Creating a 'Best of' Voting Competition

This guide provides a comprehensive step-by-step process to create a 'Best of' voting competition, making it easy for organizers to engage the community and gather votes for various local favorites. By following the outlined instructions, users can effectively set up and manage an interactive voting platform that celebrates local businesses, enhancing community involvement and support. It's a valuable resource for anyone looking to foster local pride and participation in a fun and organized manner.

Chelsey Roney
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43 steps
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8 minutes

Spotify

Proxi

Newtab

Google Calendar

Scribe

Activating 'Best of' Voting Kit

To activate 'Best of', start by clicking 'Apps' in the Settings panel.

Click 'Best of Voting'.

Click 'Activate'.

Click 'Best of Voting'.

Set Up the Details for Your 'Best of' Event

You'll land on the 'Setup' tab. You'll start at the top of the settings and work your way down. First, select Start and End dates for voting.

Now, give your voting event a title.

Give your voting event a description and click 'Save Text Changes'.

You'll need to give your buttons call to action text. The first button you'll name is 'Vote Button Text'. Here, you'll type something like, 'Vote Now!'

Next, you'll name the 'Submit Button Text'. Here, you'll type something like, 'Submit Ballot'.

You can restrict the categories that people will cast their votes on. Add categories you want the public to vote on.

Give each category a description. This will description will appear on the ballot. Click 'Save Text Changes' when you are done.

Restricting Voting Categories

Voting Restrictions, Frequency and IP Addresses

Next, you can choose to restrict users to one vote per category or multiple votes per category. To restrict users to one vote per category, check the box.

You can decide on the frequency of voting. Choose between Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Once.

If you would like viewers to verify their email before voting, please check this box.

Opt In

You can have users opt in AND change opt in language in the next section.

You can check the final box to use voter IP addresses to prevent spam.

How to Get Nominations + Viewing Nominations

When you scroll back to the top, you'll see a 'Nominations' tab. Here, you can view all of the nominations on the ballot. Nominated places get there in one of two ways: 1) These are also all of the places you put on your Proxi map. or 2) Have people nominate places for the voting competition. This can happen BEFORE or DURING active voting. You can also see the upvotes for each nominations. You can have folks upvote nominations when nominations are turned on. This is to get a sense of how many people would've written in this nomination.

Voting Results

Next click on 'Results'. Near the top, you'll see the number of ballots cast, number of participants and total votes.

Displaying Voting Results on Map

When you are ready to display voting results, you'll select options for displaying current winners. You can select to display Top 3, Top 2, or Only 1st Place. We would recommend that 'Voting is Live' and 'Nominations are Live' are toggled off, while toggling on 'Results are Public'.

Detailed Voting Results

Under 'Standings by Category', click a category to see the current standings. You can get all voting details by clicking on any of the downloadable buttons at the bottom. You can download discrete data for all votes, the leaderboard and detailed participant information.

Voters

Soon we will have more options to manager your voters in the 'Voters' tab.

About the Voting Ballot + Preview Ballot

You can preview your ballot by clicking 'Preview Ballot' at the top right.

The look and feel of the ballot will slightly change between mobile and desktop as well as different web browsers. First, voters select the category they would like to vote on.

Voters make their selections on the ballot. Based on your selections in Setup, they can vote on one place or multiple places. Once they've selected a place they click 'Back to Categories'.

Voters move through each category at their discretion. When they've cast a vote in a category, a green check box appears. Voters submit their vote by clicking 'Submit Vote'.

Make Voting Live | Toggle on Voting

To make voting live, toggle on 'Voting is Live'. To turn voting on, you'll need to do this even if the start date is in the past. You can toggle off live voting if you need to pause voting for any reason.

Distributing or Publicizing the Ballot

You can distribute the link to the ballot (independent of the map) by clicking 'Voting/Ballot Link' at the top right.

Alert! Voters can also access the ballot after you have shared your map using the 'Share' button in the map portal. Voting will have to be toggled on for them to see the ballot on the map.

From the ballot link, voters will click 'Start Voting'.

Then they will click on the category you would like them to vote on.

Voters will make their selection.

After they have cast votes, they will click 'Submit'.

Voting from Map View

The 'Vote Now' button will also appear on the map in the upper right.

The ballot will open in a panel on the right hand side of the map.

Crowdsourcing Nominations

If you would like to crowdsource nominations from the public or your community/audience, toggle on 'Nominations are Live'.

Alert! To crowdsource nominations, make sure you have 1) Made your map 'Public Collaborative'. This setting is outside of 'Best of' at the top of your map. AND, if you are using the map to crowdsource, rather than just the 'Nomination Link' (which is discussed below), make sure to check 'Let Viewers Add Points' when you get your Share links.

One way to gather nominations is to share OR embed the nomination link directly (independently of your map). Click 'Nomination Link'.

People will first need to check if the place they want to nominate is already nominated. They will first check the category they want to add the nomination for.

If they see the spot they want to nominate already on the list, they should upvote it to indicate interest.

If they don't see the place they would like to nominate, they can click 'Add Nominee'.

They'll be taken to the Nomination form.

Tip! You can customize this form completely (including adding logic!) in the 'Advanced Crowdsourcing' settings.

When they are done, they will click 'Add Point'.

Voting in Map View

Click 'Map Link' to access voting and nominations in the map view.

At the top of the map, you'll see voting and nomination buttons because both options were toggled on in my "Best of' settings.

Voters will see nominations and voting in the right panel.

Tip! Try out voting here!! <https://map.proxi.co/r/proxibestofseattle>