Now that your YOBI.tv profile looks good, your contest entries are in shape, and you know the knockout schemes, voting rules, and prize info for your contest, there’s only one thing left to do: rally your voting troops by promoting your finalist entry!
Self-promotion is definitely more of an art than a science. What works well for one person might not work at all for someone else. The good news is that you probably already have an idea of what works for you. Status updates, Facebook events, tweets, Twitter hashtags, twitpics, Pinterest boards, YouTube videos, Vine vids, g+ updates, Reddit posts, Skype messages, Stumbles, Tumblr posts, blogs, vlogs, text messages, emails, flyers, and good old-fashioned word of mouth are just a few of the promotional avenues you could try.
Now…now matter where you decide to self-promote, there are three important things that you always want to do when you ask people to vote.
1. Tell your voters what to do.
For some of your voters, this is a no brainer. However, I have seen contests on other video sites that count a view as a vote. YOBI isn’t like that: your voters must click that Vote button in order for their vote to register. So make sure you tell them that.
Hey – my short film “The Curry Conspiracy” is in the finals of the YOBIFilm contest! Please take a moment to go to {contest entry url} and click that big ‘ol vote button for me. Thanks a bunch!
2. Tell your voters why they should take the time to vote for you.
We are barraged with messages every day that ask or tell us what to do. Most of these messages go unheeded…or at least go unheeded by me. Get your voters to pay attention to your vote requests by telling them why you’d like them to take action on your behalf.
My short film “The Curry Conspiracy” is in the finals of the YOBIFilm contest! Please take a moment to go to {contest entry url} and click the vote button. I could win $6,000 to buy new film equipment and win a spot on the film crew of new webseries. This could be a career-changing opportunity for me. Thanks for your support!
3. Ask your voters to share with their social networks.
Bear with me here. Let’s say that you have 100 friends, and that each of those friends have 100 friends. Your initial Facebook update is going to reach your friends…so 100 potential voters. And that’s good! However, if you can get, let’s say, half of those friends to share your Facebook update with their friends — now you’re reaching 5,000 potential voters. In short, you can massively increase your reach if you can get your voters to share your vote request with their own social networks.
My short film “The Curry Conspiracy” is in the finals of the YOBIFilm contest! Please take a moment to go to {contest entry url} and click the vote button. I could win $6,000 to buy new film equipment and win a spot on the film crew of new webseries. This could be a career changing opportunity for me. Please share/RT. Thank you!
Bonus Tip: If you think your voters need a bit more of an incentive, remind them that voters are eligible to win iTunes gift cards and YOBI swag. Details are in our YOBI.tv Talent Scout blog post.
Not all of these promotional techniques will work for everybody, but they are definitely worth a shot if you’re serious about making it into the later rounds of the YOBI Contest Finals. See you next week when the Finals begin!
If you missed the first three Finalist Tips blog posts, here they are.
Best wishes and good luck to all!
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Congratulations to Joey Edwards, the 1st Place winner of our Season 5 YOBILaugh Comedy Contest!
