Category Archives: user-generated content

Boost Your CPG Brand: 4 Game-Changing Sweepstakes and Contest Ideas

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In the fiercely competitive world of consumer packaged goods (CPG), making a lasting impression is crucial. Sweepstakes and contests are powerful strategies to engage your audience, amplify brand awareness, and drive sales. Ready to create a buzz around your brand? Here are four innovative ideas designed to elevate your CPG promotions.

 🍳 1. Stir Up Creativity with Recipe Creation Contests

Engage your audience by putting your products in their hands—and on their plates.

What better way to showcase your food or beverage products than by inviting customers to create unique recipes? A recipe creation contest not only drives product usage but also generates rich user-generated content (UGC) that can be shared across your marketing channels.

Example: Host a contest asking participants to submit their best breakfast recipes featuring your cereal brand. The most creative and delicious entry wins a grand prize and gets featured on your website and social media. This approach not only highlights your product’s versatility but also taps into the community’s love for cooking.

Why It Works: Consumers love to experiment in the kitchen, especially when they can show off their creations. This contest encourages ongoing engagement and provides your brand with a treasure trove of shareable content.

 🎉 2. Create Instant Excitement with Instant-Win Sweepstakes

Immediate gratification leads to immediate engagement.

Instant-win sweepstakes are a surefire way to create excitement and drive rapid participation. The allure of instant prizes motivates customers to engage with your brand and spread the word, expanding your reach exponentially.

Example: Launch an instant-win promotion where customers can enter by purchasing your product and uploading their receipt online. Prizes can range from branded merchandise to larger rewards like kitchen gadgets or a year’s supply of your product.

Why It Works: The chance to win something instantly is a powerful motivator. This type of sweepstakes not only drives product sales but also creates a sense of urgency that encourages immediate participation.

 📲 3. Amplify Engagement with Social Media Hashtag Contests

Leverage social media to turn customers into brand ambassadors.

Hashtag contests are an effective way to harness the power of social media. Encourage participants to share their experiences with your product, generating a wave of organic, user-generated content that boosts your brand’s visibility on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

Example: Create a contest where participants post a photo or video using your product with a specific branded hashtag. The most creative or popular posts win a prize, giving your brand valuable social proof and enhancing its social media presence.

Why It Works: Hashtag contests are easy to enter and highly shareable, making them perfect for driving engagement and increasing brand visibility. Plus, they provide an ongoing stream of authentic content that resonates with your audience.

 💎 4. Reward Loyalty with Exclusive Sweepstakes

Turn your most loyal customers into lifelong brand advocates.

Loyalty-based sweepstakes are a fantastic way to reward your repeat customers and deepen their connection to your brand. By offering exclusive sweepstakes entries based on purchase history or participation in a loyalty program, you incentivize continued engagement and drive sales.

Example: Offer loyalty program members a chance to win a grand prize for every certain amount they spend on your products. The more they purchase, the more entries they earn, creating a win-win scenario that boosts both sales and customer loyalty.

Why It Works: Loyalty programs foster a sense of belonging, encouraging customers to keep coming back for more. By linking loyalty with the excitement of a sweepstakes, you enhance the value of your program and strengthen customer relationships.

 Ready to Elevate Your CPG Brand?

These four contest ideas are more than just promotions—they’re strategic tools for creating unforgettable experiences that resonate with your customers. Whether you’re looking to run a photo contest, social media giveaway, or instant-win sweepstakes, Votigo has the expertise to ensure your campaign runs smoothly and achieves its goals.

Let’s bring your next sweepstakes or contest to life. Contact us today and let’s get started!

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Why Social Media Promotions Are More Relevant Than Ever

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In today’s digital age, customers expect more than just a product—they want an experience. Back in 2008, when MySpace was the dominant social media platform, we at Votigo recognized the immense potential of social media for brand engagement. That’s why we coined the term ‘Social Media Promotions‘—to capture the idea that brands could create meaningful, interactive experiences through these emerging platforms.

As Facebook opened its doors to the public and businesses began leveraging Facebook Pages, we were one of only 20 Facebook Preferred Developers, helping brands harness this new opportunity. When Twitter opened its APIs for sweepstakes, we were there with a solution. We then expanded our offerings to include Pinterest, Instagram, and now TikTok, always staying ahead of the curve as social media evolved.

Over the years, we’ve had the privilege of working with world-class brands like Sharpie, Corona, Michelin, KFC, KraftHeinz, NBCUniversal, and State Farm.

Social media promotions have provided these brands with numerous benefits, including increased brand awareness, deeper customer engagement, and valuable user-generated content. These promotions drive customer loyalty, amplify reach through social sharing, and provide measurable results that tie directly into broader marketing strategies.

