Have you ever ran a forum contest?

A forum I am on is currently running a recruitment contest, where the first prize is an Xbox One. The problem is that the admin is not very trustworthy (he likes banning people that disagree with his opinions), so I have few doubts that this Xbox One will either never materialize or will go to an alt account of the admin or one of his RL friends on the forum. So if you run one, be sure to do so when the people on the forum trust you.

 

I have not run any forum contest and while I have thought to run one, I usually don't have the time to find how to do it without having members running their post count up, or regulate submissions when it comes to request something they could do to compete.

Perhaps in the future I try it just to see if a contest can truly drive traffic or enough interest from members to participate.

 

I have had a couple of contests. One had a great response. Some others we a bust. I now have a contest mod for my site. I pick with user groups can enter. They answer a question and enter. It will pick from all of the users that answer the question right on the closing date. I have competed two contest with that so far. Both had prizes offered by other companies. One was worth $40 and the other $50. I now have a $25 contest up that I'm running myself. It is bringing people by but I would like to see more people entering and also I would love to see some new members because of it.

James

 

I have run a forum contest and it gave some good results.

The normal type of contest that most admins will run are referral contest. I usually like to run a ref contest and another type at the same time.

 

This past year I have ran a number of contests...

December:
http://www.rccanada.ca/rccforum/showthread.php?t=206571
+ 1 giveaway on facebook

This past year I have done about 12 giveaways, 1 per month. Value ranging from $50 to $1000

This was one of our prize lots here:


Overall I find it helps with traffic, but its not a game changer. I certainly dont recoup the investment on the prizes.

I have done a few giveways on deader forums and find it sparks some interest back into the site, but those giveaways don't need to be top dollar ones.

I have also started focusing on giveaways strictly for site supporters. This helps get new supporters on board and rewards those for supporting the site.

I feel like I am doing a disservice if the prizes aren't awesome. The boards make enough money to support decent giveaways.

Febs