How and Where to run a Remix Contest or Competition

Twitter and Facebook are far and away the most popular social networks on which to run a prize promotion, and Instagram and Pinterest are also very popular networks in their own right for competitions and giveaways, but there are many other networks that may have greater specific appeal to certain verticals, and importantly boost the all important quality:quantity entrant ratio in competitions with a creative entry.  For music/audio or remix contests specifically, here are our picks:

Running music or remix contests/competitions

Run a Mixcloud contest

Mixcloud is a DJ mix/radio focussed social network where users can consume and uploaded their own content.  Mixcloud are actively supportive of creative contests, and have worked with many big DJ equipment/pro audio/music label/music event brands like Native Instruments, Ibiza Rocks, and the Ministry of Sound.  They even go so far as to collate competitions on a specific page so users can find them more easily and are very generous with social media sharing.  Individual competition pages are available, and common entry mechanics are uploading and tagging.

Run a Soundcloud contest

Soundcloud is another audio consumption/upload community, which is larger, and more broad than Mixcloud.  There is access to a larger more generalised group, with many music producers hosting their work on the network, as well as artists and podcasters.  Soundcloud don’t have a specific page, but do regularly share new contests on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.  It is common for artists and their labels to run remix competitions of newly released tracks, and entrants can get exposed to the likes of Beyonce and Moby, who have run competitions in the past.  Soundcloud actually have their own Soundcloud contest app which can make running a competition easier.

Some tips:

• Abide by the terms of service and any other policies of individual network you’re hosting your content on;
• Contact the relevant network to let them know about your contest – they may help you promote it;
• Reach out to sites (and groups within networks) that help share and promote remix competitions – e.g. remixcomps.com;
• With any kind of remix/collaboration contest (be it music/video/image), make sure you have the rights to use and reproduce the content you are offering to others;
• And with any kind of creative competition, make sure you are aware of entrants cheating and passing others’ work off as their own.  In some instances reverse search services will be able to help;
• Make sure your terms and conditions are detailed, and you inform entrants on what the winners material may be used for and who retains copyright over it;
• With a creative contest, make sure you judge your winner(s)!  Voting competitions are a bad idea, and can cause problems with fraudulent contest votes;