I am pleased with the results that we had with this contest.

Using UPickem, I set up a multiple choice contest with six Oscar categories, including Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role, Actress in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, and Foreign Language Film.

We began promoting this about two weeks ahead of the 83rd Academy Awards, starting by throwing a link up on our Latest Updates online, a small promos button on the left rail of TroyRecord.com, and a small graphic on Pages 2 and 3 of the print product.

As it got closer, we began to attach graphics to our daily Entertainment pages, especially with any Oscar-related wire stories, and, in the final days, began including bold text under the graphics such as “TroyRecord.com readers think Natalie Portman will win the Oscar for Actress in a Leading Role. What you do think? Log on to share your predictions!”

We ended the submission period just as the Oscars began on Sunday evening with a total of 56 entries by our audience. As the awards were given out through the night, I updated the correct answers on the back end of UPickem and finally selected an overall winner using the automated system.

According to the results, only three individuals managed to predict the winners of all six categories, so we randomly picked one out of the three (as we explained in our Official Rules) as the winner of gift cards for dinner and a movie for two, which I am mailing out to the winner this afternoon.

As far as metrics goes, this was our first non-photo Upickem contest, so we do not have something to directly compare it to. However, considering our best Upickem photo contest so far brought in just over 50 submissions in our second run during the Christmas/Holiday season after much promotion and a partnership with the local chamber of commerce, I believe that 56 entries was a great start for an online awards show bracket.


Again, the promotion here was the key to the contest’s success and it is something we plan to do with each contest/user-generated content project we do in the future.