Running a contest, and then a competitor does the same

I remember about a year ago, my community was going through some trouble, so then I saw that one of my competitors launched a $100 posting contest, that didn't worry me too much because I had money available to me as well, and plus, we had a lot more members than them.

So after a day of pondering, I went ahead and did the same because I knew they were doing it to try to attract my members to their community - which didn't work out too well for them because their contest ended up dieing off and mine went ahead with full throttle.

So, has anyone ever been in this situation? Where a competition runs a contest and you go ahead and do the same because you were already planning one? How did it work out?

 

I always go back to the saying "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".
I've ran into this several times since running forums, the most recent was one of our articles/interviews that had gotten posted, less then a week later I saw an brand new site spamming their new article all over the web, it was almost an exact copy to ours.

I just try to stay ahead of the competition and try to not pay any attention to them

 

@cpvr Aren't all your competitors dead except VPC? So obviously the best thing to do was just to ignore them, because they eventually went away. VPC will likely do the same, go away.

 

I wouldn't do that. It would really frustrate me if someone else did that to me. Then again, I suppose that's the difference in seeing it strictly from a business side like you are than a more personal side like I would end up doing. I'd likely be that forum that's going to fail then, ha.

 

Yup, but when I ran the contest they were trying to compete so I blew the torch and let loose.

If they copy you, its a rule to listen to. If they're doing it on purpose, which they be doing, then you push out more content than them, and market your contest more than them.

When my competitor did it to me, I laughed because there was no chance their contest was going to do well compared to mine.

 

Bumping this for those that haven't seen this thread yet and how everyone feels about competitors trying to copy things that you do.

 

I have to say, I've never had anything like this happen. Then again, my competitors don't seem to bother with contests all too much, or much in the way of marketing or competitions at all.

 

I see the bigger problem here as paying too much attention to your competition. If you focus on your forum and provide what your users want you'll win any competition but if you get hung up on watching the competition and trying to emulate them you can damage the reputation of your site, sometimes permanently.

Before doing irreparable damage to your reputation by copying what a competitor is doing why not site down and create an actionable plan as to where you want your forum to head? Plan out the next 2-5 years and work towards accomplishing your goals, don't get sidetracked with one-upmanship.

 

100% agree

Try to be different, analyse your forum, your users and their needs, watch your competitors, but DON'T try to copy them and also don't be scared if they copy you.
If they only copy you, they'll always be a step behind you!

Of course, it's frustrating, specially if they get e.g. better/bigger prices as you, but don't be blind! Forums need long therm success and now an increase of 500% more visitors while the contest, which will drop after the contest...
In long therm the better community will win and not the one with more stupid spam posts...

 

Thanks for this comment. I don't have any competitors anymore. We have the biggest forum in the niche. I planned ahead after this content and moved forward. They didn't pave the way for pet sites in our community like my staff and I did. They just wanted to copy our system and try to be better than us, but they failed at that. I was already planning to hold my $100 posting contest before they even posted about it. So, thus, I ran mine at the same time without having any worries if their competition was going to do any harm to my site or not.

My community has been around for two years, my competitors didn't last as long and now we own one of their domains as well. Due, to them having some back links that we needed as well.

It's not my fault that my competitors failed to compete against me. It's life, some survive hard times and other forums do not. I've been in this industry since 2004. Those competitors lacked the knowledge that my staff and I have on the VP industry which is why they couldn't compete directly against us.

Not to brag or anything, but my community is unique. We have a lot of deep discussions. Sure, we have a forum games forum but that's only there to give users another place to chat and make friends. Our traffic has never dropped because of contests either. They actually drove in more links for us, in the next month after, our users online went up by a few members as well.

Some users that won the previous contests are no longer active members. That's because they're busy doing other things with their life and wish them the best.

Also, since we ran this contest, we've also ran three other $100 posting contests.


If they copy, I entertained them especially same thing can be said of any other forum community that's in competition with others. Someone copying you goes to show you that you're doing something right. And, I agree keep your competitors close to you so that you can watch them and see if they're growing as much as your community. You don't need to watch them all the time. Once a month or something is a good amount of time.

 

It happened to me as well. My site got constantly ripped off - graphics, codes, new features, contests, threads, you name it. Luckily, though, those forums that ripped me off never actually took off, so it didn't bother me that much.

I always liked coming up with new creative ideas for contests so that people would have fun participating; and like everything in the interest that is original, it didn't take long until someone else copied the idea and claimed it as their own.

 

I would do it if I had the chance. Contests are about getting people to jump into your community. It might not be the most.. whats the word? correct way to go about doing it as it wont be as successful for your forum and you can look the bad guy. However... if I was you I would of done it straight after there contest to give interest from there community and give it to your forum instead deeming there contest pointless.