These social media platforms have transformed the way brands interact with their audiences, making social media promotions more relevant than ever. It’s not just about driving sales; it’s about building lasting relationships through interactive, value-driven experiences that resonate with consumers long after the campaign ends.

The big question now is: What’s the next big social media platform? While the landscape is constantly changing, one thing remains certain—social media promotions will continue to play a crucial role in how brands connect with their customers. And at Votigo, we’re ready to embrace whatever comes next.

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How to Run a TikTok Giveaway: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Running a successful TikTok giveaway can significantly boost your brand’s visibility, engagement, and follower count. At Votigo, we specialize in creating and managing engaging TikTok sweepstakes and contests for our clients. Here’s a comprehensive guide to help you run an effective TikTok promotion, illustrated by a recent successful campaign we executed.

Define Your Goals

Before launching your promotion, clearly define your objectives. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, gain followers, or promote a new product? Having a clear goal will guide your strategy and help measure success.

See what Votigo offers for your next TikTok Giveaway

Plan the Giveaway Structure

Planning is crucial to ensure your giveaway runs smoothly. Decide on the type of sweepstakes or contest, entry methods, duration, and prizes. For our recent campaign, we collaborated with six influencers who each posted on their Instagram and TikTok pages. Participants entered by commenting on these posts.

Choose the Right Influencers

Influencers play a vital role in the success of your sweepstakes or contest. Select influencers whose followers align with your target audience. For our campaign, we chose influencers who resonated well with the target demographic of the product.

Create Compelling Content

Engaging and visually appealing content is key to attracting participants. Work with your influencers to create content that highlights the giveaway and encourages participation. Our influencers created vibrant posts and videos showcasing the product and the sweepstakes details.

Set Clear Rules and Guidelines

Transparency is essential in maintaining trust. Clearly outline the rules, entry methods, eligibility criteria, and prize details. Our company handled the rules and administration for the giveaway, ensuring everything was transparent and compliant with relevant regulations.

Promote the TikTok Giveaway (Sweepstakes or Contest)

Maximize the reach of your giveaway through strategic promotion. Utilize your influencers’ platforms, your own social media channels, and any other available marketing avenues. Our influencers promoted the giveaway on both Instagram and TikTok, driving engagement across both platforms.

Collect and Manage Entries

Efficiently collecting and managing entries is crucial for a smooth process. Our company collected comments from each influencer’s Instagram and TikTok pages, using advanced tools to ensure accuracy and fairness.

Draw and Notify Winners

Once the promotion ends, conduct the drawing and notify the winners promptly. We used custom scripts to randomly draw winners from the collected entries, awarding one prize per influencer. We then notified the winners and managed the prize distribution.

Analyze and Report

After the giveaway, analyze the results to measure success and gather insights for future campaigns. Look at metrics such as engagement, follower growth, and participant feedback. Reporting these findings helps refine future strategies and improve overall effectiveness.

Our Recent Success Story

In our recent campaign, we executed a giveaway for a popular breakfast product. Six influencers posted on their Instagram and TikTok pages, collecting comments as entries. Our company handled everything from rule-setting and entry collection to drawing winners and notifying them. Each influencer awarded a relevant prizes to a lucky participant, creating excitement and engagement among their followers.

Conclusion

Running a successful TikTok giveaway involves careful planning, strategic promotion, and efficient management. By partnering with experienced professionals like Votigo, you can ensure your giveaway is engaging, fair, and achieves your marketing goals. Ready to launch your own TikTok giveaway? Contact us today to get started!

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Why UGC Contests Work for Marketing

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Why User-generated Contests Work for Marketers
UGC Contests Create a Dialogue with Consumers – Given the current online marketing landscape, it’s critical for savvy marketers to engage consumers in an open, two-way dialogue. By allowing consumers to contribute to marketing campaigns through photos, videos, text and user-voting, campaigns become personal. You can learn a lot about what resonates with your core consumers in a very short period of time based on what they share with you on the site, as well as what they send to friends and family as contest participants transform into viral evangelists for your brand.
Contests Virally Spread Your Marketing Message – Assuming your contest site is built well and with the right viral tools at the disposal of users (see tips), user-generated contests can be a great way to virally spread your marketing message. What is unique about contests is that entrants have an incentive to promote themselves in order to get the votes needed to win the contest. And as we’re learning, in a digital world with a lot of noise, consumers have a higher level of trust and interest in content referred by their friends. This provides brands with an amazing way to expose their message to a new audience of engaged consumers.
Photo, Video, and Essay Contests Build Community Around Your Brand – Creating a contest microsite with built-in social networking features provides the landscape for your customers to talk about the promotion. What’s a contest microsite you might ask? It’s a standalone web site or sub-section of your existing brand web site that is dedicated to the contest and fully customized to your look and feel. In addition to contest rules, guidelines, user entry forms and voting it should utilize key social features allowing visitors to share and interact with the contest entries and each other. Depending on the theme of your contest, this interactive conversation could be focused on your product or brand specifically or something with which you want your brand associated with.
They Allow for Safe Participation in Social Media – Some brands are reluctant to turn over control of their marketing to consumers for fear of what the masses might say. Contests can provide a great way for brands to safely participate in social media. By clearly outlining rules and guidelines for entering contests and making smart use of prescreen and moderation tools, your brand can remain protected.
Contests Grow Your Customer Email Database – Because of the viral nature of entrants reaching out to friends and family to promote entries, contests can be a great way to build your customer database for future marketing efforts. It goes without saying, however, that users must opt-in to receive future marketing messages.
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New Live Campaigns – Blue Buffalo, Walmart, AARP, Ovation TV, Florida OJ, and FujiFilm (photo contest, video contest, facebook contest, facebook sweepstakes)

