Online-invitation platform Evite is hoping to kick start sales of its new wedding invitation collection through a social media contest that leans on the wedding tradition of sharing pictures.

Evite is hoping to catch consumers who have just gotten engaged over the holidays with a new series of invites for various wedding events. To spread word of the new collection, Evite is prompting couples to shares photos of themselves for a chance to be featured on an invitation.

“Each of these wedding-related events is an important milestone in our users’ lives, and we are honored to be a part of them,” saidVictor Cho, Chief Executive Officer of Evite.

Tapping wedding industry
Newly engaged couples are being given the chance to be featured on one of Evite’s new invitations as part of its Wedding Collection. The campaign encourages social media users to post their best photos as a couple, which could be selected to be an invitation.

Evite is tapping its audience to find the next picture-perfect moment to be featured on one of its products to make the invite more special and authentic. The entry with the best photo will also receive a bevy of wedding-related prizes.

Prizes include a complete premium invitation suite custom-designed for their wedding events, one year of invitations from the premium-tier for all wedding-related events and a $150-valued date night.

Social media users will be able to vote on their favorite photo through an online hub. All photos must be submitted before Jan. 22, and voting will take place the day after until Feb. 7.

The winning selection will be featured on an invite that will launch online right before this year’s Valentine’s Day.

Participants must upload their photos to social media with the hashtag #NearTheKnot to be considered.

Social contests
Contests through social media are an effective tool for marketers to connect to a mass audience.

For instance, cookware retailer Williams-Sonoma hoped to embody a high-class image for its products and overall brand image in a new social media campaign that could land a customer in London.

Customers are being offered a chance to be selected for a trip to England through social media and a mobile-optimized site. The campaign aligns the cookware retailer with a classy, high-end experience to drive sales with customers who have a keen eye for the finer things (see more).

Pizza Hut hosted a collaborative contest with ESPN that invited consumers to nominate their fantasy draft team’s commissioner for a prize and simultaneously order a pizza to sweeten their football-viewing experiences.

The Commissioner of the Week contest, which Pizza Hut and ESPN host yearly, asked fantasy football lovers to nominate their team’s commissioner for a slew of sports-themed prizes. The mobile-optimized site on which nominations were submitted also featured an order now button, which users leveraged to purchase food for their viewing parties (see more).