I'm getting on it if I don't spend some serious time playing the game. So I'm discouraged from the beginning. On the other hand, you could encourage me, the new user, as well, if you also made a "top scores of the week" list. Even of the day. Maybe it'll be a slow day and I could make it to the list! Give me a chance, even a slim one, to win something as soon as I come.

With a forum, you could have some of these top lists/contests:

1. top 3 posts of the week
2. top 3 threads of the week
3. top 3 posts of the month
4. top 3 threads of the month
5. most posts in the week
6. most posts in a month etc.

You'd be giving away more prizes and spend more time tracking the winners, but anyone could join at any time and enter the contest and all visitors would be more inclined to write more often and write longer, better quality posts.

The prizes could be free access to something that costs money, sites made by you, custom made step-by-step "this is exactly what I'd do with your site" guide written by you for a site that the winner gives for evaluation etc.

This kind of contest would be a constant encouragement for all the visitors, new or old, to write often and good. [SIZE=-1]And all would live happily ever after :liebe028:[/SIZE]

 

[wesley]

You should read websitepublisher's blog and see that contests aren't always the best thing to do.

 

[$5 Submissions]

Very very good ideas. Also have "EVERY 50th POST" types of contests. I would love to throw in some Prizes if the posts are SPACED OUT ENOUGH.

Some common rules:
1) Max of 2 posts per user per page
2) Posts must make sense. No gibberish posts.
3) Posts must have 5 words or more.
4) Posts from the same user can't be back to back

etc etc

Something like this. ^

I don't think that rewards need to be way too great, but what's more important is that the contests are:

1. new user friendly
2. quality/helpful posts friendly
3. prolonged activity friendly

I've seen it happen at different places and it happened to me as well - it often doesn't matter how good you are if you come too late. Some online games I played, for example, only had the "all time top scores" list. Wtf am I, as a newcomer, going to do with that list ?! Some 5-10 fanatics topped it months or even years ago and there's no way I'm getting on it if I don't spend some serious time playing the game. So I'm discouraged from the beginning. On the other hand, you could encourage me, the new user, as well, if you also made a "top scores of the week" list. Even of the day. Maybe it'll be a slow day and I could make it to the list! Give me a chance, even a slim one, to win something as soon as I come.

With a forum, you could have some of these top lists/contests:

1. top 3 posts of the week
2. top 3 threads of the week
3. top 3 posts of the month
4. top 3 threads of the month
5. most posts in the week
6. most posts in a month etc.

You'd be giving away more prizes and spend more time tracking the winners, but anyone could join at any time and enter the contest and all visitors would be more inclined to write more often and write longer, better quality posts.

The prizes could be free access to something that costs money, sites made by you, custom made step-by-step "this is exactly what I'd do with your site" guide written by you for a site that the winner gives for evaluation etc.

This kind of contest would be a constant encouragement for all the visitors, new or old, to write often and good. [SIZE=-1]And all would live happily ever after :liebe028:[/SIZE]

 

[Indy]

I think it should be something to challenge our creativity [not design], rather than how many posts we can do in x amount of time.

Such as, an article competition:
The best 3 articles win a prize/prizes, but the articles must stay unique to this site - Thus giving something unique to the community that will attract more visitors/members.

 

[Jon]

Wow these are all very good ideas.. thanks!

 

[Giles]

Perhaps some sort of tool building contest. Like the idea I had for tracking adsense stats.

Not exactly a contest but I was thinking about doing joint project with one or more poeple or even a wickedfire-wide one. Also another idea was to team up newbiew with experienced publishers.

Of course, there are all sorts of issues with this, including lack of communication, trolls and scammers and people not pulling their weight. I still think it could be cool.

Other ideas are the obvious making money competitions. We coulkd do something like form a partnership with an affiliate company and see who can get the most signups in 24 hours. Something like that anyway.

 

[Jon]

Other ideas are the obvious making money competitions. We coulkd do something like form a partnership with an affiliate company and see who can get the most signups in 24 hours. Something like that anyway.

I can probably swing a few of these actually. This way everyone makes money, and the winner makes the most from the cash prize bonus.

 

[scoby]

Some kind of blind voting
Allow people to submit ideas / designs / sites / whatever and allow people to vote on the ideas without knowing who submitted them.

let people create landing pages with your aff ids and then give them lots of traffic for free. The best converting page wins.

 

[Giles]

I can probably swing a few of these actually. This way everyone makes money, and the winner makes the most from the cash prize bonus.

Building upon that I think that this would be a great to experiment with targeted and untargeted traffic, the conversion rates and we could get setup with a bonus with Jon's sweet hookups (he's in cahoots with the affiliate companies). I can see some unfair advantages and if the prize is too big then everyone will just do PPC becuase they are able to cover it with the prize money. Also, this woud be a hell of a lot easier for people who have good traffic sources, such as high traffic websites and huge myspace accounts.

It comes down to what you want to give a prize for:
• the person who has access to the most traffic(they probably don't need a prize)
• the person who can get the highest conversion rates from very trageted traffic
• some other creativity/ingenuinity based prize

The landing pages idea is interesting becuase there are all sorts of methods of selling and marketing things and I can already see all sorts of offers and rewards. Free traffic could work if all the earnings went to Jon and he supplied the traffic, giving prizes to the top 10 earners or something.

Any thoughts?

How about each entry is a landing page and a banner, the banners get rotated somewhere and they each lead to the landing page.
I see all sorts of complications with times of day, days of week, equal shares of banner time etc. but some sort of arrangement like this could work.

 

[MisterX]

You should read websitepublisher's blog and see that contests aren't always the best thing to do.

Chris (the owner) was one of the people that inspired me the most when I started and I often read wsp blog, but I never joined the forums. Nothing forced me out of the lurking mode. This place, on the other hand...

Some (many) people need a little nudge if you want them to do something, and contests are good, fun and obviously do the job.

 

[marc]

one thing you might consider is installing a "store" hack here on the forum which would allow members to earn points or virtual currency which could then be exchanged for gifts or merch or whatever you like - you can even do fun stuff like sell sticky threads or the chance to change someone's custom title for 24 hours, etc..

the latest store hack for the current version of VBulletin can be found here: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=106953