How to Conduct Online Public Voting seamlessly in 2022
 

Public voting, also known as People’s Choice or Audience Choice, is an effective technique to raise attention and expand the scope of your award programs or contests. And, as you’re surely aware, we’re obsessive with having things done correctly! So here’s a guideline on using online public voting to get some fantastic results.

Introduction: Why Conduct Online Public Voting?

Online public voting is a form of e-democracy in which members of the public vote on an issue or policy using a web-based platform.
Online voting has been used in locations such as the United States, India, and Australia. In India, for example, online voting was introduced for the first time in Supreme Court elections. It is also being considered as a means to increase voter turnout in areas with low voter numbers.

In Australia, online voting was introduced to encourage more people to vote and make it easier for them to do so. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) says that it will lead to improved electoral participation rates and boost confidence in democracy by taking politics “to the people”.

Why use Public Voting in the First Place?

But, before we get to the Hows, we must first address the Whys. Here are a few reasons why you should:

Show your community they matter
A public vote contest is one of the most effective ways to remind your audience, “Your opinion matters to us!” and make them feel valued. That’s a good enough justification in and of itself.

Add a new dimension to your program
It genuinely has an exhilarating effect on everyone engaged! Simply because people enjoy being in the running and having a say. And you can give them both with public voting!
Furthermore, those contests are highly dynamic, active, and unpredictable, retaining people’s attention and interest throughout the campaign cycle.

Increase your program visibility and engagement
There isn’t a more cost-effective strategy to boost program awareness and engagement. It allows you to connect with your present community while also reaching out to a wider audience.

Boost your marketing
A public vote contest is a great marketing approach in and of itself! It costs nearly nothing but produces spectacular results (well, if done right, of course).

Stimulate discussion on social media channels
Are you having trouble engaging your social media audience? A public competition might completely change that! It will not only ignite conversations, but you will frequently be tagged in contestants’ and voters’ posts – so brace yourself for virality.

Gain a great source of user-generated content
We won’t go into detail about how valuable UGC is because you already know. We’ll just say that conducting a public vote contest is a terrific method to collect valuable UGC in a fun and successful way. A photo contest is undoubtedly one of the simplest and most interesting ways to accomplish this. However, you can hold video contests, short story contests, and so forth.

Improve transparency
Transparency is essential for a contest to have a good reputation. A public voting contest is usually as transparent as it gets because everyone has the opportunity to vote.
These are just a few of the reasons why a people’s choice contest, or at the very least a public voting phase, would be a good idea. Choose the ones that are most important to you and work hard to achieve the best outcomes possible!

Which Channels are Best for Online Public Voting?

The first thing that springs to mind is most likely social media. Yes, social media is a fantastic platform for a variety of contests (mainly visual ones like photo contests, etc.). However, there is a better option: your own website.
Why?
It’s straightforward and easy: you direct your present and prospective consumers to your online site, where they can take the next steps you want them to take. In a nutshell, you reduce their path to your ultimate aim.

The How-to of Public Voting

Now that you’ve determined why and where you’ll hold the online public voting contest, it’s time to get to work on the interesting part: designing and implementing.

Step 1: Set the rules
Because the rules are the foundation of every competition, this is where you should begin. We propose that you carefully consider them because changing them during the campaign could ruin your image and annoy your viewers.

Usually, a public voting contest has 2 phases:

• Collecting applications for the people to vote for
• Public voting

The public vote phase is typically the first or last step in the main competition. In any case, having a people’s choice award or a public voting round as part of a contest is usually a huge success, and many awards do it to engage their audience.

Choose your voting type

The most popular sort of public voting is Popularity voting, also known as “Top Picks,” “People’s Choice,” and so on. It essentially allows individuals to vote for one or more applications. All votes are weighted equally, and the application with the most votes wins the category. Popularity voting is ideal for any type of contest that necessitates the sorting of entries, such as photo contests, art or other creative contests, lists, indexes, and so on.
Most award management solutions will stop here, persuading you that this is the only correct approach to conduct a public vote contest. Judgify, of course, offers more.

Explain clearly the rules to your audience

To minimize misunderstandings, make sure you provide clear guidelines and directions. It’s preferable if these are placed in a location where they can’t be missed and are conveniently accessible at all times.
If there are any crucial deadlines, make sure everyone is aware of them. When does voting begin and end, and when will the results be announced?
Also, as tedious as T&C forms are, they are required. When you include public voting as part of your program, you should consider providing distinct terms and conditions for individuals who want to vote.
In Judgify, we’ve envisioned dedicated spaces where you can add all of these elements.

Step 2: Offer an awesome reward

Every contest now requires a reward. The more amazing the prize, the more and better participants you’ll receive.
That doesn’t mean your public voting competition won’t be a success if you don’t have a large budget. Much if the prize isn’t monetary or real, it could be fantastic and even more tempting. If, for example, your business is an authority in your area and you create a list of the finest in that field, entrants will be pulled more by becoming a part of your distinguished index than any real incentive.

