How to Run a Social Media Competition

Want to build your email marketing list? Perhaps you’d like to grow the amount of Likes you have on Facebook, or your Instagram follower base? Whatever your digital marketing goals are, a social media competition – when done right – can be the ultimate way to make engagement with your brand explode (in a good way).

Here are some best practice tips for running your social media competition.

Choose the right prize for your audience

When choosing a prize for your competition, keep in mind that there’s no point giving away a prize like an iPad if you are, for example, a fashion brand. Of course, a generic prize like this will draw in a lot of entries, but they won’t necessarily be the type of people you want engaging with your brand – in fact, after they’ve entered your competition, they’ll likely forget all about your business. This is because they are poor-quality leads who don’t care about your brand, just the prize. Therefore, make sure your prize is relevant to your business niche – this is what will draw in high quality leads for your business.

Make it shareable

Whether you are running a contest through an app on Facebook, or a ‘giveaway’ competition on Instagram where users repost your image for a chance to win, it’s important that you get your fans to spread the word about your contest through organic means. This will help your competition to really take off and get crazy engagement (with the right people).

For traditional contests, it’s a good idea to include social media sharing options as a mechanism for entrants receiving an extra entry to your competition. For a ‘reposting’ contest, remember to ask entrants to tag you in the post to ensure that your brand name is included.

Promote your contest

It should go without saying that you should promote your contest on every organic channel available to you. That means on your website and whatever social media platforms that you have. It can also be worthwhile to consider highly targeted paid advertising to reach your target audience and have them engage with your competition.

Ensure it’s mobile-friendly

With social media and apps making it easier than ever to build mobile-responsive competitions, there’s no excuse for clunky design. Making sure that your competition page is mobile-friendly ensures you don’t lose a large portion of your potential customer base when they arrive at the landing page. Think about it: if time-poor customers have taken the time to click on your competition page only to be taken to a desktop-only webpage, only the really dedicated users will switch over to a computer, and you’ll lose a substantial chunk of your potential leads. The simple solution? Use a competition platform with mobile-responsive templates.

Measure your results

When your competition finishes up, take the time to analyse your results. If it performed well, that’s great. Note what strategies worked for you. If you’re disappointed with the results, think about where it underperformed and what you can do to optimise for next time. For example, if you didn’t receive enough impressions, consider a different promotion strategy. If you didn’t get enough conversions on a competition page, you need to tweak the format and/or design, and reflect on whether you should promote a different prize to reach the right audience.

Need help launching a social media competition? Get in touch.