Tutorial: How to create a 'Pick Your Favorite' contest – Easypromos - Online Helpdesk

Note: The 'Pick your Favorite' contest can be set up in two different styles. This tutorial explains how to create the contest in Gallery mode. The other option available is Survey mode. Find out which type of contest is right for you.

Step 1. Create the promotion

1. Access the Easypromos Control Panel and log in with your email address and password to manage and create your promotions.

2. Create a new promotion by clicking the green button.

3. You'll see a list of all the products available. Choose Pick Your Favorite to create a promotion which displays photo captions, short stories, photos, or videos, and asks users to vote for their favorite.

4. As a next step, set up the following options:

Organizing brand. As a first step, you should select or create an organizing brand for your promotion. This organizing brand is independent of any social network and works as a folder within your Easypromos account, in order to help organize the promotions that you create.
Template version. Select which template you want to use to create your promotion: Premium or White Label.

Note: Compare here the features and functionalities included in each template.

5. After clicking on "Continue" button, you'll get access to the promotion management page, where you'll find all your promotion settings and options. Below, we outline the most important sections:

Header. This displays the title of the promotion, the version (Premium or White Label), and other relevant information, such as the promotion ID number. The promotion status indicates whether the promotion is active, draft, or expired, as well as if it’s about to start. Once the promotion period has ended, this field will be marked in red saying: Status: Expired. You can choose what to show on an expired promotion page.
Link to the promotion. Use this URL whenever you share the promotion. Learn more about sharing here. The copy link button automatically copies the link, to make sharing even easier.
Activate Promotion. When the promotion is ready to launch, click this button to activate it. You'll be taken to the activation page, where you can review billing information and make payments.
Side menu. All your promotion settings in one place.
View tutorial. This tutorial guides you step by step through the creation and management of your promotion.
Promotion dates controls the time zone and phases of the promotion.
Languages indicates the default language of the promotion. You can edit this if you wish.
Localization enables you to limit participation to one or several countries. Read more about country filters.
Next steps: Practical recommendations that will guide you in the creation and management of your campaign.

Top tip: the promotion ID number (#) is a unique identifier for each promotion. Quote this number if you need to contact the Easypromos support team with any issues. This will make it easier for us to review your settings and help you out.

Step 2. Prepare to upload photos, texts, or videos

The Easypromos platform includes lots of pre-set features, based on which version you've chosen. For Pick Your Favorite contests in Gallery mode, users can upload and vote for photos with captions, by default.

If that's the kind of contest you want to run, then go right ahead to Step 3 of this tutorial.
If you want a contest using photos without captions, text only, or videos, you will need to edit the pre-settings. Follow the steps below:

1. Go to the promotion Editor.

2. Go to Pages > Registration Form, in the left-hand menu. For this type of contest, users do not view or complete the registration form, so the "Registration Form" section is disabled by default.

Instead, the registration form serves as an internal tool for you to upload contest entries. That's why you must configure it so that you can upload the information you want that each voting participation contains in the application.

By default, when creating the contest the following fields are enabled:

"Media": It allows uploading of "Photo" type files. This field can be edited to allow uploading video files.
"Comments": It allows to add a descriptive text to each photo.

In case you need to modify any of these fields, you must first click the "Publish page" button and then you will see the fields appear:

1. Media field. This enables you to upload competition entries. If you want to upload videos, change "media type" to "only videos". If you only want users to vote for texts, you should delete this field by clicking the trash icon.

2. Comments field. If you are running a contest with texts or photo captions, you can write the texts here. If you want to carry out a contest for photos or videos only, with no captions, delete this field by using the trash icon.

Note: The fields available in the dropdown menu (email, telephone, date-of-birth, etc.) are not public. If you want to add fields which will be visible in the public gallery, create them with the additional text field.

3. Additional text field. Use this field to publish extra details about each competition entry. Write the title and the short title for this field, and check the boxes to make it mandatory and and public.

Step 3. Configure voting options

Now check the configuration of the voting system by going to Gallery > Votes.

By default, the voting system is enabled. You can choose how you want the voting system to work in your contest, or disable it. Here are all the options available:

By default, the application is configured so that each user can cast only one vote. Read more about this setting.
Learn how the Easypromos platform works to prevent fraud.

Once you have configured these sections, leave the Editor and return to the promotion management page.

Step 4. Upload photos, texts, or videos

Access Participants from the left-hand menu to upload competition entries to the voting gallery.

Click "Add participants" to start uploading content.

