If you flip through your TV channel guide, it’s hard not to notice the number of contest-based shows. Whether people are competing to be the next music icon, lose weight or play games using household products the common theme is competition and a chance to win big.

TV producers are smart and continue to find success from audiences who like to compete and love to win.

This same idea can be leveraged in online marketing to get a community excited, find new audiences and keep your brand top of mind.

At the PRSA Digital Impact Conference Sandra Fathi, president and founder of Affect and Ben Pickering, CEO of Strutta guided the audience through the process to create a winning online contest.

Here are some reasons they shared that companies decide to run a promotion.
1. Generate leads and sales
2. Drive traffic online and offline
3. Increase brand equity
4. Engage and delight customers
5. Grow fan base, generate opt-ins and subscribers
6. Gain user data and insight
7. Collect consumer generated content

The 2 common types of promotions include Sweepstakes (chance-based promotion) & Contest (skill-based promotion).

When conducting a sweepstakes keep the call to action clear and the forms easy to fill out.

For contests, there may be a public voting or closed judging or a combination of both. In this method be sure that the criteria for winning is clearly articulated and readily available.

In either model, consider rewarding participants with coupons, discounts or smaller prizes to reward their time and effort, if even they don’t win the grand prize.

Promotional Law Basics
Running promotions involves adhering to laws and the guidelines of individual channels.

Promotion containing all 3 (prize, chance and consideration) is deemed an illegal lottery. Either eliminate chance or consideration.

Facebook promotion guidelines include the following Don’ts:

• administer a promotion directly on your Page or use Facebook features as an entry or voting mechanism
• automatically enter someone for Liking, posting a photo or comment
• use a like button for voting
• use Facebook channels to notify winners

For Twitter, the 140 character limit can make disclosure of material and policy items challenging. Make sure to host the information on your website and link to it often.

Planning Your Promotion
As with any marketing campaign, it’s important to align with business objectives before launching a contest. Documenting your intended outcomes will ensure that the promotion developed is designed to achieve these goals.

As goals are outlined, identify the KPI’s as well. KPIs may include an increase in social community, visitors to a website and/or additional actions from the visitors on-site.

Important planning questions to consider including scoping out time and resources available, setting clear and realistic goals, knowing what your audience wants and creating understandable rules and regulations.

Choosing Your Promotion Type
As you evaluate promotion types, consider it on a scale of low to high in terms of customer engagement and barrier to entry.

The lower the barrier to entry (sweepstakes) the more people who will likely sign up. As you move toward photo and video promotions the barrier to entry increases, but so to does engagement.

Tips for A Successful Promotion
Plan Ahead
One of the biggest reaons promotions fail is due to lack of planing. Create a marketing plan for the contest as you would with any other campaign including key actions, milestones and measurement.

Don’t Over Complicate
Favor execution over concept.  The best idea if not well executed will go nowhere.

Leverage Partners
Marketing partners or sponsors can expand the reach of your promotion and help offset costs with marketing and/or prizes.

Tips to Build Buzz
1. Make it easy to share
2. Post regularly on Facebook (used ‘pinned post’ to keep it visible)
3. Leverage other social networks
4. Promote on your website
5. Email existing customers
6. Enlist sponsors to cross promote
7. Identify influentials to help

Promoting Your Promotion
1. Build and budget for effective marketing (pre and post) including PR, marketing, social media, on-site/in-store and point of sale

2. Leverage existing and new company assets to achieve KPIs through your own database, databases of sponsors. Enlist the help of others who also have a large audience, such as influentials. If you have built them into the promotion, all the better.

3. Stack the deck  and seed entries
Encourage people to enter so that there are examples of what an entry can/should look like.

4. Plan for contingencies if the contest isn’t going to plan
This  may include budgeting for additional costs, but also plan for public take-over and how you will respond and act.

Selecting a Technology Partner or Platform
Here are items to consider when selecting a partner or platform.

• Custom vs Standard Build
• Expertise vs Experiment
• Social Media Tie-Ins
• Budgetary Constraints
• Time-To-Market
• Internal Resources

A case study – New York Intern Project
Sandra’s agency launched a contest to hire a summer intern. However, true goals of the contest were generating awareness for the agency, drive PR and increase social media engagement.

In addition, it was a proof of concept to see if they could run a successful contest and gain valuable insights.

And hopefully find a great intern.

A public vote was used to narrow down contestants to the top 6. Then the top 3 were flown to New York for interviews and challenges. From there, judges picked the winner.

