In this post, we’ll take a look at some ideas for your carnival and Mardi Gras costume contests. Make sure that you plan for every moment of the holiday: from the months of preparation beforehand, to the dizzying excitement of Carnevale itself.
Photos: The Stars of the Costume Contest
The costume photos will be the true stars of your contest. Use the photo contest app with a gallery to showcase participants’ pictures in an attractive and visually engaging way: the images will be displayed clearly, and the voting option can be enabled.
Allow participation in the costume contest through Instagram
If you’re looking to get a large number of participants in your costume contest, enable the participation via Instagram with the Mention+Hashtag Contest. This way, users can enter the contest by mentioning the brand and using the hashtag simply by taking a photo with their mobile device and sharing it on this social network. The app will collect all images that include the mention and the specific contest hashtag. This will allow you to create a gallery showcasing all the costume photos from your participants.
Showcase the Costume Contest on Your Website
Want to give your contest more visibility? Take advantage of your website or blog to attract more users with Easypromos’ widget system. This will allow you to embed and display the contest—and the costume photo gallery—directly on your website. This way, users will have an additional channel to participate and/or vote. You can customize the widget dimensions to perfectly fit the available space on your page.
Enable Video Participation in the Contest
Boost engagement in your contest by inviting users to share their videos. Participants can easily upload videos from their devices or enter using videos already published on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram. You can decide whether winners are chosen by public voting or a jury. And don’t worry about cheating—the Easypromos anti-fraud system ensures that all votes and entries are legitimate. Create a video contest and let users showcase their costumes!
Organize a Costume Contest with fun frames and stickers
Carnival and Halloween like any other big event – people love to take and share pictures and funny selfies. It’s time to make use of it for your brand. Organize a Costume Contest and invite your audience to decorate their pictures with the Easypromos Carnival Photo Contest app!
Apart from collecting unique user-generated content, you will be also able to add some freshly obtained leads to your database. Don’t forget to reward entrants to attract more participants to your Carnival photo contest – give away fun prizes, discounts, or simply choose the king and queen of Carnival!
How to Reward the Participants in Your Costume Contest
Encourage Participation with a Final Giveaway
The chance to win a prize will motivate users and followers to join your costume contest. You have two options for the final giveaway:
You can hold a random draw among all contest participants. Set up a photo booth at your store where customers can take pictures in costume.
Another option is for an internal jury to decide which photo or costume is the most original and, therefore, the winner. The costume contest can have a specific theme, such as Day of the Dead, or feature characters from cartoons, like the following example.
Select the Winners with a Voting Costume Contest
If you enable the voting system, you can use this filter to determine the winner. Never automatically award the prize to the most-voted photo; instead, the most-voted photos should be the finalists. Then, the winner can be chosen by a jury or a random draw.
Make sure the prize is appropriate for the effort you’re asking users to put into the voting contest, and use Easypromos’ anti-fraud controls to have users validate their votes through their email.
You can give a direct prize to those who upload a photo
Another fun activity you can do is have customers upload a photo to unlock a game or a prize. For example, imagine a user uploads a photo to the contest, and then, after their participation, a prize wheel or a digital scratch card is unlocked, giving them the chance to win a prize or offering discounts to users who want to buy a costume at the best price. Try the DEMO of a scratch card here!
Thank the users via email for their participation in the costume contest
Send an email to users thanking them for their participation in the contest. You can create it using the ‘Email Platform’ provided by the platform to automate the sending to users after they upload a photo to the contest gallery. You can also automate the sending of an email to remind participants of the minimum number of votes they need to enter the final giveaway, or even to congratulate users who have reached the challenge. These emails will help strengthen engagement and interaction with your users, even after they have participated.
