Are you looking for ways to boost you engagement on social media?

Running a competition or a giveaway can be a great way to not only boost engagement, but also increase likes and followers. Using a competition as a hook works really well in a brand awareness campaign.

Which platform should you use?

Well that depends on one main thing – where your potential customers are. You need to choose the social media platform that your audience is using.

When running any type of contest on social media you will need to check what the rules are on that platform. They do vary between social media networks and they do change quite frequently. Always check so you can update your T&Cs.

What entry criteria should you use?

There’s a couple of key factors to take into consideration here; firstly which social media platform and secondly what your goals are.

The social media platform choice is important because their rules will play a big part in determining what the entry criteria is. Some platforms discourage tagging friends as part of a contest, so you don’t want to run foul of their rules.

If your goals are brand awareness then you need to keep your entry criteria as simple as possible, e.g. just liking a post. Keeping things simple usually means more entries.

What type of contest should you run?

There are lots of contests that you can try out – from simple to more complicated. Simple might be just liking an image, and more complex could be user generated content, such as asking customers to take a photo of themselves using your product and post it up using a certain hashtag.

Here are just a few examples of contests you could try:

• Photo Contests
• Video Contests
• Caption Contests
• Sweepstakes
• Like, Share and/or Reply
• Vote to Win
• Hashtag Contests

You need to think about what level of engagement your audience will do to enter the competition. And of course, you need to take into consideration what your prize is too. The more expensive or prestidious the prize, then the more your audience is likely to do.  Choose prizes that will be of value to your target customers.

How do you create eye catching content?

Creating good images can be key to stopping a potential entrant from scrolling past your contest. If it’s a beautiful product them get a good image of it to use. Use your brand colours but allow the image stand out from your feed.

Having a clear call to action really helps too.

Here’s a short video on using Canva to create images with text overlays.

How do you promote your competition?

Your competition is all ready to go so what next? Post up your contest on your chosen networks. Keep the copy short and make it interesting – in fact make it exciting if you can! Make sure that entrants understand the full scope of your contest: the prizes, requirements for entry, and terms and conditions.

Cross-platform posting is a good way to get the word out. If you are running your competition on Facebook them promote it on the other social media networks that you post to. Make it east entry by including a link through to the competition.

Entries should boost your campaign organically. When you engage one person, you have the potential to engage all their followers too. Every entrant is a potential customer! You can also use paid promotion to ensure that your contest is seen by audiences most likely to convert. One some platforms, such as Facebook, even a small ad spend can boost the visiabilty of your contest.

It can also be worthwhile to run a contest alongside an event. It could be an event you are taking part in or an event your target audience are interested in and maybe attending. You can hop on and use relevant hashtags and tap into those potential customers too (for free).

Closing the competition

Ensure that you close the competition on the date and times that you said you would.

Let everyone know the competition has finished.

Then don’t miss out on some valuable opportunities when you’ve closed your competition:

• Make sure you let everyone know about the winner by posting on the competition post itself.
• Then make a big splash across social media about your winner and the prize and tank everyone for entering
• Maybe you could ask the winner to post an image or video of them with the prize?
• Check for any entrants that don’t already like or follow you and try and convert them
• Link the end of your competition to an exclusive promotion that kicks off as the competition ends. With the content fresh in people’s minds they may be more likely to check out your promotion
• Offer up a discount to entrants
• Give a teaser for an upcoming giveaway

And finally, analyse your competition and see how it performed. Did you hit or exceed your goals? What worked well? What would you change next time?

 

Contact Plumb.Digital for a no obligation chat about how we can help your business.