Social Media Contests are great tools with many benefits that enable brands, products or services to gain visibility in social media channels, increase audience & the interaction with them, reinforce brand awareness and finally get genuine inspiration from real or prospect customers. Usually there are 2 strategic goals that those contests try to achieve: to increase the exposure of the brand in social networks and to drive the engagement with fans, followers subscribers and viewers.
Even though, Facebook is the top playground nowadays, the selection of the channel heavily depends on your social media marketing strategy, on your industry and on your target audience.
Designing and running Social Media Contests can be both fun and difficult task. That’s why below we provide you with few tips that can make your life easier and your campaign more effective:
1. Set up goals of your campaign
What is the targeted ROI, the estimated increase in audience, the conversion rate and the interaction level that you want to achieve with your campaign? Make sure you define the targets before you launch the campaign and have the appropriate tools to monitor the results. Moreover always narrow your emphasis in the niche market that you want to approach through your campaign.
2. Have a related to your activity non-expensive award
There is a wide wrong stereotype that you need an expensive prestigious reward so that you gather participations for your contest. Nevertheless the premise is targeting people’s love for a value, sentiment and idea related to your brand.
3. Use a simple, easy to use participation tool
By using the appropriate tools, managing and organizing a contest can be done much easier and more efficiently. Using online platforms such as involver.com, fanappz.com or wildfireapp.com can speed up the process since they provide you with all the relevant tools that you need.
4. Use all Social Media functionalities and tools
Each Social Media network is unique not only because of its target audience and philosophy but also because of the different functionalities, features and tools that they provide. Using all of these functionalities can help you promote your campaign and improve the odds of success of the contest. So, remember to “like”, Share and invite friends, follow, suggest, post to a wall, check in and other choices that a social media can offer so that you can stand out of the crowd.
5. Promote the contest both in online and offline channels
Promote your contest by using as many channels as you can afford: TV, radio, newsletter, website, print, Facebook ad, pay per click advertising, package signs, press releases and other ways like submission to sweepstakes directories like whatcaniwin.com. Before selecting the promotional mix take into account thecharacteristics of each channel and the attributes of your target audience. Finally note that having an Integrated Campaign is the key success factor.
6. The post-contest effect is invaluable, Use it!
After the contest has ended, you can highly capitalize on it with the greatest possible exposure-promotion of results, ideas, fan and buzz that your campaign created over the period.
In a previous article we have posted a case study about a successful photo contest that was organized by a five star hotel in Mykonos. It is highly recommended to read it in order to get an idea on how to design and organize your campaign.
Last but not least let’s give few extra tips that you should have in mind while designing and running your campaigns:
- It is a prerequisite to comply with Social Media Promotion Guidelines
- Keep in mind the gold 3 words: Simplicity/Targeting/Personalization
- Social Media Contests are particularly effective for B2C companies
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