ShortStack Contests SHORTSTACK. Webinar Notes. presented by

Transcription

1 Webinar Notes presented by SHORTSTACK

2 Introduction Contests are a great way to get your Fans excited and engaged, and ShortStack has all the tools you need to set up a completely custom contest. This webinar and guide will introduce the types of contests you can run, and show you how to set them up. There are two types of forms you can create in ShortStack s Forms & Promos Manager: Promotion Forms and Custom Forms. These names can confuse some users because both are forms, and both are custom. The difference between the two is that Promotion Forms are for contests with prizes, while Custom Forms are for non-promotional information gathering. Anytime there s going to be a prize involved, use a Promotion Form. Promotion for: Sweepstakes Photo & Video Contests Voting Competitions Displaying form entries via the Voting Widget Custom Form for: Contact us forms Surveys Reservation Requests ShortStack Contests Forms & Promos Manager From ShortStack s Forms & Promos Manager, click on the orange New Promotion button, and the Create New Promotion dialog box will pop up. The first field prompts you to give your new Promotion Form a name. This name is for your internal use only, meaning your fans won t see it. Next is the submissions to field, which is automatically populated with the address associated with your ShortStack account. ShortStack users on paid plans have database access meaning we save all of your entries for you. This means that paid users can choose to remove their addresses so that they don t receive entry notifications. ShortStack users on the free plan have no database access, and none of their entries are saved. If you are on a free plan it is imperative to double-check this field to make sure the address is correct. If you re setting this contest up for a client, you can choose to enter their address instead. ShortStack Contests Page 1

3 Facebook s Promotion Guidelines Facebook defines Promotions as any kind of contest, giveaway, or sweepstakes. Basically, if you re offering a prize to the winner, Facebook considers it a promotion. And they have guidelines for what is and isn t permissible - from the types of contests you can run to the way you run them. They also reserve the right to disable or delete your app or Page if you operate outside of their guidelines. We use their guidelines to shape which contest features we offer. However, we can t prevent anyone from violating the guidelines, so it s important for all Page admins to be familiar with them. Facebook s guidelines include: Every promotion must be run within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or a Page App You cannot use Facebook features - such as the Like Button - as an entry or voting mechanism You cannot notify winners on Facebook. You must collect from every entrant a way to contact them off of Facebook. ShortStack Contests The next two fields and check box are there to fulfill Facebook s Promotion Guidelines. Facebook requires that all contests include a disclaimer that absolves them of any responsibility for or association with the contest. We created a stock disclaimer that meets all of Facebook s Required Disclaimer criteria. The two fields to fill out corresponded to the following two blanks in the stock disclaimer; your company name and the ways you will use the collected data: This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You are providing your information to and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used for. Finally, you must check the box to agree to follow Facebook s Promotion Guidelines. Once you ve filled out all the fields in this window, click the orange Create and Continue to Form Designer button. Every promotion must include a written release that absolves Facebook of any and all responsibility or association with the promotion. There are other stipulations, some that Page admins commonly miss, so it s a good idea to reference them every time you create a contest. ShortStack Contests Page 2

4 Form Designer Best Practice: Don t require too much information from your fans, and don t require them to put too much effort into entering your contest. You ll get a better rate of entry if you ask for a minimum amount of information and match the amount of effort it takes to enter your contest with the prize. People won t give out all their personal contact information for a sticker, and no one will enter a video contest if the prize is a t-shirt. (But they will for a Porsche!) Once you complete set up of your Promotion Form, you re directed to the Form Designer to add and configure the form fields. The left-hand side of the Form Designer has a bank of fields to add, and the right side has a Live Preview of the fields that are on the form. Each Promotion Form Comes with the Facebook ID field added by default. The Facebook ID field helps cut down on entry fraud by collecting the unique Facebook User ID number from every Facebook user who enters the promotion, and then - depending on the number of entries you choose to allow each ID number - restricts future entries from that ID number. The field is also added by default since Facebook s Promotion Guidelines require that you collect a way to contact the winner off of Facebook. There are a number of other fields you can choose to add to your form, ranging from standard fields like address, phone number, and age, to custom fields like drop-down menus, checkboxes, and radio buttons. To add one of these fields to your form, click on its green plus sign. Then configure it by mousing over the field in the Live Preview and clicking on the pencil icon. You can edit each field, including its title and whether or not it s required. default fields ShortStack Contests Page 3

5 Giveaways/sweepstakes Quick tip: Upgrade your ShortStack account to a paid plan! Free users can run giveaways, sweepstakes, and essay contests, but paid users get access to premium contest features, like photo and video contests, refer-a-friend, voting, and databases. A standard giveaway - or sweepstakes - is the most basic type of contest you can set up. A giveaway usually requires entrants to give out little information, and expend little work on their entries. Because of this, giveaways have a high entry rate. You can run a giveaway with few fields. Typically, these fields are Facebook ID, , and Name. Photo/video/essay contests (paid feature) Once you ve created a giveaway, you can build on that form to create a photo, video, or essay contest, and in most cases, it can be as simple as adding one or two fields. To create a photo contest, add the Photo field to your form and edit it. There are two photo submission options added by default: From Computer and From Facebook. You can also check the boxes to allow your fans to submit photos via and via Instagram. Choose your options based on where most of your traffic comes from, because each field benefits different users: From Computer works exactly like attaching a file to an . From Facebook lets the user select a photo from their albums on Facebook. Via let users a photo to the contest. Via Instagram lets users submit a photo from their Instagram feeds. ShortStack Contests Page 4