Complete each entry by filling in the following fields:

Name and surname. The tool requires a name to process the entry, but it will not be displayed publicly. "Anonymous participation" is enabled by default for this type of contest.
Add a caption. This is the “Comments” field in the entry form where you can enter text, either alone or as a photo caption.
Upload your picture.

Once completed, click "Finish" and the new entry will appear in the list:

Repeat the process for each contest entry that you want to present in the public gallery.

Step 5. Customize the text and images for each page

Customize the application to match your brand or product. You can format text, images and colors.

1. Enter the promotion Editor.

2. Configure the text and images for each page of the promotion:

A) Welcome:

Write your own text and upload an image to make the page dynamic. Use the description to explain how the contest works, including voting rules. You can also customize the “Vote entries” button with your own title. In the White Label version of the platform, you can also enter external code such as Javascript or HTML.

B) Gallery:

Set how the public gallery will be displayed. Take a look at the option tabs:

1. Contents: Upload a header image for a smart look, and write an introductory message.

2. Layout: By default, the gallery uses a tiled layout, which presents a visually attractive collage. You can:

Decide if you want to use the Tiled gallery or the Vertical gallery.
Adjust gallery settings in more detail. Find out how here.

Additionally, you can edit general features of the promotion menu, accessible from each page:

Customize the name and icon of each section and the icon in the promotion menu. For example, you can change the default name of "Welcome" page to "Start", with an icon to match.
Add new sections for additional content. This new section can be set up in two different ways:
- New page, for example, to present and explain the prizes of the promotion.
- External link, to drive traffic to your website or microsite.

Step 6. Customize the design

In the Design menu, you can completely customize the look and feel of the promotion to match your brand or product. Your options include:

Colors: Change the colors of texts and the action elements (such as buttons).
Typographies: Select the font used for texts and action elements.
Container: Completely customize the container by setting the style, opacity, height or position.
Background: Customize the background of the promotion with your own image or choice of colors. The background will be the same for each page of the promotion.
Other: Set the style of the promotion buttons (outlined or solid), as well as the color of the button text. Also from here you can customize the background color of the pop-up windows of the promotion (for example: window that opens the terms and conditions, My Networks window, etc.)
Advanced (White Label only): Use your own CSS styles to completely customize the template.

Discover all the graphic possibilities of the Design module.

Step 7. Insert legal texts

In this section you can upload legal texts to display them in the promotion. Specifically you can upload the terms and conditions to explain all aspects of the promotion, contest or sweepstakes. Additionally you can also upload your privacy policy to explain how and for what purpose you will treat the data of the users that register in the promotion. It's also possible to upload your own Cookies policy.

To insert the terms and conditions, go to Editor > General > Legal content, where you will find the following sections:

Terms and conditions
Privacy Policy
Cookies Policy

Note: Check here how to set up the consent of the legal texts of the promotion.

Step 8. Configure My Networks and the promotion footer

The My Networks module enables you to customize a pop-up. The pop-up encourages users to visit or Like your Facebook page. You can set up My Networks for Facebook pages, as well as Twitter, Instagram and YouTube accounts. Learn how to do that here. You can choose to show the pop-up:

On loading the welcome page.
On clicking the Enter button on the welcome page.
On clicking the Submit button on the entry form page.

To customize My Networks, go to Editor > General > My Networks:

The Footer is a banner presented at the base of each page. You can customize this text, or deactivate it if you don't want it.

To enable the promotion footer, go to Editor > General > Footer where you'll see the following options:

"Created by" field which will allow you to customize the name of the brand or company organizing the promotion.
Decide what elements you want to show in the promotion foot.

Step 9. Customize viral content

This section is very important if you want the contest to go viral. The viral content is the message displayed when users share the promotion with friends, or invite them to join in. They can personalize the share message for each social network that they use.

To customize the viral content, go to Editor > General > Share:

A) Generic content.

Set up the generic content of the promotion here:

Viral image: This is the image which accompanies the shared text. To optimize for social networks, we suggest dimensions of 1200px by 630px. The same image will be shared on Facebook, Pinterest and Google+. If you don’t upload a specific image for this section, the main promotion image will be displayed whenever participants share.
Generic content: This is the viral text that will be displayed when participants use the share button on the main page, the registration form or the header of the gallery.

B) Participation.

This content that will be displayed when users share via the competition gallery.

Activate the checkbox to enable sharing descriptions of competition entries. This will be shared in Facebook, email and instant messaging applications – the networks which permit longer texts.
Complete the Title and Tweet fields.

