Tips to Boost Engagement with Social Media Contests

Social media contests are a great way to engage with your customers and give them a reason to interact with your brand.

Are you looking to increase your online presence's visibility or build your brand awareness? Running social media contests is one strategy to raise recognition of your online presence; giving away merchandise, products, or services helps draw more attention to your brand online while also driving traffic to the website.

Running a social media contest promotes fun engagement and anticipation between you and your followers. Everyone enjoys the potential to compete for services and products from their favorite brands. Contests are a great way of contributing to the online community. They can also be a win-win situation for both you and your followers. Curious about running social media contests? Read on.

Promote Your Most Profitable Product

Do you have a fan-favorite product, or is it in constant demand? Use a social media contest to increase the popularity of the product.

Get access to user-generated content

A picture is worth a thousand words, and user-generated content is no exception (UGC). User-Generated Content is ten times more effective than brand self-promotion in building trust. This is most likely why 85 percent of consumers consider user-generated content more influential than brand videos or photos. It allows followers to imagine themselves enjoying the product before buying it.

Increase sales with a buy-to-enter online contest

Host a giveaway that benefits you. To enter the social media contest, ask your followers to make a purchase. It is a win-win situation because it drives sales and traffic simultaneously to your website.

Obtain testimonials and feedback from social media contest

Social media reviews are as significant as User-Generated Content (UGC). They both increase the credibility of your brand and help to persuade new customers to choose you. Obtaining product feedback via social media contests is an excellent way to engage your target audience.

Reach out to influencers

By working with an influencer, you can tap into their social media following and get more people interested in your contest. In addition, an influencer can help you create a more successful contest by providing ideas and feedback. So if you're looking to boost your social media presence, consider partnering with an influencer for your next contest.

Use a hashtag

Hashtags are a great way to promote social media contests. By using hashtags, users can quickly and easily discover the contest and get involved. What's more, hashtags help to create a sense of community around the contest and can generate excitement and buzz. To get the most out of hashtags, be sure to use them in all social media posts related to the contest and encourage participants to use them as well. With a little effort, hashtags can be a powerful tool for promoting social media contests.

How to build attention-grabbing contests while sticking to Facebook's policies

To run a contest on Facebook, there are precise terms and rules. If you try to circumvent these rules, your contest is shut down before it gains traction – or, worse, just as it begins to gain viral attention. Therefore, be sure to read, understand and follow them.

A Facebook contest is a form of marketing. As with any campaign, you should set goals that guide the campaign's direction and aid in developing performance indicators. That way, you'll have a better idea of success. Creating a contest idea that captivates one's audience and drives interaction can be challenging.

A good contest idea must relate to your brand, be creative enough to capture their attention, help you achieve specific business goals, and be simple to share and enter. If you need creative inspiration, then take a look below.

• To win, have customers tell you how they would use your product.
• Instruct customers to take a photo of themselves using the product or engage in a specific activity.
• Invite customers to participate in a caption contest.
• Allow customers to vote in a promotion to determine which products will be on sale.
• Ask customers to vote for their favorite service/product package.
• When customers refer a certain number of friends, they are eligible for a prize.
• A specific type of selfie competition.
• A video/image competition where customers demonstrate how they use your product/service.
• Participation in "what type of... are you?" quizzes with a prize for each correct answer.

How to find prize items and keep engagement up after the contest is over

It's best to select a prize that will appeal to your target audience while also beneficial to your business. This way, you can display your products and services while tying the award back to your brand once the contest is over.

Social media contests are a compelling idea for engaging followers and exposing your brand to a new audience. Before you begin, read the platform rules on your preferred social media platform.

Whether you're interested in improving your marketing, a better website, or want to grow your social media, contact us for more information.

Terry Rajaram

Terry’s cauldron of knowledge in the digital world is the result of a background in advertising, graphic design, web and multimedia development… 25 years in this business.