Nielsen recently reported user stats for the month of February in 2011: there were 139.2 million unique U.S. online video viewers who streamed 13.6 million videos and spent an average of 4 hours, 20 minutes viewing video on PC/laptops from home and work locations. These huge numbers are typical, and they’re still growing.

As online and mobile video sites continue to boom, network giants are shifting to stay competitive and brands are looking for better ways to get their name and message out there through video marketing. But how do you get your message to find its way to your target audience through the reported 35 hours of content that is uploaded to YouTube each minute?

Plant videos across all of your networks to maximize exposure and cultivate content with help from your community through an interactive video contest!

##Fuel excitement around your video marketing campaign with a contest

A contest’s intro video and crowd-sourced video submissions fall under the “snippets” category of videos as described in IAB’s Online Video Marketing and Advertising Best Practices Guide. “Snippets” appeal most to our social nature and are the most likely type of online video content to ‘go viral’. ReelSEO.com summarizes key points:

Create a video to introduce your contest and broadcast it on your YouTube channel, blog, Facebook and LinkedIn pages, etc. and include a link back to the contest site. If you’ve got sponsors on board, have them actively share the video and link too. The intro video should include your branding, details on how to enter the contest, tips on how to win, a call to action and of course, it should highlight the prize!

2011’s Live at Squamish music festival’s contest intro video is short, fun, informative and visually engaging.

##Video marketing campaigns excel with help from the crowd

Video contests generally see less entries than photo contests, but often times the sacrifice in numbers is worth it. Because of the time and effort required to submit a video, you’ll get more people who truly care about your brand as entrants, and higher quality submissions.

Set out a task that resonates individually but appeals globally. Each entry that comes in acts as a video marketing piece for your cause in itself. Participants will rightfully feel a sense of ownership of their content, and will be inherently inclined to share their entry with their friends and family!

The winning entry from Tourism New Zealand’s Your Big Break contest has been viewed over 100,000 times on YouTube.

Want to learn more about video marketing? Here are some great resources to get started:

• ReelSEO.com
• Social Media Examiner
• YouTube Report

For help planning your next video contest, see this checklist or get in touch with us.

##Unique video contest features and YouTube integrations

We’ve tried to make life easier for video contest participants. They can choose to upload a video from their hard drive or add their existing YouTube video to a Strutta-powered contest. Our platform can automatically push video entries to your YouTube channel, which increases your brand and your contest’s visibility. We recently upgraded our video player to support all common video file types as well as HD YouTube video. Finally, as the contest organizer, you may gain access to the original files via download links. We host all content on Amazon S3, which is reliable, fast and scalable.

What do you think about video contests for video marketing? Do you have any tips to share?

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