HOW CAN YOU RUN A SUCCESSFUL FACEBOOK CONTEST?

Successful Facebook ContestFacebook is bigger than ever – with 2.3 billion+ monthly active users, this platform has become difficult to tame and leverage upon. A competent digital marketing agency offering deft social media optimization services would understand the dire need for relevant, engaging, and interactive content that holds the ability to grab eyeballs. One such kind of content is a Facebook contest. Running a content is a cost-effective, and often, easy way to achieve measurable results for your Facebook marketing goals. Here are some ways in which you can run a successful Facebook contest.

Be Aware of Contest Rules
As Facebook’s contest rules keep changing, hence it is best to remain up-to-date. For instance, Facebook used to require that contests be run on third-party applications, but now, contests can be run directly on the platform. Also, Facebook no longer allows certain kinds of contests, including content that is overused and considered as spam. The platform’s most recent updated contest rules can be broken down into three major parts:

  1. You are responsible for making sure your contest runs in a legal manner. In other words, Facebook will not back you up in case you end up breaking state, provincial, or federal laws by, for instance, accidentally running a lottery instead of a contest.
  1. You are responsible for obtaining an acknowledgement from the participants that Facebook has nothing to do with the contest, and is only a platform for the same. You can list these rules, regulations, and notifications on a landing page, which will also help attract sustainable traffic.
  1. Using someone’s personal timeline or friend connections to garner participant’s for a contest is not allowed. Promotions can be carried out on pages, groups, event pages, or within apps on Facebook.

Contest Ideas & Examples
What do successful contests look like? Well, that is completely dependent on your business goals. Do you wish to increase engagement via likes and shares? Do you wish to create awareness via impressions? Or do you simply wish to drive traffic to your website?

Certain kinds of contests can target more than one objective, for instance, collect user-generated content for our social media calendar, crowdsource opinions, and gather high-quality leads at the same time. You can consider the following:

Giveaways
Individuals will always be interested in coveting a desirable prize and performing a certain social action in exchange. The action can be as simple as liking a post or as complex as uploading a self-shot video. For instance, Absolut hosted a giveaway wherein the winners got an all-expenses-paid Coachella weekend in the UK.

Countdowns
Add a twist to your giveaways by stretching them into a multi-day event. This will not only make winning seem more likely but also increase audience retention. Kettle Brand hosted giveaways for 4 days, wherein people were asked to comment their favourite chips flavour, and each day, a winner was randomly chosen to receive either a case of their favourite flavour or a year’s free supply! As per the campaign’s creators, this particular giveaway earned Kettle Brand 340,000 impressions and an average engagement rate of 5.1%.

Quizzes/Puzzle/Game Contests
People love participating in games that measure their intellect. Leverage on trivia, skill-testing questions, puzzles, quizzes, etc and combine them with a prize in order to hold a successful contest. For instance, National Geographic asked a pretty tough question to spark excitement for the second season of their show, Genius. Fans had to pay attention for over 5 days to figure out the clues, which warranted an in-depth knowledge of architecture, art history, and European history. In return, Nat Geo offered a lavish, heavily-scheduled week in Spain – a prize totally worth the effort!

No matter what kind of contest you’re hosting, remember to target your goals while keeping your audience in mind and promote your contest well. Last but not least, don’t forget to have fun with your Facebook contests!

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