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Photo Contest Section
By Kim Dixon, MyPhotoApp Training Guru
Created: May 17, 2018, 1:32 pm UTC Last updated: February 12, 2019, 2:16 pm UTC
The Photo Contest Section is perfect for creating engaging content that is easy to share on social media. It is based on a gallery section with some added features and options.
It also makes a great lead magnet to build your email list by simply requiring people to register to vote and provide you with their email address.
There are several key things to consider when setting up a Photo Contest
What do you want people to vote for?
How will you distribute the app?
How will you incentive people to vote?
How long will the contest run?
What is the end result?
What do you want people to vote for?
Photo Contests usually work better if the instructions are clear and simple and people understand what they are voting on and why. It's a good idea to keep the number of images to vote on to a small manageable number.
How will you distribute the app?
There are several ways to distribute the app and your audience will determine which is the most effective:
Direct communication - with a contact list by sharing the App URL using email or text
Text autoresponder - this could be provided by mail, text, printed marketing materials or on a poster at a venue or event.
Share buttons - to individuals at an event just have the app on your device iPad or phone and let them use the share buttons on the app to send directly to their phone as this won't save their phone number.
QR code - on posters and printed marketing materials.
Web app - via another App shared with clients or potential clients.
Social media - in posts, ads, and groups as a lead magnet to improve engagement
Website or blog - as a lead magnet to improve engagement and collect leads
Trade partners - to promote joint projects or partnerships
Printed Advertising - local papers, magazines, and guides
How will you incentive people to vote?
What if anything will they get if they vote? This will depend on your target audience and their motivation for. You need to offer something of value to your target audience. This may be the chance to be included in a free prize draw, a special offer, a free guide or the opportunity to receive future offers by joining a mailing list.
How long will the contest run?
Set a clear end date and time for the contest and turn of voting at that time. You need to balance the need to extend the reach of the contest and give people a chance to share it with the danger of people losing interest if it goes on for too long.
What is the end result?
What does the winner get? is there a prize a decision or choice made as a result of the contest make sure people know what the outcome will be and always announce the winner and what happens as a result of the vote.
How To Set Up Your Photo Contest
Add a new photo contest section and upload your photos in the same way as you would for a gallery section using drag and drop or by clicking on the upload photos area.
TIP: it's a good idea to keep to a manageable number of photos and it also helps to use photos that are all the same orientation.
Click on the setting cog to go to the Photo contest Settings. 1. Images
I've uploaded 6 portrait images in this example:
You can organize your photos into the order you want by clicking the sort photos button to sort them by file name or by drag and drop.
You can add Caption to the images by clicking on the edit captions button. Typically, Captions are used for adding alt tag keywords to images that help with SEO but in photo contests, you can use them as a way of labeling the images and optionally choose to have them displayed. In this example, I have used the Caption to add the dog's names.
2. Settings
Here you can choose the various gallery, vote and display settings:
Label: Add a label to easily identify the gallery section in the builder - this will also be used in the App as if you choose the accordion display option for the section.
Layout: You can choose from 9 layouts. By default, the layout is set to Mosaic. You can see a preview of how the layout will look in the visual design.
Margin: This sets the Photo margin between images in the App in Pixels. 5 is a typical narrow margin. By default, this is set to zero.
Upload Max Size: This allows you to set the maximum size on the long edge for images you upload to the Photo Contest Gallery. the default is 1024 px and the max size currently supported is 2048 px. Images smaller than the Max size set will be uploaded unaltered but any images larger than the Max size will resolve to the max set.
Frequency: choose how often people may vote: One time Only or Daily
Confirmation: You can add a short message that will be displayed after someone votes on a photo.
Number images: Tick this box to add consecutive numbers to the images displayed in the top right-hand corner of each image.
Display caption: If you have added captions to your images tick this box to display them when images are viewed in the gallery. You would not normally choose to display both numbers and captions.