Celebrity judges who were also relevant to the space, such as Guy Kawasaki, were chosen to lend credibility, build in promotional mechanisms and have objective judging.

Campaign results included a 5-fold increase in Facebook Like, 96 entries and over 14,000 votes.  In addition, media coverage was gained in several outlets including CNNMoney.

Contests can hold great opportunity to get a community excited, create content and engage with your brand. While the true end goal may not be giving away a prize, but rather to capture data or drive awareness, a contest can be a great mechanism.

If you are looking to run contests consider your resources and intended outcomes. Then determine whether one, large promotion or a series of smaller promotions is most likely to serve your goals. In addition, think about your existing online marketing efforts and what type of contest will fit in best with the channels and communities you have created.

Have you run an online contest? If so, what did you find worked well or not so well?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
How To Run A Winning Online Contest – #PRSADIConf | http://www.toprankblog.com

Will the DVD die off like the LaserDisc and VHS Tape before it?

There’s a compelling case that streaming video is killing its predecessors. This year, it is estimated, there will be 3.4 billion movie views online, compared with 2.4 billion disc views.

Streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus have racked up tens of millions of subscribers. It’s easy to see why — viewing a movie on a streaming service costs a fraction of the price of viewing a movie on disc.

For production companies, the rise of digital streaming capabilities isn’t necessarily good news. Movies in physical form are still far more profitable than streamed versions, and digital piracy is a thriving industry unto itself. In 2011, Fast Five, The Hangover Part II and Thor were illegally downloaded more than 25 million times.

This is all according to online education site TheDegree360, which pulled reports from several sources to produce the infographic below. Pronouncing the DVD officially dead as of 2012 may be a bit hasty, but the graphic does give some perspective on just how dominant streaming video has become.

When was the last time you bought a DVD? Let us know in the comments.

Courtesy of: Online Degrees

More About: Business, Entertainment, streaming video

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1. Reddit

Reddit has a subreddit dedicated to “tree” culture.

Click here to view this gallery.

Cannabis culture has steadily emerged from the underground, especially as efforts to reform marijuana legislation amp up. On April 20 (commonly referred to as “4/20″), the cannabis community celebrates marijuana’s cultural influence. The phrase originated with a group of California teenagers who designated 4:20 p.m. as a meeting time to search for an abandoned crop of cannabis. The phrase evolved to become a more general code word for smoking marijuana.

Online and social media communities rally around the plant, too, whether by posting news, promoting legislation, sharing videos or playing games. We’ve uncovered 10 places where people are following 4/20 culture online. Whether you want to learn more about the cannabis plant or use an app to find nearby medical marijuana dispensaries, take a peek at these digital resources.

Let us know whether you believe 4/20 is appropriately represented online. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Editor’s Note: Mashable does not condone recreational marijuana use where it is prohibited by law.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, gaspr13

More About: apps, Facebook, features, lifestyle, reddit, Social Media, Twitter

Shazam wants to give you another way to sing along with your favorite songs. On Friday, a version of the popular music-recognition app was announced for the new iPad.

Shazam for iPad [iTunes link] is available now in the App Store — and it’s free.

The latest iPad app includes Retina display graphics and its LyricPlay feature that was released for the iPhone in January. With LyricPlay you can view the lyrics to songs on your iPad and follow along as the song plays. The app contains the lyrics of around 20,000 of the most popular songs on Shazam. It also gives you a list of artists’ upcoming tour dates and connects to relevant YouTube videos.

Earlier this month, the company showed off its latest iPhone app (version 5.0), saying it’s quicker than ever and can recognize music, television and advertisements in a second.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Jorge Quinteros

More About: App, ipad, mobile apps, new ipad, shazam

Facebook is buying Instagram — and some Instagram users aren’t happy about it.

They’re tweeting that they’ll delete their Instagram accounts because of the acquisition.

The fear is that in addition to the company, Facebook has acquired all of that location-tagged photo data from Instagram’s users and may use it to target ads at them. Neither company has commented publicly about whether the data will, in fact, be used by Facebook in this way.

