Thank You Economy Revolution

Contests and games are my "GO TO" tactic to build viral content. Even the most boring contest will out pull your best article especially on mobile.

I think of the phone as a game console and all that time spent in a line somewhere as the perfect time to capture attention and hold engagement via a contest or a game.

Contests and games may be the best social media marketing content because there are so many "share points", places where you are dying to share something with your friends. 

This is a great KISSmetrics post on how to use contests and games. I would add:

* Make contest VISUAL (the messy desk contest is perfect).

* Create visual support (badges and widgets).

* Don't forget the Game within the Game (who is helping you the most is a great game within a game).

* Add a "horse race" option where leaders race one another (drives social shares crazy).

* End with an expert panel making final awards (avoids spam problems giving away top prizes).

Gamification is so important to online marketing we wrote a Gamification White Paper a few months ago: http://www.atlanticbt.com/blog/gamification-white-paper-atlanticbt/ 

Don't just set up a single contest, set up gamification to reward repeat visits, players willing to share and profile the magic 1% of your traffic willing to fill out your forms and the 10% willing to vote on content created by the 1% (The 1:10:89 User Generated Content rule http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2011/01/user-generated-content-11089-rule.html ).  

If you aren't planning a regular contest and game for 2013 time to re-visit your strategy. Games create social loyalty faster than almost any content, build SEO and may be the most "soical" content on the planet. 

I've run more than 50 online contests and games and my one caveat is they are a fair amount of work (setup, monitoring and awarding), but returns are off the charts. Almost every kind of content is made better, more sticky, with a game component.