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Forum Competitions!

Started by Noddegamra, December 03, 2007, 07:29:36 AM

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Noddegamra

I love competitions, and so will your members!

I recently held one on my SMF forum which really boosted interactivity and got me some additional memberships. Now that I blogged about it, I will probably get even more!

I decided to write about it here as it may even help you boost traffic, memberships and posts in your own forums!


So what did I do?
I tried to think of something that literally ANYONE could participate in. The more people who can join in, means MORE activity, MORE involvement, and potentially get MORE new people signing up to join in.

Easy competition ideas:

  • Member Referrals
  • Image Competition
  • Best Joke Competition
  • Caption Competition
  • Online Gaming Event Competition
  • Member of the Month Competition
  • Member Post Count Competition
  • Best Avatar/Sig Competition


You will really have to choose which best suits your members. There are plenty of competitions you can do, these were just some I thought off the top of my head. Be careful of member post count as you may get spammed though. You will need good moderators to carry out that competition.


I personally went with Member Referrals. This is basically getting your current members to introduce others. The person with the most members they got to sign up and post will recieve a prize, and you in turn get new members!

I also do caption competitions but without prizes. I find these are fun and just keep people entertained and visiting often.


Did I get Hundreds of New Members?
Well, not exactly. I did get quite a few. You may achieve better than me if you market the competition really well.

So how did this help ME and MY forum?
It was more of an after-effect. People came to the forum and saw the competition, they saw you could win prizes and it helps get people registering. Also, the buzz on the forum at the time of the competition was immense. Indirectly it kinda injected a great feeling into the site, people were excited and I found that my post counts increased dramatically.

Also, the winner who recieved the prize made a YouTube video of the prize. This gives me a blog post (to advertise my forum and get more members), and people on youtube will also come accross it. With little effort I get really great advertising for my site. People who visit the blog will be instantly informed about prizes and hopefully want to sign up!


I strongly recommend doing competitions in your forums. The amount of positives it brings is well worth the effort and little cash. As more people hear about it, join up and participate I will do bigger and better prizes.


An Additional Bonus
What did this cost me? Nothing in the end. Because of the excellent vibe on the forum I actually recieved over £20 PayPal Donations!!


You can see my blog post (with prize video) here: http://www.noddegamra.co.uk/noddegamra-competition-winner-1/110/

You can see my forum here: http://www.noddegamra.co.uk/forum/


I hope competitions work for your forums :)

capabmx

Hey man congratulations on your success :)! I must say that is actually a great idea, both on the users level, and on yours. I enjoyed reading this, and I'm going to visit your blog, because this is an interesting topic, on every level. Thanks for sharing the info, and I'm sure it will come in handy for many smf users alike.
Always looking to take on a web design/ programming job :], PM me if interested.

kangkenyot

win the competition and get your prize

always best words for campaign till the end of the world  :D

Noddegamra

I've just setup a new competition. Maybe you too could do something similar for your forums over this christmas period?

I'll have to see how this one goes. It won't help me get loads of new people, but it may bring back some of the previously less active members :)  I'll keep you updated ;)

My competition link http://www.noddegamra.co.uk/forum/competitions/ms-paint-o-gamra!/0/

Dragooon

Actually I was too thinking of competitions. With some help of Coding there can be very good competitions or competitions grounds.

Even Many mods helps here.(Example Gallery for a picture contest).

christicehurst

Competitions can be handy to obtain certain goals like membership.
www.brisbanelionsunited.com - A forum for everyone!

PacificWx

recently, we did competitions to rename key sections of the forum - quite successful!

falguni1


RubMinds

I'll try this I think it makes a lot of sense.
www.RubMinds.com [nofollow] - Reality LIVE!, Double DARE and DO something.

Noddegamra

Has anyone tried sponsorships? I've heard certain companies will donate prizes for you to give away if you mention them in the competition description etc (eg: These prizes were sponsored by ..""  (link) to sponsor)

Panzer-

QuoteHas anyone tried sponsorships? I've heard certain companies will donate prizes for you to give away if you mention them in the competition description etc (eg: These prizes were sponsored by ..""  (link) to sponsor)

You will need someone to sponsor you, and they will be hard to get assuming you just started your forum and theres relatively little traffic.

Noddegamra

you can still get sponsorships from blogs and local businesses maybe if it relates to your niche.

kizer

I've done sponserships a few times on my Jeep website giving away small recovery gear and other things. Works pretty well when you have a contest involved. I like to run them for a month because the banner gives the company giving away the item a lot of exposure and it brings in my members to join the contest.
Own a Jeep? Links4Jeeps.com

capabmx

A lot of very intelligent ideas have been proposed here and as soon as I start my ew website I'm definitely going to use these ideas very wisely :].
Always looking to take on a web design/ programming job :], PM me if interested.

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