SEE ALSO: Facebook Acquires Instagram: What Do You Think? [POLL]

If you’re in the camp that’s deleting its Instagram accounts regardless (which you can do through this link), you don’t have to give up your photo library in the process. Here are some ways to save it:

• Instaport: In two steps, this service downloads your entire library onto a single zip file.
• Copygram: The primary function of Copygram is to provide a web interface for Instagram. It also allows you to download your library and pictures from other users’ feeds.
• Instagrid: This web interface for Instagram doesn’t let you download your library. It does, however, provide access to your favorite users’ photo streams without requiring you to have the Instagram app. You can subscribe to emailed updates from specific feeds (provided they use the service) or a weekly digest of both popular and “undiscovered” Instagram users.
• InstaDesk: While InstaDesk is certainly more fun to use with an Instagram account, it’s also a good tool for saving your favorite photos before shutting one down. Even if you’ve ignored its sync feature up until this point, the $4.99 Mac client makes it easy to download Instagram photos.
• SocialFolders: This service touts itself as a “Dropbox for Social Media.” In addition to your Instagram account, it will back up your Twitter, SmugMug, Facebook, Flickr, Picassa, Google Docs and YouTube profiles — so next time you want to delete an account, you’ll be prepared.

Keep in mind that some of these services are running slow today, apparently due to an overloaded Instagram API or increased traffic on the sites themselves.

Mashable’s Favorite Instagram Stories

• How Facebook Could Actually Improve Instagram
• Deleting Your Instagram Account? Here’s How to Save Your Pics
• Instagram for Android: Advanced Camera, But No Tilt Shift [HANDS ON]
• 10 Photo Apps That Enhance Instagram
• 13 Products You Can Make From Your Instagram Snapshots [PICS]

More About: Facebook, instagram

More than 66% of adult online users are now connected to one or more social media platforms. And it’s not just about keeping in touch with friends or following news or interests. As social media continues to play a pervasive role in the way people think, act and react to the world, it’s also changing one of the most crucial ways of actually helping the world: how people respond to emergencies and disaster.

From government agencies and other organizations, to citizens and social platforms themselves, people across the spectrum of social media are leveraging its use to respond to emergencies. According to a 2011 report of the Congressional Research Service, there are two broad categories in the way that we can conceptualize this use of social media: 1) to “somewhat passively” disseminate information and receive user feedback; and 2) to use social media more systematically as an emergency management tool.

But what does that mean, exactly? And how have we seen this emergency response in social media so far? Here’s a look at it from the perspective of government agencies and other organizations.

Government Agencies, Organizations

We don’t have to look far to see recent examples of how large organizational bodies have been using social media for disaster response. As Mashable recently reported, both the Dallas Fort Worth Red Cross and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport used Twitter to share safety tips, give status updates on flights and tweet out specific locations where people could take cover during the recent tornadoes in the area. This reaction by the Dallas authorities falls under both of those broad categories of utilizing social media — not only were they distributing general information, but they were actively using Twitter to warn citizens.

If you are in south Dallas Co, SEEK SHELTER NOW! Confirmed Tornado on the ground! #txwx #dfwwx #fb

— Red Cross DFW (@RedCrossDFW) April 3, 2012

However, “warning” or “alerting” people through social media is still in its infancy, and not everyone does it. During the recent shootout at Oikos University in Oakland, for example, the Oakland Police Department used Twitter to report on the crisis. However, the Oakland Police Department Twitter bio states that its account is not meant to be taken as a substitute for actual emergency or non-emergency responses — in other words, during that emergency, the department was using Twitter to disseminate information, not necessarily as a tool for emergency management.

Other agencies are also explicit in how they expect their users or fans to use their social media accounts. The National Weather Service’s Hurricane Center Facebook page, for example, states the purpose of the page right away in its description:

However, even with the premise of “experimenting” and “exploring,” the fact that the page has more than 125,000 likes suggests something pretty significant: People are interested in following these large governmental bodies and organizations on social media.

So why might government agencies or other organizations not be ready yet to use social media as a platform for emergency management? Well, even though social media may be common among most people, updating social media accounts, let alone during emergencies and disasters, requires a huge amount of time, effort and understanding of social media. And with 74% of social media users expecting response agencies to answer calls for help within an hour, that’s a lot of responding in a very little amount of time. And time is always precious during an emergency.

Still, that’s not to discount social media completely. The Red Cross recently launched a social media monitoring platform — the first of its kind — to not only share safety tips, but to also encourage people to use social tools to better prepare themselves for disaster. And even though the Hurricane Center is not yet using its Facebook page for emergency management, that’s not to say the purpose of the page won’t evolve. As the Hurricane Center stated in a note discussing its standpoint on Facebook, “We’ll see how this works.”

More About: disaster relief, features, government, Social Good, Social Media, trending

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

During Labor Day weekend in 2011, Activision drew more than 10,000 gamers to a massive debut event for their latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise, a full month before the game’s official launch. The event consisted of two major warehouses and 1,000 Xboxes — in addition to a Kanye West performance and a real-life paintball “warzone.”