Furthermore, psychologists have long demonstrated that when competing, participants are motivated by both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations – the first being the sensation of personal satisfaction and approval from the public.

Step 3: Make it easy for participants to enter the contest

It is not always easy to find the suitable participants. One thing is certain: you must make their entry into the tournament as simple as possible. This includes not wasting their time with complicated and lengthy processes or with endless communication. Make their (and your) jobs easier by selecting an easy-to-use solution for your public voting contest.
Your competitors may register quickly and easily with Judgify and gain access to a personal online portal where they can submit their application whenever they want by simply clicking a button. You approve it again with a single click, and it’s now live on your voting page (that is again provided by Judgify).

Step 4: Make it easy to vote, hard to cheat

To make a public voting contest function, it must also be straightforward to vote and as free of vote-rigging as feasible. Both are dependent on your decisions and the method of public voting you select.

Step 5: Consider the design

Did you know that 90% of information sent to the brain is visual, and that we process visual information 60,000 times faster than text? That should be enough to persuade you of the importance of design, right?
So, let’s talk about the design of your public vote page briefly.

Step 6: Promote it

A public voting component, if done well, might have a viral effect without breaking the bank. Of course, you must do your part, so here are a few easy recommendations for promoting it:
Put it in your newsletter: Your community should be the first to learn about the public voting contest you’re holding, so they may choose whether or not to participate. Include it in your weekly or monthly email, preferably as the only topic.

• Announce it to the media – Public contests are exciting and free – two qualities that may pique the interest of the media. As a result, a press release promoting your contest is required. Also, take advantage of any opportunities to discuss it in interviews or other publications.
• Use the power of social media – That is a genuinely handy and powerful approach to spread the word about your contest, especially if you use Judgify and allow the audience to vote using their social login.
• Make a blog post — If you have a blog, you should publish about your contest there as well, describing the narrative behind it, the rules, the deadlines, and anything else you think is necessary.
• Encourage word-of-mouth — Don’t forget to ask people to spread the word about your public contest in all of your communications with your community (whether in a newsletter, social media, or emails).
• Finally, advertise – as previously stated, public vote contests are certain to be successful even if you don’t have any advertising budget. However, a small boost could improve your outcomes. Even if you don’t employ expensive ad channels (such as TV ads or other traditional forms of advertising), some low-budget but highly-targeted campaigns on Google ads, Facebook, or other relevant platforms might work miracles.

Step 7: Pick the right tool

There are numerous tools available for public voting. Certain are very simple apps that do nothing more than allow people to vote on some options you’ve provided. Other tools, such as Judgify, can assist you in running any type of rewards or contest that necessitates the collection and evaluation of applications. Not to mention the plethora of customization and analytics options that come with such a robust and adaptable system. Our main piece of advice here is to research and test, as this is the only way to know for certain whether a tool meets your exact needs.

There are usually 4 popular ways to control your public voting

• Through email: this is a good method, with one minor drawback: it requires more work from the public to vote. Voters must first enter their email address, then waste even more time by clicking on the confirmation email, and only then may they vote. That could turn off a lot of potential votes.
• Through IP detection: this is another excellent method for limiting vote manipulation. However, you won’t be able to collect as much data as you would with other options, such as email forms and social login.
• No Control: We do not recommend that you use this option, even if some award management solutions do. Allowing everyone to vote without any control may appear appealing to some award organizers because of the large number of voters they will have after the voting is over.
  However, we believe that this method compromises your entire contest and highly damages its image. So at Judgify, we intentionally haven’t included such an option.
• Through social login: That is the smoothest, straightforward, and yet most limited vote-rigging option for controlling public voting. That’s how you do it with Judgify, of course. Your public voters can log in and vote using Facebook, LinkedIn, or Gmail. As a result, you have both social login and email login choices (the latter without making the voters enter their email).

What’s most important is for it to be easy to grasp. That means:

• well structured
• intuitive for voting: use hearts, thumbs up, star or other icons to make it as clear as possible for the audience
• if you’re adding a CTA, keep it short and simple
• avoiding of banners or other ads

The bottom line
How To Conduct A Successful Online Public Voting Campaign

If you want to take the online public voting campaign to the next level, it’s important to have a strategy. Take note of the following guidelines so that you can have an efficient campaign:

• Know your audience.
• Find out what type of contests your audience likes.
• Set an achievable goal with tangible rewards.
• Match prizes with your company’s brand and values.
• Design a memorable logo and format for your contest entry page.
• Promote the contest through social media and other marketing channels like newsletters and flyers.

Now that you’ve learned the ins and outs of public voting, it’s time to take action. Sign up for free with Judgify to swiftly and easily run your people’s choice contest.