Some of you are probably reading this after searching online for the best ways to run social media contests or the best social media contest ideas. You’ve probably come across blog posts baiting you in with “The Top 5 Social Media Contests for Your Business,” or “10 Ingredients for the Perfect Social Media Contest.”
Spoiler alert: This is not one of those articles (and many of those articles are a waste of your time).
Here’s the truth: There is no one-size-fits-all magic template for running social media contests. Certainly there’s much to be gained by studying the successes of other businesses’ contest campaigns, but unless that business is in the same industry, selling the same products, in the same city, at the same time of year that you’re looking to run a contest for your identical business, then all you can do is learn what you can from their experience and apply that knowledge in a way that makes sense for your own business.
Now that we’re clear on that, you can begin to ask yourself about what you need to run your own social media contest. Ready?
1. Why do you want to run a contest on social media?
The answer should be based on 1 or more of the following metrics:
A. Grow your fanbase
B. Increase Engagement
C. Increase Brand Awareness
D. Drive Sales
E. Promote a specific product, service or event
If you don’t know the answer to Question #1, stop reading now and come back when you do.
2. Is the goal of your contest time-sensitive? Should it be?
In other words, is it related to the current season or holiday, or any particular event taking place online or in the city where your business resides?
The answer is always yes, your contest is time-sensitive, and yes, it should be.
Contests are a form of content, and all content should be created after taking timing and opportunity into account. This doesn’t mean you need to wait until Christmas to launch your next contest; it means that there is almost always an opportunity to leverage every day of the year.
So once you reach this point, you should know what you’re trying to achieve and when you’re trying to achieve it. Now you’re ready to determine the mechanics of your social media contest. I hope you’re ready for more questions…
3.What social channel do you want to run your contest on?
Considerations:
A. How large is your fan base on each channel?
B. Which channel is best suited for achieving your goal?
C. How long will your contest run?
D. What are the limitations of each channel?
Pro Tip: Limit your contest to a single channel and use your other channels to promote the contest. This creates an opportunity to expose your followers to your other channels while incentivizing them to follow you there as well.
If you’re not sure about which channel is best for your contest, here’s a basic outline that might be helpful:
Facebook Contest Profile
- Most user functionality (like, share, comment, link, view, etc)
- Often the largest fanbase for businesses
- Suitable for most types of contests
Instagram Contest Profile
- Posts have a shorter life, so it’s not ideal for most longer contests
- No option to increase visibility with paid advertising (though that’s about to change)
- Best suited for photo-related contests:
- Best Caption Wins
- Post a photo and include this #______ & mention @________
- Tag a friend this photo makes you think of
Twitter Contest Profile
- Short life of Tweets makes it ideal for short term contests / weekly contests
- Plenty of tested and familiar contest formats that brands run routinely
- Comment-based contests limited to 140 characters
Pinterest Contest Profile
- Possibly the least common and most complex of contest platforms
- If you don’t have a large following, it will be difficult to get engagement
Tumblr Contest Profile
- More versatile than Facebook in many ways, but most brands have a smaller audience here
- Ideal for large visuals / graphics
- This community tends to repost often, especially when the content is visually engaging
All that said, at the end of the day, you’re probably best off going with whichever channel you have the largest following on, and whichever you’re the most comfortable with. If you’ve made a decision, it’s time to move on to the fun stuff.
4. The Big Question: What type of social media contest do you want to run?
If you’ve answered the first three questions, you’re already halfway there. Knowing your goal and your channel narrows down your options. To figure out the rest, take a look at the components of a social media contest:
A. Entry Mechanism: How does one enter the contest?
Common options for increasing engagement, brand awareness, and sales:
- Caption this photo
- Like this post
- Comment on this post (Ask them SPECIFICALLY what you want to know, such as what they love most about your products or services)
- Like & Comment (see above)
All of the above mechanisms can work with nearly any social channel, though they tend to work best with Facebook and Instagram.
B. Rules: This includes anything they can or cannot do in order to win, as well as logistics such as age and other eligibility qualifications.
C. Theme / Name: It’s never just a contest, it’s the….
- End of summer contest
- Christmas in July contest
- Etc., etc., etc.
Whatever you call it, just make sure you call it something, and preferably something relevant to your brand and what’s going on in your industry or city. This is especially valuable in promoting the contest ahead of time to your audience.
D. Timeline:
- When do you begin promoting it?
- When does it start?
- When will you remind your followers how much time they have left to enter?
- When does it end?
Time is probably the most important and undervalued factor when running a contest. Give yourself at least a few days prior to the launch of the contest to begin promoting it on all of your channels. As a general rule, the larger your audience and the larger the contest, the more lead time you should allow for promotion.
Pro Tip: Err on the side of brevity. There’s nothing more crippling to a contest than letting it run on after people have stopped engaging. For the purposes of most brands and small to medium size businesses (those who would be reading this blog post), social media contests should generally run between 1 – 4 days, and never more than a week.
E. Graphics: Your contest isn’t cool unless it looks cool.
In most cases, here’s what you should consider featuring in your contest graphic:
- The name of the contest
- The rules, but only if they’re simple (i.e. “LIKE TO WIN”)
- The prize (preferably a very attractive photo of the prize)
Pro Tip: Don’t skimp on this part. This graphic is the front door to your contest. If it’s not clear, they’re not going to know how to get in. If it’s not attractive, they’re not going to want to get in.
F. Prizes: Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!
As far as your followers are concerned, you’re not running a contest… you’re giving away something awesome and they have to do X, Y &/or Z to get their hands on it.
Put yourself in their shoes. Here’s more or less the ideal reaction to a successful contest:
- What is this?
- Are they giving this away?
- What do I have to do to get it?
- Really? That’s all I have to do?
- This’ll take less than a minute!
- I hope I win!
So what makes a good prize? Here are the categorical options:
A. Products (generally products offered by your own business)
B. Experiences (hotel stays, services your business offers)
C. Opportunities (i.e. the winner or something the winner made is featured in some way. This is especially effective when running contests such as a “Design our new logo,” or “Model our new spring line.”)
G. Pay to Play: Once you’ve run a few contests, and you’ve got a handle on what’s been working for you, consider turning up the juice by putting some paid advertising behind your next contest. This is especially effective when your goal is increasing your following on Facebook or Twitter. Run an ad asking people to like your page for a chance to win something relevant to your brand. Pro Tip: Target people interested in the prize!)
In conclusion:
1. Focus on a target audience (who are these people and what do they want?)
2. Put your brand at the center of the contest (no point in doing any of this if it doesn’t benefit your brand)
3. Measure the right results (revisit your goal at the top of this post. The success of any contest is determined entirely by how well your pre-determined goal has been met).