SOCIAL VIDEO CONTEST TOOLS

As video becomes more commonplace in the world of online marketing, brands need to explore different ways for using video and engaging audiences. One of the best ways video can connect with fans is through online video contests. In fact, if you develop a video contest on Facebook or with a custom microsite, you can harness the power of user-generated content. Yes, this means your fans can actually create videos for you and support your brand.

For the most part, social networks like Facebook and Twitter are very easy to use. This is why they’ve become such a big part of our lives. However, despite their great usability on a personal level, creating custom applications or special promotions for a business can seem like a daunting task. And, creating a video contest may seem like it’s completely out of reach.

Well, we’re here to tell you that you can actually launch a social video contest on Facebook….tomorrow. The following list provides a list of four businesses that enable you to easily create a video contest on your Facebook page.

ANTAVO

Antavo specializes in creating viral promotions of all types. The company provides the ability to not only create promotions on your Facebook page, but you can also embed on a microsite. Some of their key promotions include drawings/sweepstakes, quizzes, polls, coupons and giveaways. More specifically, Antavo provides the ability to create video contests. The contests include multiple voting methods, submission periods, approvals and winner selections. Users submit videos by sharing a link to a video residing on Youtube or Vimeo. If you’d like to checkout some examples for inspiration, take a peak here.

OFFERPOP

Offerpop has been used by several of our clients lately. In fact, we’ve developed videos to launch social video promotions and encourage participation. Offerpop actually let’s users submit videos through the application versus referencing a Youtube or Vimeo video. This provides businesses with the opportunity to download user generated content later on. Offerpop’s video contests provide a range of flexibility to increase reach as well. The tool allows for sharing on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. For further outreach, there’s one-click activation of Facebook Open Graph actions. This allows your entries to immediately appear in users’ news feeds and reach a higher number of targeted Facebook users.

WISHPOND

Wishpond provides a lot of the standard functionality as the other examples. The product provides mobile-compatible options, embed options for Facebook pages or microsites and voting features. In addition, Wishpond adds real-time analytics for your contest. So, if you’re doing a huge push campaign to your contest, you may want to monitor real-time stats. Wishpond states that it’s used by over 25,000 businesses. So, be sure to check out a number of examples for help.

WOOBOX

Wishpond provides a video contest with a number of features. Key functionality includes captions, comments, custom form fields and open graph sharing. One of the unique features Wishpond provides is the Twitter component. With a custom hashtag, you can automatically capture entries from users on Twitter. And, since we’re talking about videos, you may want to checkout Wishpond’s custom Youtube component for Facebook.

SUMMARY

Hopefully, the information provided above gives you a general direction for selecting a tool that is right for your social video promotion. We do want to point out that even thought it’s becoming very easy to create a contest, it’s always important to focus on your overall strategy. Just because you can start an online video contest tomorrow, doesn’t mean you should. Make sure the contest is aligned with business objectives and ultimately connects you with the target audience.