It sounds elaborate, but the party resulted in 675% increase in pageviews and contributed to a quick $1 billion sales tally for the game.

Now, that’s not to say every small business should run out and hire Kanye for their next event. However, there are small things you can do offline to boost your presence on the web.

“Everyone’s looking at how to get their content at an event to live outside of the event,” says BizBash Editor-in-chief Chad Kaydo. “It’s not just about the two to three hours at the party, they want something that extends the life of the brand.”

Kaydo’s top tip for any size business is to create an event that’s relevant to your brand, yet highly sharable. You want to plan an experience that excites the attendees enough to want to tell their friends about it.

“People don’t want to share just advertising, they want to share something that has value,” says Kaydo. “Something that’s funny, smart and interesting.”

1. Photobooths

One of the most popular and easy routes that many choose when planning an event is using a photobooth, which Kaydo admits has been an available event option for a while. But now, rather than just giving guests a copy of photos, Kaydo says it’s become more common for the pictures to be posted on social media, sometimes even through a kiosk right there at the event.

The result? Your product, whether it’s your logo in the background or a model holding a promo, instantly reaches masses outside the event on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social channels.

2. Social Scavenger Hunts

One creative example that incorporates the online/offline worlds is a social scavenger hunt hosted by House Beautiful. To promote its March “All About Green” issue, the publication strategically placed 19 green chairs around Washington D.C. and posted clues on Facebook and Twitter. The first person to find each chair won it as a prize.

Using prizes as incentive is always a surefire way to get a crowd to interact. But think beyond just a reward — make sure that the object will leave a mark your fans’ memory about your brand too.

3. Livestream

If you’re looking for something less locationally tied, livestreaming a concert, presentation or conference is a great way to spread your message or brand globally. Sites like Ustream or Livestream can help you broadcast live over the web.

Coca-Cola, for example, celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2011 by streaming a concert online from its headquarters in Atlanta. Fans tuned in globally — and the brand saw engagement with 355,000 people.

Small businesses can utilize this concept just as effectively. As long as you’re providing your audience with something valuable or instructional, they’re likely to want to share the video during or after your event.

The Benefits of Social Media

The entire process of event planning — before, during and after — benefits from social media. Use it to send out invitations and promote the event, then moderate in real time throughout the event by doing things like creating a specific hashtag. Then once it’s all over, you can follow up and extend the life of the event online.

“We’re definitely seeing social media have an impact on events of all sizes,” says Kaydo.

Although using social media is a less expensive marketing strategy, Kaydo advises an important point when planning and budgeting: be aware of technicalities.

“If you’re going to create an event that’s sharable, you have to give people the tools to do so,” says Kaydo. “Keep in mind Wi-Fi, bandwidth and other technical stuff. Make it super easy for people to share.”

- Should Small Businesses Follow Everyone Back on Twitter?
- Are You Falling into the Pricing Trap?
- How to Innovate for Top Social Media Sites

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pagadesign, maikid

More About: event planning, features, livestream, open forum, Small Business

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Using a new computer-generated animation, James Cameron and fellow researchers fine-tune their theory of how the Titanic looked as it sank into the freezing Atlantic on April 15,1912. The two-night television event entitled Titanic: The Final Word With James Cameron starts on April 8 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel.

“It’s never been animated so precisely and so dramatically,” Cameron said in one of the clips on NatGeo‘s site about the making of the shows.

The National Geographic website is promoting the programs with an interactive game called “Adventure on the Titanic.” Chose your character (one of the four first-class passengers on the ship), and be guided through scenarios that a first-class passenger of that era might have experienced on the great ship. Even though all of the characters are first-class passengers, depending on where your character ranks in terms of social standing within first class, as well as your character’s gender, he or she might be barred from certain events (no ladies in the smoking room, for instance) unless you use your “clout” points.

On April 4, Titanic 3D was re-released in theaters. According to Entertainment Weekly, the 3D version made $4.4 million on opening night. People took to Twitter to rate the film or talk about their first time seeing the original. Cameron’s original Titanic film was released in 1997 and received numerous Academy Awards.

National Geographic is marking 100 years since the Titanic sank starting with a line-up of shows on April 8.

Will you watch this Titanic special event on April 8? Tell us in the comments.

More About: james cameron, national geographic, titanic

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Mashable’s Easter egg hunt doesn’t involve colored eggs or chocolate.  Instead, we’ve compiled some of the best Easter eggs from all around the web.  Take a look and find some hidden digital treasures.

Nyan Easter Bunny

Take a moment out of your Easter weekend to say hello to Nyan Easter Bunny.

