It may seem like a no-brainer to connect your social media promotion to an event. That’s because events have, built-in, some of the most important components of a successful, audience-building, awareness-generating social media promotion:

1) The definitive, time-sensitive attention of an audience
2) An easy-to-integrate theme
3) And often a logical prize that goes perfectly with the occasion (tickets, access, a timely discount or gift)

Sporting events…concerts…product launches…conferences and conventions…even social media milestones (”Our 1,000,000th Follower!”)…these are all great events that savvy marketers effectively tie their promotions to.

Holidays- and the frenzied weeks that precede them- may be the single best sort of event to serve as a promotional anchor.

This week we read that Americans will spend close to $7B on Halloween by October 31- or 18% more than we did last year. Not surprisingly, recent use of our newly-launched self-service platform reflects a HUGE emphasis on Halloween promotion. Seemingly every other sweepstakes launched over the past week is Halloween-themed, from ticket giveaways for haunted houses to best dog costume photo contests. Some of these contests have engaged hundreds of entries almost immediately. And some great ones have come out of our full-services, like this costume contest from The Children’s Place.

So as a social media marketer, what do you turn your attention to once the Halloween rush subsides on Tuesday?

Holiday retail. While the holiday bonanza official kicks off in the wee hours of Black Friday, Nov. 25, when throngs of Early Bird shoppers line up for morning-after-Thanksgiving specials to OFFICIALLY launch the retail spree that runs through Christmas Eve and, really, New Year’s, the reality is that holiday commerce is already underway.

Votigo clients are well on their way to an impressive variety of contests, sweepstakes, mobile promotions (including check-in and coupon-based giveaways) and much more. Some are keeping it simple: a Facebook photo contest asking fans to submit a snapshot of them demonstrating their need for / favorite use of / funny drawing of a newly launched product or holiday favorite gift item.

Others will get more sophisticated with a cross-platform campaign that first captures audience attention on Facebook OR Twitter and a branded microsite, then drives them to a store for a chance at a mobile instant win or a coupon offer, and finally invites users to spread the word for additional votes (for a photo contest) or sweepstakes entries. These strategies work especially well for retailers, from mom-and-pop shops to national chains.

So even though it’s nearly All Hallow’s Eve- and that means Black Friday is a mere month away- there is still time to create your own promotion in our self-service tool or call our full-service team to get started on a premium promotion.

It’s the end of a busy mini-roadshow week of previewing our self-service social media promotions platform at  DEMO and BoulderBeta. Here’s a quick recap:

DEMO was a high-energy two-day event centered on great pitches from a huge group start-ups. They ran the gamut from web and mobile apps for consumers to new ecommerce and search technologies to robotics. Votigo was a proud sponsor of the event.

Some of our favorite pitchers: OLogic, LUMOback, Gust , Aurasma, and Unrabble, and for solo presentation dynamics, GumHoo. Other highlights included Aaron Levie, Box.net founder, on stage with a typically high energy level on day 2.

You can read the Twitter stream of the show here. Here are TheNextWeb’s @Chikodi’s 10 Favorite Startups From DEMO. And of course, a ton of VentureBeat coverage (DemoBeat) by Matt Marshall, Jolie O’Dell and the crew that hosted the event.

Also check out the Startup America HD Social Lounge video of Votigo co-CEO Jim Risner talking about Votigo’s full-service business and our newly-launched platform for self-service users.

If you want to request an invitation to the private beta of our self-service promotions platform- where you can launch promotions apps for Facebook for exactly $.02 through mid-October- please click here.

Back in Boulder last night, part of the Votigo team previewed the Votigo Platform at the latest Boulder Beta.  It was our 2nd year attending, first time showing off a beta offering.  A very high energy crowd was highlighted by 8 great start-ups, including our neighbors on the Beta floor, mobile commerce provider MShopper and the very recently launched community-powered news platform CrowdSpoke.

The start-up energy was contagious and we were able to gather some feedback for the Votigo Platform beta. A huge thanks to Tim Falls from Sendgrid, and Christian Perry, the maestros behind the Beta series, whose next stop is the Boston Beta Launch on Oct. 25 in Beantown.

It’s an exciting week for us at Votigo as we go on a mini-roadshow to debut the Votigo Platform, our recently-announced self-service interface for launching branded social media promotions.

Using Votigo’s self-service platform, brands can now launch promotions apps for Facebook brand pages using the same powerful technology that we have used to launch promotions for our full-service clients since 2007.  The first promotions available include video or photo contests and sweepstakes for Facebook brand pages.  The launch is in invite-only beta (request an invitation here) and for the next few weeks, beta users can launch promotions for just a few cents each (in exchange for two cents worth of feedback).

Starting tonight, and all day tomorrow and Wednesday, we will be at the DEMO in Santa Clara, CA, among the nearly 20 technology companies debuting new products in the DEMO Showcase while yet-to-launch products compete nearby for $1M in funding. DEMO also features an incredible agenda headlined by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Box founder Aaron Levie, and Intel chairman  Bill Campbell.

If you are at DEMO, please stop by the Showcase.  You can also follow #democon on Twitter.

On Thursday night, we’ll back in our own backyard (one of them anyway) for BoulderBeta. This year’s 6th anniversary tour of what was originally SFBeta now includes San Francisco (Tuesday) and Boulder (Thursday), plus Seattle, New York and Boston in October, and Dublin in November.
Joining us Thursday night will be Crowdspoke, MetroGnome, Mshopper, splick-it, and spotinfluence among other great companies and start-ups based in the thriving Boulder and Colorado tech scene. Hope to see you there if you are nearby. And if you have any questions about these events (there’s still time to register for both) or the Votigo Platform beta, please contact us.

