I'm a huge fan of press releases as a mechanism to improve rankings. While it isn't cheap (cost is $80 per release and up, and you'll want to send out at least one release a week), there is no denying how well it works.
I personally use PRWeb (it's the one that charges $80) for its ease of use and how fast I can get a press release submitted and out the door.
When it comes to press releases there are very definitely right ways and wrong ways. I spoke about this at some length in an audio seminar titled "The New Rules of PR." In it I talk about writing releases for as many things as you can.
Well, some press release ideas are the launch of the video contest, the first video submitted, the hundredth vote, and so on. Each of those releases will link to your contest vote page and to your main site since you are sponsoring the contest.
You will be generating your own links to your site, but those links will be counted for more than simply buying them. Further, the constant flow of press will give additional strength to your site from Google. Then, as a final benefit, if you follow the advice from the link I gave you above, you'll probably find that your press releases will get picked up by other news outlets. This recently occurred with GreekforMe.com and a press release they wrote that was picked up by Canadian Runner and by ABC's of Running.
Don't Forget the Tried And True
Now that we've talked about blogs, direct to consumer PR, and YouTube, let's not forget some of the things that are proven to work. In this case I'm talking about commenting on blogs and in relevant discussion groups. Now if you're really smart, besides just occasionally being a participant, what about telling them about the contest, the press release, and some of the YouTube videos?
Now of course you will want to make sure that such things are kosher with the group you're posting to, but generally, if it really is on topic, and you're not just pushing some commercial, you're fine. This is especially true of blog posts. If you find a blog post relating to one of the videos, the contest you're doing, or anything like that, I'd definitely post a comment with a link. Links in comments don't help as far as the link count in Google goes (you can thank idiot comment spammers for that), but it just might get you some traffic and a mention (and a good link) in that blog's actual posting later on.
Google Optimization 
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