Votigo.com debuts as online social video and contest community

One concept underlying marketers’ use of social networking sites and technology is getting the networkers to talk up a brand or product rather than marketers delivering the message directly as in conventional advertising. One way to do that is by creating online contests around a product that consumers can participate in and vote on. A new online community, Votigo.com, offers a free platform that makes that easy, according to the company, Votigo Inc., founded last year by former Yahoo and United Online employees.

The platform allows businesses and individuals to create and share their own customized video or photo content. Besides user-generated contests, Votigo.com also runs sponsored contests for partners such as Santa Cruz Snowboards. The platform offers fraud-free vote tracking; video upload; viral sharing tools, including embeddable voting widgets; support for video from YouTube, MySpace, Google and Photobucket and other features.

The platform addresses barriers marketers face in putting up contests to create buzz on social networking sites—too expensive, too time-consuming, and too difficult, says Votigo CEO and co-founder Mike La Rotonda. La Rotonda says marketers typically overpay to create a one-off contest, try to piece something together using features from other sites, or use generic sweepstakes that don’t put viewers in control of choosing content winners by voting.

“Contests provide marketer with a great way to engage their customer base and safely participate in social media,” La Rotonda says. “Votigo makes it easy for any company, large or small, to set up and customize their own contest in a matter of minutes. For users generating their own contests, it’s an exciting and fun way to showcase and share their photos and videos.”

The company will sell advertising on the platform and also will sell premium and private-label options for creating contests, beyond the basic free platform for contest creation, La Rotonda says.