You’ve made the commitment to launch a photo contest or video contest to engage your customer audience on social channels. It’s a great idea since it clearly addresses the question: what do I do with my Facebook and social media following?

But all user generated content contests are not cut from the same cloth. Some work tremendously- relative to the goals of the sponsor. And some probably flop- though we’re unfamiliar with that variety.

There are a lot of factors involved. But while we’ve recently shared our thoughts on Why Social Media Contests Work and, earlier, simply How To Do Social Media, we’ll continue on the theme and get closer to our sweet spot. Today’s lesson, polled from our full-service client team: 3 Features that Push a Social Media Contest to Success.

1) Geotargeting: Localize the User Experience

Big brands are gravitating toward a localized content experience on Facebook, mobile and beyond, writes Lauren Fisher at SimplyZesty.

Or as Dave Williams, Bling Media CEO, wrote recently on Ad Age:

“Localized creative is effective at generating awareness and ultimately driving people into stores, building higher order value, and powering transactions. Think of it like the Sunday circular that runs in the newspaper every week. Instead of buying ads in the paper, brands can push weekly specials out to localized audiences, and do so far more efficiently with mass reach and frequency.”

The social media promotion feature that solves this: Geotargeting. Say you’re a retailer, restaurant or service provider and you want to talk to customers based on proximity to your retail locations. Either through Profile information (on Facebook) or by asking for a zip code, geotargeting allows you to promote events (store openings), offer coupons or even customize contest parameters and prizes at the local level.”

2) Voter Incentive: Removing Barriers to Participate

Everyone creates content on the internet right? Actually not: as Forrester Research reported last autumn (via ReadWriteWeb’s Sarah Perez), fewer than a quarter of the internet audience are Creators of social content.

It’s true that in nearly a year since the Forrester study was released, new forums for publishing social content abound. Not just Google+, Quora, Tumblr and the other surging social networks, but also apps like Instagr.am and services like Spotify are empowering users with even more opportunity to publish content (like stylized photos and personal playlists) to the social web.

Still, content creation is a barrier for some would-be participants of a photo or video contest. So on the one hand, a significant chunk of your brand’s audience are Creators. They are in the habit of creating content for the web, and they have more tools than ever to do so. That user generated content will lead to authentic engagement, viral brand storytelling among your customers, and a repository of content (video, images, words) to be repurposed for future use (with permission). Many contest sponsors would be thrilled with that result.

But on the other, you can generate far greater participation in the contest if you also remove the Creator barrier from participation.

A Voter Incentive does just that. This feature layers a sweepstakes, in which anyone who votes, or comments, or shares a submission, is eligible to win a prize, on top of the contest. Rewarded for participating, voters who haven’t submitted content still have incentive to check back daily or weekly, see the latest entries, cast a vote, spread the word again, and most importantly for you, reconnect with the brand.

Check out ABSA’s My Team, My Passion photo and video contest, which promotes the Currie Cup- South Africa’s premier rugby competition- and is sponsored by one of the nation’s largest banks. ABSA’s contest is perfect example of a well-staged user generated content contest- especially because the winning video will air during the Currie Cup Final, but also because the Voter Incentive awards weekly prizes to voters.

3) The Viral Incentive: A Round Trip to Spreading the Word

This refer-a-friend feature is critical for creating the word-of-mouth effect that is typically a goal for any social media contest. In essence, the contest participant gains additional entries to a sweepstakes each time someone they invite registers, votes or otherwise participates in the contest. It is a simple and powerful form of referral marketing and it virtually ensures word-of-mouth will happen.

You’re investing in a social media promotion- a great step to engaging and expanding your pool of potential customers and advocates across digital channels. Don’t forget about the details- those premium features that broaden participation, personalize the experience and trigger word-of-mouth.

We just launched a new contest with Epiphone Guitars.  The “Best Guitar Solo” Video Competition.

The winner gets an Epiphone G-400.  It’s sick!

The contest starts today May 2nd and runs until June 17th.  That gives you 45 days to shred!  So go film yourself playing your best solo.  You can enter multiple times.  Tell you friends to come vote for you.

May the best guitarist win!

Wow, we’ve been busy! Here’s a quick update on all the new stuff happening on the site.

• New Homepage – We’ve completely redesigned the homepage to include Most Popular Contests, Recent Winners and People modules.
• Customized Contests – Now you can customize the look and feel of any contest you create with colors and background images.
• Search – You can easy search for people, contest entries and contests.
• People Tab – We’ve brought our growing user base to the forefront with a new people tab. Find and meet new people!
• Add Friends – We’ve made it easier for you to invite your friends to join Votigo with a new Add Friends Feature.
• Voting Widgets – To help you or your friends win contests we created a “Voting Widget” that you can add to your MySpace, Hi5 or other website. Just copy and paste the “Embed” code you see on the entry page with your entry. See an example of a Voting Widget for my entry in the Travel Video contest below.

On the contest front the Augustana Photo Contest ended. Congratulations to our first place winner “fisch22”! You can view all the winners here.

Three new Featured Contests with prizes have launched too!

• “Modest Mouse ‘We’ve Got Everything’ Contest” - 14 winners will each receive a 2GB iPod Nano, a Sony Turntable and the special-edition “‘We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank” CD package
• “The Cartel & Santa Cruz Snowboard Video Contest” – The winner receives an 07-08 Santa Cruz Jon Kooley Pro model snowboard, a SONY MiniDV Handycam® Camcorder DCR-HC38 and a signed copy of “Chroma” from Cartel and Epic Records!
• “Spring Break Photo Contest” – Win $500!

As always please let us know what’s on your mind by sending us feedback.

Mike