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Blue Buffalo Shelter Stars – UGC Photo Contest Microsite

This is the place to show off your buddy and share your pet adoption success story photo contest. With so many homeless pets across the country, it’s pet parents like you who are making all the difference in the lives of the animals that deserve a second chance. Open your heart, open your home, and share the love at BLUE Shelter Stars.

Walmart Associate Talent Search – Video Contest Microsite

We’re looking for all kinds of talent in this video contest: dancers, musicians, comedians, magicians and more-any performance-based talent that showcases the amazing talent and unique abilities of Walmart associates. So be thinking about how you will highlight your talent in a fun video that isn’t longer than two minutes. Feel free to perform your talent to a cover song.

AARP Superstart Contest 2015 – Video Contest Microsite

AARP wants to help you achieve your dreams! We’re looking for the next American singing sensation – and no kids allowed to enter this video contest! Contestants must be age 50 or over at the time of contest conclusion on May 15, 2015 and possess a voice that will make crowds jump to their feet with excitement.

Ovation TV American Canvas Travel Sweepstakes – Facebook Sweepstakes

For its all-new series American Canvas Ovation TV is asking you to enter the Facebook Sweepstakes for your chance to win the ultimate art adventure in San Francisco, Austin or Miami!

Enter this facebook sweepstakes for your chance to enjoy flavorful 100% Florida Orange Juice while you discover our state’s sun, fun and family attractions. This exciting Spring Break family getaway includes a stay in an Orlando hotel, roundtrip transportation for four and a $1,000 gift card to make the most of what the area has to offer.

Enter this photo contest and show us your most impressive landscape photo for a chance to win an Adventure Canada Mighty Saint Lawrence voyage for 2 (www.adventurecanada.com/trip/mighty-saint-lawrence/) and a Fujifilm X-T1 camera kit with XF18-135mmF3.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR lens. X Photographers Dan Bailey and Patrice Halley will be on board as well! Contest runs from February 13 to March 31, 2015. North American entries only (excluding Quebec and Hawaii, see rules for details. Trip must be taken on dates specified).

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New Live Examples – #UGC Contests and Sweepstakes

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We love sharing new live examples with you!  We hope you feel the same way 🙂

Parents / American Baby Bumb of the Month Photo Contest

Parents American Baby have a great strategy around user-generated photo content and their subscribers lover to participate.  In this contest they ask for creative and fun photos during pregnancy.  The contest is embedded as an iFrame within their site.

Roman Meal Baked Fresh Sweepstakes

Roman Meal is running this Enter-to-win Sweepstakes on its Facebook Page to grow their fan base, user data, and email opt-ins.  It’s a nicely designed sweepstakes and very easy to enter.

 The Perfume Shop #ILoveOnika Photo Contest

The Perfume Shop photo contest using hashtag #ILOVEONIKA is only one week long and only a couple of days into it they already have over 100 submissions!  Excellent execution of a user generated photo contest with hashtag integration.

Go here for more live examples of contests, sweepstakes, and social content hubs and galleries. https://www.votigo.com/live-examples.php

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Facebook Sends a Message on the Importance of Promotions

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Yesterday Facebook announced that it has removed some restrictions about how businesses can run promotions (Contests and Sweepstakes) on Facebook.  Previously, the Facebook Promotion Guidelines prohibited any promotion from using any native Facebook functionality like “posting on the Brand Page wall”, “commenting on posts”, “liking posts”, etc.  And they required that businesses use a third party application provider like Votigo.

With the change promotions can now be administered on Page Timelines. For example, entries may be collected by posting to a page or commenting or liking a Page post.

By making these changes Facebook is affirming what we’ve always known. Promotions are an extremely important component of marketing for businesses of all sizes.  Promotions offer a business the best way to acquire and engage new and existing customers.  Facebook also recognized that a lot of small brands were ignoring their earlier guidelines anyway and hosting quick and dirty promotions on their Page Timelines anyway.  Instead of having all of these pages be in violation of the earlier policy, which must have created an administrative nightmare for Facebook, they’ve acquiesced.   However, businesses should still be aware of legal regulations from state to state and country to country.

