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dojo
Joined: 03 Sep 2005
Posts: 276
Location: Romania, Timisoara
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 Posted: 9/7/2005, 9:45 am Post subject: Do you hold contests? |
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For me the contests haven't worked that well, although some admins swear they had a huge membership increse through this 
Do you hold contests?
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Patrick
Administrator
Joined: 28 Aug 2005
Posts: 1862
Location: Harbinger, NC, U.S.A.
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FinHeaven
Joined: 08 Sep 2005
Posts: 2
Location: Gainesville, FL
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| Posted: 9/8/2005, 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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Contests only work when you can actually get a lot of the membership to go in.
For example, having a trivia contest is pretty much useless now because of Google.
However, having something like "Take a picture of your dedication to this site" tends to work well... and inspires some funny posts. |
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chrispian
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 132
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| Posted: 9/8/2005, 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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I don't like contests to get people to sign up or post. I like contests that reward existing members. Contests that work to get members and new people to post tend to get very poor quality posts and very temporary results. It can help, but I find that if the contest rewards existing members more then the value goes up. For example, have a contest that's only open to members who have been around X amount of time. A referral contest, or an article contest, or a posting contest. Those who produce the most content for your site are the ones who need to be rewarded because in the end that's what's going to make the forum more appealing and draw in more people. That's just my experience though.
-Chris
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Truestar
Moderator
Joined: 10 Sep 2005
Posts: 709
Location: New York, United States
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| Posted: 9/11/2005, 8:49 am Post subject: |
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I have planned out my first contest, and I think that it will definitely increase a type of "morale". It may get some members excited, and excited memebrs is always a good thing. I know if I had a chance at winning a contest online, I'd take it. And depending on the site content, and what it's about, I would probably join.
I have one contest in the making now, the winner can choose 1 out of 6 English paperback books. Of course, the books all relate to the theme of my board, so I think that that contest will be a success.  |
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marc
Joined: 10 Sep 2005
Posts: 35
Location: UK
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| Posted: 9/11/2005, 12:20 pm Post subject: |
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We run contest's quite regularly, but we don't do it to increase membership, it's more there to reward current member's.
The last few competition's we ran, we implemented it so that's any registered user can enter, but user's with a post count over 1000 were entered twice.
We got feedback before doing this, and everyone, even those under 1,000 posts agreed it was a good idea.
The current competition isn't just a click enter and you're in with a chance, you have to submit ideas for a slogan, so as expected, not as many entries, and not so many people signing up just to enter.
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Playground | Wood Riding of Various Shapes and Sizes | Extreme Shopping |
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Peter Rosado
Joined: 10 Sep 2005
Posts: 23
Location: Puerto Rico
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| Posted: 9/11/2005, 1:56 pm Post subject: |
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I'm thinking about holding out contests, I wouldn't give money...I would give away community merchandise (t-shirts, etc.)...it's like paying for advertisement. :p
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drathbun
Joined: 23 Sep 2005
Posts: 42
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| Posted: 9/23/2005, 9:18 am Post subject: |
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| marc wrote: |
| We run contest's quite regularly, but we don't do it to increase membership, it's more there to reward current member's. |
That's what I do. Every year on the "birthday" of the site we have a contest. One year I put a ton of effort into it, coming up with a variety of codes to break / puzzles to solve. Ultimately you had to determine the combination to a "safe" that contained the prize. The first person to generate all 4 numbers of the combination won. I spent hours in researching the puzzles and writing the code, and I think I got 12 people to play. 
This year it was a "post in this topic and you're entered in the contest" contest. Much easier on me.
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dingointeractive
Joined: 18 Apr 2006
Posts: 10
Location: Presque Isle, maine
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| Posted: 5/6/2006, 2:18 am Post subject: |
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I ran one for $100 dollars paypal to increase posts. and i got exactly that 2 people who basically spammed the hell out of our board. I wasnt impressed. Ill do it again in the future once our membership climbs and it wont be for money and increase in posts. Something fun.
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Nick
Joined: 09 Sep 2005
Posts: 772
Location: Next to the stereo
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| Posted: 5/6/2006, 10:01 am Post subject: |
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We've been running one for a month or two, but it's only gained my forum about 3-4 members and none of them post consistently. They may have 10 posts combined in two months. It's also not a very broadly scoped contest since it's only about video games. I just figured what the heck - it can't hurt.
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