6 To create a video contest, add the Video URL field to your form. Your fans can submit URLs to videos that are on either YouTube or Vimeo. To create an essay contest, add the Text Area field to your form and edit it. Configure the Minimum # Characters and Maximum # Characters fields to set the desired length for the entries. Contests with Voting (paid feature) Voting adds another dimension of excitement to contests. By default, submissions from the Photo field and Video URL field will appear in the Voting Widget. You can choose to have other fields appear in the Voting Widget, too. For instance, to create an essay contest with voting, edit the Text Area field and check the box next to Display in Voting Widget. Refer-a-Friend (paid feature) You can reward your users for referring friends who also enter the same promotion. For a voting-style promotion, bonus points are added to the entry s vote total. For a giveaway without voting, you can use the bonus points to award bonus entries. To enable Refer-a-Friend, click the Form Settings tab, and check the Entrants get extra points for referring friends box. When a user enters your contest, a window will pop up with a unique link they can Share to their own Timeline. Then when a friend of theirs clicks on the link and enters your contest, you can reward the refering friend with extra entries or votes. (We ll touch on this again in the last section, Choosing a Winner.) ShortStack Contests Page 5

7 Approve Entry (paid feature) There are three ways to approve your entries. The first is to check the Automatically Approve Entries box under Form Settings. Once you check this box, not further action is required on your part. All entries will be approved. The second method is by checking the Include approval link in notice box under Notices. This makes it quicker and easier to approve entries because you don t have to log in to ShortStack to approve an entry every time you receive a notification. If you re setting a contest up for a client, you can bypass yourself by entering the client s address into the Submissions To field, making them responsible for approving the entries. The notifications are completely white-labeled, meaning your client won t know they re coming from ShortStack. check to automatically approve entries Finally, you can head to the Database for your form and manually approve each entry. You can also choose to unapprove or even delete entries that are inappropriate or offensive. Link to Promotion Widget Once you ve created your Promotion Form, head to the Designer and add a Promotion Widget to your application. Use the drop-down menu in the Edit Widget window that pops up to select the Promotion Form you just created. Expand the different menus within the Edit Widget window to configure the Promotion Widget s settings, and Save the widget when you re finished. ShortStack Contests Page 6

8 Voting Contests (paid feature) If you re running a voting contest, add the Voting Widget to your application, and use the drop-down menu to select the Promotion Form Database that you just created. Expand the different menus within the Edit Widget window to configure the settings for each. To make sure the Voting Widget only displays entries that you have approved, expand the Entry Selection and Sorting menu and check the Only show approved entries box. If you don t check this box, each entry is shown, regardless of whether or not it s been approved. To set how many times each fan can vote, expand the Voting Setup menu. The Restrict Voting box is checked by default. Use the drop-down menus next to Users can vote to finetune your voting restrictions. Check the Disable Voting box to use the Voting Widget to simply display the default setting - limits how many times a user can vote entries. This is most-often used for contests collecting user-generated photos or videos, with winners determined by the business or brand, not votes from the entrants peers. Save the widget when you re finished. check to enter live entries in the Preview Window Vote Only (paid feature) Many Page admins put small, customer-related choices to their fan bases and ask for their opinions. Getting customer feedback on different product colors they d like, which logo they prefer, or even where they d like a new location can be really helpful. The practice is called crowdsourcing, and you can use ShortStack to crowdsource by entering your own submissions into a Promotion Form, and then displaying those entries with the Voting Widget. ShortStack Contests Page 7

9 To do this, make sure the Live box is checked under Data Mode in the Live Preview of the Designer. Now any entry you make into your promotion in ShortStack s Designer will be live in the Voting Widget when you install the app to Facebook. Once you ve submitted your entries, set the Promotion Widget s visibility to Admin or Inactive, or simply delete the widget. When you install the app, your fans on Facebook will be able to vote for your submissions, but they will not be able to make their own entries. Databases (paid feature) click to view database Databases store all of your Promotion Form entries, and are available to all ShortStack users on paid plans. From the Forms & Promos Manager, click on the View Entries button for the database you d like to access. You can sort your entries by date and type, and even see a preview of the entry. In the far-right column, click the red X to delete the entry, the pencil icon to edit the entry, and the blue book icon to drill down for even more specific information about the entry. Click the Export button to a copy of your database as a.csv file to the address associated with your ShortStack account. Choosing a Winner (paid feature) When your contest is over, use ShortStack s Pick Random Entries feature, to select anywhere from one to 25 random winners. Each entry is counted as one point. You can give extra points for votes or for referrals by checking the Give an extra chance to win for each vote/point received box. Once the winner is selected, it s still up to you to contact them to let them know they ve won. ShortStack Contests Page 8

10 ShortStack Features Part #/Page # My Notes: ShortStack Contests Page 9