Effective Contests

Lately I’ve been spending about half of my brain power thinking of ways to promote TypeTribe. I want to take an unorthodox method of marketing the site–rather blast the vast internet with advertisements and promotions, I want to organically build a tribe of people who believe in the mission of the site and want to explore creative ways of promoting themselves.

In line with that idea, the other day I was thinking about a way to promote the site via simple contests. The first few ideas were decent, but they didn’t reflect what the site is all about. I realized that I wanted to use a contest as a way of teaching people how TypeTribe will work.

Thus the $25 Your Best Opening Sentence contest was born. I’m looking for 10 writers to submit their best opening sentence, and over a 48-hour period starting Sunday night, anyone will be able to vote on the best sentence and offer their constructive criticism in the comments section. Not only will the winner of the contest win $25 cash, but so will the person who has the single most insightful comment.

Here’s why I’m so pleased about the “educational” aspect of this contest:

  1. Eligible opening sentences can be from novels, chapters of novels, short stories, essays, or speeches, illustrating that a wide variety of written works can be posted on TypeTribe.
  2. The poll will run for 48 hours, the amount of time it takes you to get feedback from TypeTribe reviewers for any project.
  3. Not only do writers benefit from the contest, but readers–people willing to offer insightful feedback–do too.
  4. The contest enables people to promote their work by exposing it to tons of people who otherwise never would have heard of it.

Also, I’m hoping that people petitioning their friends to vote for their opening sentence will draw more people to the site and encourage more people to sign up for the launch notification e-mail, which you can win $25 for doing.

If you’re interested in entering a sentence in the contest, there are 7 slots remaining, so submit here soon!

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