Step 10. Advanced settings

Go to Pages > Gallery to check more detailed settings, such as:

1. Show entries at random.

2. Set the number of entries displayed per page.

3. Comments system. By default, the comments system is enabled. You can disable it by unchecking the box.

3. Set the first page of the app. By default, users land on the gallery page. You can edit this so that users see the Welcome page first, for example.

Step 11. Set entry restrictions

You can restrict access to the promotion for certain users. Specifically, the platform offers 2 forms of restriction:

Restriction by country: You can limit the promotion to a specific country or countries. In this way, only users who connect from the selected countries will see the promotion. Learn how to enable country restriction here.

Restriction by age: Limit the promotion to users whose age is higher than the one indicated by the administrator. This establishes a minimum age for participation. Learn how to enable the age verification window here.

Step 12. Publish the winners page (optional)

Before and during the promotion, you can choose to display the prizes which you are going to award. The same page will display the winners of each prize, once there are winners. You can decide whether to publish this page right from the start of the promotion, or wait until after the promotion has ended. To customize and publish the winners page, go to Editor > Pages > Winners.

Check out the prize management tutorial to learn more about your options for prizes.

Step 13. Carry out a real test of the promotion

Before launching a promotion, it's important to make sure that the promotion shows and works correctly. To do so, all promotions includes the tool "Test Mode" which allows the administrator to carry out real tests of the promotion. This means that they can participate in the promotion just like the participants will do once the promotion is activated, and test that the promotion works as expected. That way, they can make changes to the promotion if necessary before launching.

Check out this tutorial where we explain how to test your promotion before activating it.

Step 14. Activate the promotion

Once you are happy with all your promotion settings, return to the management page. Here you can activate the promotion, view billing information, and make payments. Learn more.

Step 15. Publish the promotion

Although your promotion is now active, you still need to take the final step: publishing it.

When you created the promotion, a microsite with a unique URL was created. This URL is the main link to the promotion. By default, it leads to the welcome page of the promotion, but you can change this. You can also, and not exclusively, publish the promotion on a Facebook Page or embed it in your blog or website. Control where the promotion is published with “Buzz”. Learn more about publishing here.

Step 16. Share the promotion

It's important to share the promotion on as many different social media channels as possible. Always use the main link to the promotion, as it’s uniquely compatible with all devices.

You can share the promotion via the following methods:

With the direct link to the promotion.
With the ‘share’ button on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Use Facebook Ads to give more visibility to the promotion. One of the most effective ways to improve the visibility of the promotion is through the Facebook advertising service, which will allow you to create an advertisement to promote the contest and generate traffic to the promotion. To do this, you must access the Facebook advertisers page and create an advertisement to promote the contest.
Featuring your promotion. This adds your campaign to the list of Easypromos featured promotions. Featuring a promotion carries an additional cost, calculated per day of the campaign. If you’d like to Feature a campaign, consult this tutorial.

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Step 17. Share individual competition entries

Each photo, text, or video uploaded to the competition gallery has a unique URL. This means you can share individual entries, and encourage followers to vote for them. Use the share buttons in the gallery to share a direct voting link.

Step 18. Manage the active promotion

While the promotion is active, you can monitor entries from the management page. Click on Participants in the left-hand menu.

From Participants, you can view information on all participants, and download it to an Excel file.

Note: Information about participants will be available even after the promotion has finished.

Step 19. View promotion statistics

Access Statistics to view information about voters and how they interact with the promotion app. This information will be available from the moment the first vote is registered. It remains accessible from your account even after the promotion has ended. Learn more about the information you can access in this section.

Step 20. Manage prizes and publish the winners

When the promotion ends, you can use the prize management system to create and assign prizes. You can choose to assign prizes randomly or manually.

Randomly: Run one or more sweepstakes among all participants, or a segment of participants, and obtain a certificate of validity with the results.
Manually: Assign one or more prizes manually to contest participants. This is useful in contests with voting or skills tests. We also recommend this option when winners are selected by a jury, notary public, or the organizing brand.

Note: The Winners tool can also be used to carry out a sweepstakes among voters. Learn how to carry out a prize draw for voters.

Start the winner selection process from the “Winners” menu:

Step 21. Finishing up the promotion

The end of a promotion is controlled by the dates set up in the Editor. When the "End of publication date" is passed, the promotion status changes from active to expired. By default, the promotion is unpublished and is no longer visible. If participants try to access the promotion, a screen with the message "promotion expired" is displayed.

As administrator of the contest, you can choose to edit the content of this "promotion expired" screen. You could republish the promotion so that it is visible again, show the winners of the promotion, or keep the contest gallery visible.

We explain all your options for expired promotions in this link.