As the final day of voting on the Hyatt Movie Pitch contest came and went, I got a nice piece of news that I’m a finalist in the Get Caught Listening to Audiobooks video contest. The last I heard, this contest was being judged ENTIRELY by view count and likes, so before I go on, here is the video (freshly posted on their youtube page so everyone starts from 0 and 0, so please watch and like!)
Anyone who’s entered more than 2 video contests knows that this can be an especially frustrating kind of contest, because no matter how good you think your video is, one day you see one of the worse videos of the competition get a billion likes and you end up loosing the $5000 you were hoping to, you know, pay taxes or rent with, or what not.
So I wrote to the people running this contest – I thanked them for making me a finalist, but I also let them know that “likes” and “views” are not the most meaningful way to measure success, because bots can easily be set up for both, and in fact, they can also be purchased, very cheaply, through ebay.
I suggested a part of the finalist determination be made by judges, and the woman who was in touch with me told me she passed the ebay link I sent her on to the committee and would let me know what they say. I assumed people not in the online video world wouldn’t know that “like buying” was a thing you could do. We’ll see what happens. In the meantime, I need likes and views! Watch and like the above shmideo!
As far as “worse videos” getting more views and likes; the contest is a specifically a “Viral Video Contest” and the truth is most videos online that go “viral” are usually never substantial.
I guess judging by “likes” and “views” on youtube would probably be the only plausible way to judge which video is going “viral” :/