Disable voting: Tick this box to disable voting so no further voting is possible in the app. when some clicks on a photo the following message is displayed:
Hide Vote count: tick this box to hide the Vote count for each image. Voters will get a simple change of color with a confirmation tick when they vote rather than see the total number of votes and the number increase.
3. Data Collection
Turing the photo contest into a lead generation Tool
Collect data: By default, data collection is set to none but you can require people to register to vote by providing you with personal information by ticking which information you wish to collect:
Collect Name
Collect Email - required to link to CRM
Collect Phone
Permit Uploads: Tick this box to optionally turn the photo contest gallery into a dynamic gallery and permit people to upload their own photos to the gallery for people to vote on.
Collection Footer: add the message you wish to appear below the Vote Form people are presented with to register to vote.
CRM: tick this box to create a new CRM record when an email address is collected.
View Collected Data: Click this button to view a table of all the data collected. You can download a CSV file of this data by clicking the download button.
View owners of Uploaded Images: click this button to view the details supplied when images are uploaded to a dynamic photo contest gallery
View contest counts: Click this button to view the images that have received votes and the number of votes each achieved, if an image has not received any votes it will not appear.
How to Vote on the Photo Contest
Open the app URL and navigate to the photos. The display options you selected in the Settings menu will appear as follows:
Captions will appear at the bottom of the photo.
Image numbers are displayed in the top right-hand corner.
Voting a circle will display the number of votes in the top left-hand corner.
To vote for a photo simply click anywhere on it, the number of votes will increase by one and the color of the vote count circle changes from white to green.
When data collection has been set up and people click on a photo to vote, they will be prompted to optionally enter the information you have ticked in the data settings on a Vote form which will include any footer message you added.
When they add their information and click Submit Vote the vote count on the selected image will increase by one and change to green and they will receive a thank you message.
If they do not enter the information and click submit vote the vote will still be recorded but if they click the X to close the vote form it will. If they have not entered their information and they vote again, they will be prompted again.
Data collection is device specific and if they vote again and have already entered their details on that device, they will not be prompted for them again. but if they vote again on a different device they will be prompted.
Ways To Use A Photo Contest
Run a Contest After an Event
You can create a contest App in advance of a special event and put a holding image in the photo contest section gallery saying contest photos coming soon. Save this app on your device to Vote later! simply share it by text, email or QR code at the event or even use the new text autoresponder in CRM.
After the event, you can then upload the photos to be voted on and simply republish the app. Collect data and provide a free App with a useful Guide on how to choose your photographer for xxx to everyone who votes with a special offer and contact form in it.
Run a contest for your Senior Rep team
Choose the best fun BTS shot for your senior team and upload a photo for each member. They then share the app and get their family and friends to vote and the team member with the most votes at a certain time/date wins a fun prize.
An added marketing bonus under the contest, you have a little promo about you and your model reps and invite people to join in the fun next year and have a contact form for more info or even a link to your model rep application app or a promo voucher.
Get people to vote for their favorite choice
Another option would be to engage your team by giving the chance to vote on their favorite choice. simply ask them to vote for a particular thing so perhaps a location for a group photo shoot or a theme or even a dress style, a menu choice or perhaps a playlist. upload some different location/theme images to represent the options and the team could vote on the one they most want to do.
A variation of this would be to poll people on new products by providing an image and description for them to vote on.
Run a fund Raiser competition
Why not run a competition to raise money for a local charity. I did this recently and created a Facebook fundraising group to run an action. I used a free to enter photo competition with a nice prize as an incentive for people to share the details of the group. The competition promo App was posted across social media with a link to the fundraising page. People had to join the group to upload their photo and vote so it gave us something to promote on Facebook.
To run a Monthly Photo competion
For example, you could run a “senior of the month” contest, where your senior team drive their friends to vote and the winner gets two of their pictures in a local display. such as a partner business or your storefront.
If you don't shoot seniors you could use it build engagement in closed groups for something like boudoir or on your website or facebook page for the best portrait, dog action shot etc. the list is endless.
Here are a couple of sample Apps to get you going:
This is an example of a simple photo contest using the photo contest section:
