#MyGrandTurk Video Challenge
Grand Turk is a shining jewel in the bracelet of the Turks & Caicos Islands.
The national slogan of Beautiful By Nature certainly applies, however when most people learn about the Turks & Caicos Islands, they learn of the cultured pearl that is Providenciales.
Grand Turk and its sister island Salt Cay are a different types of gems. Here, you can’t experience the beauty of the islands without knowing its people. You can not go to dinner and not have locals eating with you. You can not walk down the street without our citizens greeting you Good Morning. You can not experience its real joy and beauty without Turks Islanders.
In an effort to show the world more of the raw beauty and people of Grand Turk, we have created a video challenge that celebrates our uniqueness. Open to any resident of Turks & Caicos, the challenge is focused on highlighting what makes us proud to live and love a Grand Turk life.
About the Challenge
Submit a video that celebrates Grand Turk people, culture and attractions to the challenge committee at mygrandturk@gmail.com before December 31. Email submissions should include
- Video
- Video title
- Video description
- Your name
- Your telephone number
If the video meets all the requirements in the Challenge Rules, the committee will post it to the My Grand Turk YouTube channel and will notify you of the link.
To win, your video must have the highest number of likes on the My Grand Turk YouTube channel. Likes on posts that you make on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media sites do not count. Be sure to direct your followers that voting happens on YouTube directly.
Likes will be assessed for winners on January 3rd at 9 pm.
Prizes will be awarded at Sandbar on the weekend of January 4th — 6th. We will update the details of the celebration here.
Prizes
Right now there is one Grand Prize sponsored by Sandbar for $1000.
If other local businesses or people want to add sponsorship to increase the pot or create more prizes, please contact us at mygrandturk@gmail.com.
Challenge Rules
- You must be a resident of the Turks & Caicos Islands.
- The video must be under 3 minutes.
- The video must be positive and kind.
- All footage must be shot on Grand Turk.
- You must own all rights to the video footage and audio on your video.
- The video must be submitted to mygrandturk@gmail.com before December 31.
- You must promote your video to your social networks.
- Only likes on the My Grand Turk YouTube channel count for votes.
- Only one submission per resident per day.
Tips for Making Your Video Submission Better
Our goal is to share our views of Grand Turk to the world with pride. This challenge is a social experiment to see how we as a community of people can band together to better market what Grand Turk has to offer for tourism, as well as instill pride in our residents.
While this is a challenge, this is also a social effort to raise the tide that raises all boats. We are trying to lift ourselves and our neighbors up.
The committee will do our part and will make every effort to publish videos that follow the rules as fast as possible — hopefully within one day.
We have set this challenge up to maximize the potential for this video challenge to be viral. A central channel will create a larger following for all content submissions. The committee will publish each video on Facebook on the My Grand Turk Facebook page.
Sharing top content, regardless if it competes with your submission, will help create a larger buzz and sense of community about this challenge, and expose your content to more viewers.
Below are some additional video marketing best practice facts and tips to consider for your submissions.
Video Length
Short videos are more likely to be popular, so we are limiting the time to three minutes. The average length for the most popular videos on YouTube are 2 minutes 54 seconds. Videos are most likely to be viral in the 30–45 second range.
Audio
Audio quality is the number one reason why people abandon watching videos. You are less likely to get likes if the video isn’t fully watched. Be sure to make your audio clear, or provide subtitles so viewers can follow the content.
If you are setting your video to music, be sure you have rights to it. If a song on the radio is playing in the background, you are probably OK. However, you can not have music with rights attached as your soundtrack.
There are plenty of sites around with rights free music available. A couple to check out:
- YouTube has a free audio library.
- Incompetech has a great library of royalty-free music.
- Soundstripe is a membership service that has a continuously updated premium music for video.
Video title
Video titles should be under 66 characters so YouTube will not cut it off on preview. Short titles prove to be up to 15% more clickable, which raises your chances of having your video viewed and liked.
Often, writing the title takes longer than producing the video. Titles can make or break a video’s performance. Some things to consider when writing your title:
- What is the single most compelling thing? Don’t “bury the lead.”
- Can you ask it as a question, make it unexpected, paint a picture, cite experts, say something clever, appeal to emotions, tell a story?
- What is the brand new amazing discovery, or cool adventure?
- Readers like numbers (top 3, 5 gotchas, 75% improved, etc.)
- “FBO” Rules of PR still apply — First, Best, Only in a title garner still more attention, “First place to,” “the best way,” “the only island,” but be careful it actually is actually the first, best or only.
- Can you use humor?
Video topics
Viewers respond to engaging content. Content that is educational, entertaining or beautiful are most likely to be liked. Its form can take many shapes.
Many submissions will be chance encounters with animals, nature or people. However, planned content can be incredibly creative or entertaining.
Skits, planned tours, educational content, or even vlog testimonials on what you love about Grand Turk are very popular types of content. For these, we encourage you to write a storyboard or script for your video. This can help to greatly tighten your message and improve the response to your video.
About the Committee
The committee is comprised of three friends, Tonya Vieira, Lacey Armstrong and Stacey Schneider who simply just love celebrating all that is Grand Turk.
