User generated content, like viral videos, is one of the holy grails of social media.
Everybody wants it, few people know how to get users to actually submit it. Here’s what we’ve learned:
Give people a stage to show off what they’re good at and watch the submissions flood in. We’ve observed this time and time again, from cakes to music videos to short stories.
As an example, these are contest submissions generated by users to win tickets to the Totally Amp’d launch party. Contestants had to record themselves, singing a song from the show.
For Redpath Sugar, these following user generated creations are contest submissions to win a meeting with Buddy Valastro, star of TLC’s hit show “Cake Boss”. The contest received entries from across the country, attracting well over 1 million pageviews all of which were generated through its viral nature.
We then gave contestants additional exposure by recording a series of Skype interviews, which were shared across social networks, leading to further submissions.