Contests and Community Development

[cmeinck]

I'm looking to generate more on-topic activity in my forums, so was considering the idea of an incentive based contest. Something tied to the amount of on-topic post. This can be a slippery slope, since some might abuse the contest.

I'm open to any suggestions, ideas or add-ons that might help.

 

[Jaxel]

Rewarding spammers is a mistake.

 

[Andy.N]

Run a Best post contest. Let everyone submit content and select the few good articles for people to vote. Best article wins an Ipad 3.

 

[mrGTB]

I'm looking to generate more on-topic activity in my forums, so was considering the idea of an incentive based contest. Something tied to the amount of on-topic post. This can be a slippery slope, since some might abuse the contest.

I'm open to any suggestions, ideas or add-ons that might help.

Seen loads of forums in past running content driven based competitions, it never really works well and they'll only UP their posting level until it's over, then go back to normal once again. And as said prior, it invites spammers into thinking they can get something free, then be gone once won. That's not the type of forum members you should want - they'll only post to win something? You can also end-up backing yourself into a corner, where members then might expect to see more regular comps and could be less incline posting much unless your running one.

I've seen some new forums offering big prizes out, like an XBox or iPhone. It makes them look suspect using fake rubbish. Be careful of giving that impression out, you know what I mean: "some fake forum member" wins that "imaginary never existed prize"!

They'll get you a boost, but is it worth it? And if you do run one, then at least do something like buy an "Amazon cash gift voucher" and show a purchased receipt as proof (it's for real). Otherwise, most will think it's another silly forum stunt being pulled to get posts.

 

[robdog]

I have recently ran a few contest with some success and here is what I did. For each contest, members were allowed to enter 3 times, once through the site, once through facebook and once through twitter.

All they had to do to enter through the site was register and post a reply to the contest thread.

I used shortstack.com to setup a fan gate on Facebook.com so they have to like my fan page before they could enter the contest.

I used rowfeeder.com and made them tweet a specific phrase with a certain #HashTag to enter the contest.

All in all, this turned out to be pretty successful. I am going to be running a number of additional contests in the next couple of months. Most of my prizes maxed out at $25. The killer was paying for shipping to Greece or the Philippines, LOL.

This type of contest was a random drawing between all the entries. (Facebook, Twitter and the site)

The other contest I did was guess the stats. If you watch american football, I asked all my members to guess the 3 stats for the QB for a specific game. The person with the closest guess, won the prize. Next time I am going to give them an "extra" entry for liking my facebook fan page.

 

[Digital Doctor]

robdog: very creative !

 

[cmeinck]

Thanks for the suggestions. Some excellent ideas.

Think I may have to look further into robdog's promo strategy.