Forum contests

I'm trying to think of ways to get visitors to join my forum. I was thinking of a contest. It would be something like the first, lets say 50 people to X amount of posts get to have a custom title.

Does anyone have any experiences with this, will it work? If you have any other suggestions please feel free to add them.

 

I am running a arcade competition. The winner on the last day of march wins $15...
Only my staff have taken part. Its been runing for over 20 days.
I do not have a clue why no body is taking part...

Thats my exp^

 

Heck I would take part in that smith.

In my experience on one of the few forums I have moderated for, the contests with rewards such as ebooks or a sum of money get people to come and post. However they generally leave after they hit the contest. But hey, some tended to stay. I'd say about 10% of the people that joined ended up staying on the forum. At least for awhile...

 

I think best way is to give away cash!! and to promote use the DP buy/sell thread to put up the contest detail.

 

I think that may have something to do with the fact that $15 is chump change.

 

What type of forum is it? If there are lots of webmasters at your site, maybe let them have free advertising space?

Oh, and a winner can also have a LARGER avatar!

 

well, I sound like a broken record talking about videos...but maybe best pet video? or best pet picture?

the advantage of these is that you maybe able to turn them into your own videos for promotion on YouTube at some point. People go ape-$#!t for cute pet videos and even dumb ones get hundreds of thousands of views.

 

Hi! Giving away prizes such as advertising space would certainly appeal to me who is in the internet marketing business. The custom title would also be nice.

 

I really like some of these ideas. Thanks for all the suggestions if you have more keep em coming. Oh, I just thought of something else that may be good too, amazon gift cards. Its kind of like cash and they can be sent be email.

 

Great idea! or even an ebay giftcard , let us know about what contests you're going with, I'm sure many of us will want to join your forum

 

I'm offering $25.00 for best quality poster this week. Going ok so far.

 

The amount really has nothing to do with it. I have seen popular paid posting forums that gives everyone the option to earn money just by posting. They get paid maybe a little more than a cent a post. What happeend? They have 1000's of non-spam posts because the moderation is good and the spam filter is good. Also they can only post 50 posts a day for money.

Also I have started contests that have a dollar as the prize and people still participate.

 

Try giving away shirts.

 

Haven't tried that one before... I would bet no one would participate because shirts require shipping. Also since we would be the ones shipping it, its just another annoying thing to do.

 

I might try that myself when my forum picks up a bit.

Some good idea's here.

 

custom title? i think, it will not work... i don't care so much about the custom title... you need to give them something which can force them to do what you want...

 

For a post count contest, when they reach the certain amount of posts, how do I verify that they were there first? Should I ask them for a screen shot? Or is there another way?

 

I was thinking about starting a forum contest for my forums. Anyone has ever had luck with it?

 

Thanks, however, many people would say what you just said. But not many people will take part.

 

Everyone loves money, give away a $$$ prize but make it at least 3 figures to make it worth while. Which looks better to you. $100 or $99?

Dollar in difference, but theres more then a dollar in the difference at first thought.