This week: Get The Word Out Edited by: 🐕GeminiGem🎁  
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Hi there! I am 🐕GeminiGem🎁 , and I am one of the regular editors of Contests & Activities Newsletter. |
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Get The Word Out
If you are running a contest or activity and you would like to encourage member participation, you have to get the word out. The big question is: how do we do this without driving everyone crazy?
I think we all struggle with this, right? We want to know about activities/products/places/happenings, but hearing about them over and over can be annoying. What's an activity owner to do?
Make sure you place your information in all the appropriate places. Newsfeed it important, and we will get to it in a bit, but don't rely on it completely. There are other resources on WdC that you can use! I will give you links momentarily.
In my last Noticing Newbies Newsletter "You Are Here" , I covered places to "chat" with other members and get to know them. I listed a few places I knew about in the newsletter. In the newsfeed posting for this newsletter, I asked for people's favorite places to chat with other members and discovered places I had never heard of before. Why was that?
I would venture to guess that they weren't getting the word out. I am pretty active on this site and although I can't know every nook and cranny (nor would I want to, LOL), sometimes the things I don't know about are probably not being promoted by their owners.
Have I convinced you yet? Let's dig in.
WHERE TO LIST YOUR CONTEST/ACTIVITY First are the official activity and contest pages. List your items there when the items are up and actively running. If your contest closes, go back and delete the entry. You can always re-enter it when open it up again.
**SPECIAL HINT: If your activity is always active, you may want to occasionally delete and re-enter it on the appropriate forum. That way it doesn't get lost at the bottom of the pile. The key is to keep these listings current and relevant.
Then there's the unofficial yet wildly popular listing:
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This item number is not valid.
# by Not Available. |
I list writing contests, activities, and challenges. I endeavor to keep it current. Put this in your FAVORITES so you can refer back to it again and again!
CUSTOMIZE YOUR SIGNATURE One place that many people use as advertising for their items is their signature. Everyone has this capability, although Premium members have the option to have multiple different signatures. The signatures can contain a lot of information if you wish and are placed automatically (saving you a lot of time and hassle).
According to the site: "Currently signatures are only used within forums, books and email...Each signature is limited to 500 characters in length and may contain WritingML tags."
How to access this feature: in the left-hand column of the site, click on My Account. then scroll down and click on Manage Signature(s). This is where you can set up how you want your signature to look.
You can use images (if your account allows) and text including writingML. That means you can link to items in your port or sharable items in other people's ports. Again, I encourage you to keep this information fresh and up-to-date. Have open and active forums listed. Do not leave your long-closed contest on your signature.
My signature currently looks like this (I use L-item links to take up less space than a b-item link):
 
"Fox's Socks Newbie Short Story Contest" by 🐕GeminiGem🎁
"Merit Badge Magic" by 🐕GeminiGem🎁
Clickable Image Links Another creative thing you can do is to create a clickable image for your activity or contest. If you have a logo for your contest, that would work really well for this.
You can include this in your signature, in any posting that you do, etc. Here's how to do this bit of magic: When you are in editing mode of an image scroll down to Link To Item ID.. This is where you will enter the ID number of the contest or activity you want to link to the image. When a person clicks on an image set up this way, it works as a link to that contest or activity.
I use this one to take people to a fundraiser I am doing. Go ahead and click on it. The fundraiser might be currently closed, but you can still see how the link works.
Newsfeed Notes Posting on newsfeed is a popular way to notify and remind people of a forum you have open and active. Since most WdC-ers scroll through newsfeed, it is a great way to get the word out and I wouldn't be afraid to use it. If you post strategically, you can get the job done. Once when the the activity opens, once to remind people and then again a few days before the deadline, perhaps?
You will want to make your newsfeed posts interesting and eye-catching. Use large-enough fonts, color, images, interesting contest, etc. Play around with looks good to you.
Good luck letting people know about your contest and activity! Don't be shy and keep at it. People need to be reminded occasionally, too.
Thank you to s  for the suggestion for this week's newsletter topic!
Would you like to suggest a topic for a newsletter?
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This is the Contest & Activities Newsletter, so I feature...contests and activities. I know, I KNOW! Crazy, right?
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Find ALL the writing contests, activities, and challenges HERE:
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List of WdC Writing Contests, Challenges, Activities. Clues To What's Open, What's Closed!
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Comments from my last Contest & Activities Newsletter "When Manifesting GPs Doesn't Work"
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Contests & Activities: August 07, 2024 Issue [#12672]
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