.
ComicReply™ is made up of several components: wrapper contest system, creative activity modules, and admin panels.
1. Wrapper contest system
1.1. Membership account creation – signup, login, forgot password
- Profile pages
- Profile image
- Personal settings
- Personal Contest submissions (creative posts) and related stats
- Personal statistics – total views, total votes, total shares, and more
1.2. Creation page – this is where participants create branded personalized content and submit to the contest.
A variety of ‘Creative activity modules’ can go here (comics, drawing, trivia, or other modules).
1.3. Public Gallery – this is usually the ‘Watch & Vote’ page where fans can browse through ‘fan-art’ and vote for their favorites.
This page can also include the following:
- Search function to find a friend’s post
- Sorting options to view the latest, most-viewed, or most-voted (winning) entries
- A ‘call to action’ inviting visitors to participate in the contest
- Display the prizes and link to a page with the rules of the contest, terms and privacy policy
- ‘Contest ends date‘ and a digital countdown that constantly moves, enticing visitors to enter the contest
2. Creative activity modules
Currently we have a few modules ready, but will have many more over the next few months.
2.1. Comic-making / Collage module
- Participants choose from a selection backgrounds, characters, props, and talking bubbles
- The administrator uploads branded images that will be available for participants to select from
- This can also includes background music, sound effects, voices
- Content elements can be organized by themes
- Custom limitations can be set in terms of how participants could use the pre-set elements
- See an example case study >>
2.2. Drawing module (coming soon)
- Using simple drawing tools, participants could draw images and submit for the contest
- This could also be integrated into a Comic-Making contest
2.3. Voice-overs / narration module (coming soon)
- Click to record a voice-over recording
- This is perfect for video narration contests, where fans tell their ideas of what goes on in a video or slideshow
- This could also be integrated into a Comic-Making contest, to narrate their story idea
2.4. Character-making module (coming soon)
- Participants create their own branded character ideas by selecting from a collection of pre-set body parts
- An admin panel enables uploading body part elements (head, body, arms, legs, etc.)
- Participants compete on creating the most popular character idea
2.5. Trivia module
- An admin panel enables entering questions and multiple-choice answers, and marking which is the right answer
- Participants answer a stream of questions, and the participants with the most correct answers win prizes
- Participants only have one time to answer all questions
- Daily top-scoring participants can be displayed to entice more participation
- Top-scores at the end of the contest win prizes
- See an example case study >>
2.6. Photo upload module
- Uploading images from your computer, mobile phone, or other devices
- The most-voted photo wins
2.7. Video upload module
- This can be done by integrating with YouTube’s API or independently of any third-party platform.
- The most-voted video wins
See an example case study >>
3. Admin panels
3.1. Contest setup + options
- An admin enters the contest info – title, description, start and end dates, prizes, rules, terms, privacy
- Voting options – should visitors be able to vote more than once? once per IP per day? other possibilities.
- Limitations – should visitors have to enter their email (like click a Facebook ‘Like’) to be able to vote?
- Point systems – should participants earn virtual points for voting, sharing, viewing, or other activities? What will various levels of point-generation earn participants (this is in additional incentive system that is not always needed)
- Other options relating to how the contest operates
3.2. Branded content
Depending on the ‘Creative Activity Modules’ used, there will be settings relevant to that module (for example, in a comics content you need to upload branded backgrounds, characters, props, and other elements for fans to remix).
3.3. Membership management
Admins can view, sort, and analyze the membership listing, and export it to external systems
3.3. Content moderation
- Using a simple moderation tool, admins can browse, search, approve and block content submissions.
- Automated emails will be sent to the creators of approved submissions, notifying them that it is now posted in the contest gallery, a link to it, and an invitation to share it with family and friends to get votes to win the prizes.
- Another email can be sent to submissions that were decline (blocked) with a reason why it was blocked. Blocked items can also be chosen to not be emailed.
- These emails can be customized with branded content elements, messages and links
3.4. Contest statistics
Admins can view and analyze the progress of the contest using a Google Analytics from right inside the admin panel. Unique Google Analytics ‘Event’s can be assigned for specific contest ‘engagement point’ that you want to track, and they will be tracked on this page. More about measuring results >>
Further social media monitoring can be done through any third-party tool, such as Sysomos, Radian6, Hootsuite and others. Through a partnership with a Canadian university we may be able to provide an inexpensive monitoring and analysis for contest running throughout 2012-13.
3.5. Winner announcement + delivery
- Once the contest period is over, the system automatically stops accepting submissions and a message announces that the contest is now over and winners will be announced soon. This message can be edited in the admin panel.
- An admin panel displays the most-viewed posts, creators, their contact info, and ranking of the top 1,2,3,4,5, or more winners, based on the number of winners initially set in the admin and announced in the beginning to the fans.
- The admin also enables recording communications with the winners, whether the prize was delivered, and a place to post a testimonial and photos of the winners on the contest site.
3.6. Past contest archiving + other customizations
Admin tools can also be available to manage multiple contests, operated one after the other, with the past content submissions available in a separate browsing area. A separate ‘best-ever’ archive content contest can also have monthly winners – this can encourage on-going participation for much longer time.
