Do contests work well for marketing?

I agree and disagree with Perry..

Contests do work but not in all occassions. I have a lot of sites but only one has a contest (well, giveaway). And it pertains exactly to what they came there for. So contest for uploading, you will have someone upload a bunch of crap and then argue with you for a month about why they didnt win and then they will delete their account anyway.

So ideas like the point system, yeah hard to manage but a way to keep people coming back..you cant keep giving away $100.

 

I believe that contest are just good for getting some back links to your site. The more back links you have the higher your page rank and the better your site will be positioned on search engines.

 

Depends on your contest really, its requirements and rewards. Nowadays people tend to participate in contests where the prize is intangible rather than something ipodish you know.

 

You HAVE to post live results to keep your users uploading/downloading and stuff.

 

Alright, sorry about that. Current leader is JoomlaPro with 10 uploads, second is AustinPatton with 6 uploads.

 

Current leader as of today is oldskool with 64 uploads

 

That's a really bad idea.
If you are paying to people who upload the most gb then I could simply upload 100 movies and I'd win.
And if you are looking for people who upload the most videos, I could simply make 100 1 minute videos with the camera looking at the wall.
If you want good marketing, use the 100 dollars to advertise your website.
I would not suggest you make a video website because the internet is way too crowded with them, people think their website will be the next youtube, but the truth is, that it will never happen because youtube has the lead now, and they have a contract with google so there is virtually no way to become as great as they have become.

 

I think these are some valid points.

I think your contest is good idea, but maybe rework it for next month. Some manner that rewards quality as well - maybe most views or somethin, most referrals, a combination of things. In the end you need videos which will draw traffic, not just videos per se. Also, yes Youtube pretty much has the video market snapped in IMO. Have you considered trying to niche it a bit?

Best of luck with your site either way

 

I think a contest is valid when the prize is tangible and the method to win the prize either include quality or disclude completely spam or content creation. That being said any extra exposure and visitors cant be too bad. Good luck with your comp

 

I don't think that many people believe in getting 100$ without attempts. As for me when I'm told about any contests and rewards I don't care...