Google Easter Eggs

You probably use Google every day — but, did you know Google had all of these tricks up its sleeve?

Gravity

Enter “Google Gravity” in the search bar. Hit “I’m feeling lucky” (if you have Google Instant enabled, it’s on the right hand side of the suggested searches). Then watch your world fall down.

Click here to view this gallery.

Konami Easter Eggs Spread Throughout the Web

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. If you were a video gamer in the late ’80s, there’s a very good chance you’ll have pressed that combination of buttons more than a few times.
Here are some websites this magic code will work on. Try them out for yourself — just head over to the respective sites and hit that magical key combination (substituting Enter for the Start button on a game controller).

1. BBC Glow

The BBC’s Glow JavaScript resource site offers a particularly geeky Easter egg: A photo of K9, the little robo dog from British sci-fi series Doctor Who, and a promo link for the BBC’s Cult TV site.

Click here to view this gallery.

Thumbnail courtesy of Nyan Cat

More About: easter eggs, Google, tricks

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A bill introduced to the House of Representatives late last year could become the centerpiece of the next SOPA-style struggle between the tech community and Washington, D.C.

The bill already has over 100 co-sponsors and the backing of some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent companies, including Microsoft and Facebook — support which SOPA never enjoyed.

It’s called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (or CISPA, for short). CISPA would alter the existing National Security Act of 1947 to allow private businesses and the government to share information about cyberthreats — including “efforts to degrade, disrupt or destroy” vital networks or “threat or misappropriation” of information owned by the government or private businesses, such as intellectual property.

To ensure that business-government information sharing happens on a two-way basis, CISPA requires the Director of National Intelligence to set up ways for the intelligence community to pass along threat information to private companies and make sure they actually go ahead and do that. To prevent sensitive information from being shared willy-nilly, CISPA requires that any recipient of such threat reports have a security clearance and a valid need for the information.

Finally, CISPA allows third-party cybersecurity firms (which provide cyber protection to the government and private businesses) to “use cybersecurity systems to identify and obtain cyber threat information in order to protect the rights and property” of their clients. They’re also allowed to share that information with any other business or government department, provided their client gives them permission to do so.

SEE ALSO: SOPA 2.0: Why the Fight for Internet Freedom Is Far From Over

CISPA prevents these private firms from using shared cybersecurity information from using it to gain an advantage, and if they share information with the federal government, they don’t have to disclose it to the public. Meaning, if Company X is hacked, they can tell the government about it without alerting employees, shareholders or the public at large.

As long as a cybersecurity firm acts in “good faith” according to these stipulations, it’s immune to civil or criminal lawsuits regarding information sharing.

Rep. Mike Rodgers (R-Mich.), who introduced the bill along with Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), has framed CISPA as a bill to protect American intellectual property from state-sponsored digital theft of intellectual property.

“Every day U.S. businesses are targeted by nation-state actors like China for cyber exploitation and theft,” said Rodgers in a statement. “This consistent and extensive cyber looting results in huge losses of valuable intellectual property, sensitive information, and American jobs. The broad base of support for this bill shows that Congress recognizes the urgent need to help our private sector better defend itself from these insidious attacks,” he said.

Facebook called CISPA a “thoughtful, bipartisan” bill in a letter of support written in February.

“Effective security requires private and public sector cooperation, and successful cooperation necessitates information sharing,” wrote Joel Kaplan, vice president of U.S. Public Policy at Facebook. “Your legislation removes burdensome rules that currently can inhibit protection of the cyber ecosystem, and helps provide a more established structure for sharing within the cyber community while still respecting the privacy rights and exceptions of our users.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group, feels differently.

According to the EFF, the language in CISPA is worded so broadly that it could be interpreted to allow Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and companies such as Google and Facebook to intercept your messages and transmit them to the government.

They also warn that CISPA could be used as a blunt instrument against copyright infringement, similar to concerns about SOPA. Finally, they’d rather not see the Director of National Intelligence in charge of information sharing — they feel a civilian position would provide for more transparency and accountability.

“The idea is to facilitate detection of and defense against a serious cyber threat, but the definitions in the bill go well beyond that,” said the EFF in a blog post. “The language is so broad it could be used as a blunt instrument to attack websites like The Pirate Bay or WikiLeaks.”

You can read the full text of CISPA for yourself at the Library of Congress.

Do you think CISPA is a welcome tool to ward off cyberattacks, or are you concerned it will be used to clamp down on Internet freedom? Sound off in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, PashaIgnatov

More About: internet, SOPA