Competitions can often be used to extremely good effect. Generating a feeling of added community atmosphere throughout, how so you ask, well by having a systematic and regular competition ensures that member participation will gradually but surely increase in a bid to win one of your prizes. Logic will of course prevail that the greater the prize you are giving away then the greater the interest, participation and registration rates.
Here are some stereotypical examples of competition giveaways which usually frequent around boards. I shall try and summarize their impact and members desire to partake too to make this a little more crystallized:
- A post boost: This is probably considered one of the lower respected and values methods of prizes, but can be used to good effect demanding on how highly the post count is respected within your community. Although you have a Catch 22 in that after each competition the post count becomes less respected and desirable yet you are giving away a prize based on its desirability and respectability. Not recommended to be a regular competition as interest will undoubtabally decrease.
- A member promotion: This is often a popular choice for forum administrators unwilling to give away paid prizes. By allowing a specific competition winner the change to become part of an "elite" group this some will consider an easy way to a) gain respect within the community, b) become a staff member quicker. Although neither are true, nor desirable attributes of a competition winner they are certainly prevalent and will entice greater participation. Of course the larger your forum is then the divide between being a member and an elite member is even greater encouraging more activity within the competition.
- Cash value giveaway: This could have quite easily have been sub-divided into what value the prizes where but that is merely suspect. Personally i believe that giving away prize of some value, for example, a football shirt in a football forum, or a forum license in a forum such as this will entice more participation because a) you are appealing directly to a specific audience who will no doubt have an interest in attaining a money value prize which can be used to compliment their interests, and b) Winning something of material value is often considered much more desirable than fore say 'kudos' or a post boost.
- Advertising: Giving away free advertising on your forum in some form as prize is often extremely dependent upon the sites activity itself, for example if www.vbulletin.com where offering free advertising then it would certainly attract much more attention and attraction then perhaps TSL. This is undeniably less active and less reputable. (For now
)
Whilst this is of course a brief overview of the types of competition prizes usually given away i feel they are the most used and generally most popular types. Here are some competition types usually frequenting around forums these days, they are all usually pretty successful when combined with an appropriate forum prize or giveaway:
- Easter Egg Search: Hiding an image as an attachment within a members post, or a page can often lead to members viewing the forum in more depth and becoming active due to viewing more topics and gradually finding more of interest. This will appeal to a more niche market since those members with time to consume viewing hundreds of topics is few and far between. Usually done at seasonal times such as Easter (Eggs) and Christmas (Presents).
- Referral Competition: I defy you to find me one forum which hasn’t had one of these! I don’t personally find them useful for improving activity, but if you want to give your member base a quick boost with 1-10% of what you originally had, (depending on original size and incentive, aka, prize), then this is a fast, unoriginal way to do so. Providing prize to member(s) with the most referrals within a certain time frame.
- Posting Competitions: "Post the most times in 2 hours", "Create as many topics as possible in forum %A". These are pretty much the deeds of this sort of competition, enticing posts and threads without regard for quality this is a bad idea for a competition unless there is some sort of validation, or quality system in place; as it gives the wrong idea for a forums reputation and also makes it seem as though they are more focused on an impressive forum count than actual quality and detail .. never a good selling point
- Identity Design: Staff members will often request per say an image, skin, design, template or some form generated which will be customized and free, (in return for a prize of course) to give their forum a more unique and approachable identity. This is usually a good idea for a competition as it promotes member activity in a good and positive way and allows your members to feel as though they have contributed something towards the forum when they can see their designed logo appear in each page in the banner. The activity and popularity of a competition such as this will entirely depend on the member base and if their interests will revolve around graphic and web design, for example a Pokemon board may not endure as much success as a resource support forum.
Well unfortunately these are all the types of competitions that have sprung to my mind at the moment. I'll be updating this with more competitions as time comes, if you have any comments, suggestions or additions then the Reply button is always your friend per usual.
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09-28-2005, 08:08 PM 
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