We believe Facebook’s change to their policy will be good for those previously violating the Facebook Promotion Guidelines. They can sleep better at night, but the change will not replace promotion applications and the benefits they deliver.  

What a Facebook Promotion Application can provide that running a promotion on your Page Timeline can’t:

– Like-gate (users must Like your page before they can enter)

– Branded solution

– Collection of custom user data and email address

– Easier to select and contact winners

– Email newsletter opt-in

– Multiple contest and sweepstakes formats:  Photo contests, Video contests, Referral / Viral sweepstakes, Trivia sweepstakes and more.

– Exportable user data and voter reports

– Moderation and pre-screening entries

– Campaign Analytics

Let us know what you think about the new policy and/or if you have any questions about it.

We’re here to help!

– Team Votigo

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Votigo Integrates Vine

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Vine is Twitter’s newest app, allowing fans to record and share six-second long videos to Facebook, Twitter, and Vine.  The time limit encourages users to be creative and to tell a story in only six seconds.  Vine’s looping format can enhance emotion or amplify your message as viewers see the video clip on repeat.

The new video app is a creative way to gather user-generated content.  Vine describes these new video posts as “little windows into the people, settings, ideas and objects that make up your life.” These short video clips are a great opportunity for you to find out more about your fans and how they engage with your brand.

Vine recently released a feature that allows users to embed other users’ Vine videos on their own websites and Twitter pages, allowing the videos to be shared with multiple audiences.  This sharing feature is a great way for a company’s marketing message to reach a larger audience.  Vine is an innovative way for fans to become engaged and involved on social media and Votigo sees its amazing potential.

Yum! Brands worked with Votigo to create a promotion that would incorporate Vine as a way to enter and win. Fans can enter KFC’s Li’l Playground Makeover contest for a chance to win a makeover for their local community playground. Fans can tell Yum! Brands why their playground deserves a makeover by entering a photo or short story on Facebook, a video using Twitter/Vine, or an Instagram photo with #KFCPlaygrounds.  Each choice gives users a creative outlet to share their stories via pictures, videos, and text. Yum! Brands encourages fans to share their entries by enabling users to vote on their favorite submissions.

For more information on how you can incorporate Vine into your promotions contact us today!

 

 

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Votigo Introduces the Essay Contest

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We are excited to announce the launch of our Essay Contest app, a new addition to our list of available promotions.  The essay contest is offered cross-channel and available in 10 languages.  Similar to the process of a photo or video contest, users are encouraged to upload an essay for a chance to win.  The essay contest has a few additional fields under entry, including a title, a space for text, a space to provide a character limit, and an optional space for a video or photo.  The essay contest also allows you to enable a voting option for your users, encouraging them to share their entries with friends on their social channels to get more votes.

The essay contest offers the benefit of maximum engagement from your audience.  Unlike the other contest apps, the essay contest evokes the power of written stories.  The contest can be utilized in many creative ways and can encourage original, user-generated content for your brand.  You can create an essay contest prompting your fans to write about their favorite products or a new idea for your brand.  By adding an essay component you are allowing your fans to provide their own ideas about your brand and to tell short stories about how they use your products.  The essay contest can also be used alongside a photo or video, which gives users a chance to further explain their entry.

It is important to keep in mind that an essay contest is more time consuming than a photo contest and requires a good amount of effort from your fans.  For this reason, it is a good idea to allow adequate time for your contest so that all of your fans have an opportunity to participate.  If you are looking for an exciting way to engage fans contact us today about our Essay Contest app!

 

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Introducing Photo Sweepstakes

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It’s no secret that photos rule in the world of social media. According to Facebook, posts that include a photo album or picture generate about 180% or 120% more engagement, respectively. Photos create an emotional connection and help personalize your brand. They command more attention in the news feed, and they are a great way to showcase a lifestyle or put your customers on display.

Photo contests have long been used as a way to engage fans and get great quality content from your fans. Fan photos can be used in your marketing materials and on your social channels to help build your brand and tell your brand story.

Now – we’re pleased to introduce Photo Sweepstakes into our Standard DIY apps. Photo sweepstakes incorporate photo engagement in a low-barrier-to-entry giveaway. Unlike a photo contest, photo sweepstakes award a winner randomly, so entrants don’t need to worry about how their photo stacks up against the competition.

If you want to incorporate voting – you’ll want to use a Photo Contest app.  But, if you’re looking for a simple giveaway that awards a random winner, a photo sweepstakes is the way to go.

You can create a photo sweepstakes by logging into your Votigo account, or by creating an account now. In addition to photo sweepstakes, we’ve also recently launched Twitter sweepstakes – which can also incorporate photos or video.

Get started now

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