How to run a successful Facebook competition
Many people go into a Facebook competition without any real understanding of how to make it a success. The world of Facebook is full of competitions that don’t meet the guidelines of the site, and don’t enjoy the positive outcomes that well run campaigns relish in. So how can you run a successful competition that will bring in new page likes, better engagement, and potential brand advocates?
Here is a guide that will ensure you get the most from any competition activity, and positively impact your online reputation.
1. Set a goal – many people go into a competition without an understanding of what outcomes they are hoping to achieve from it. If your page is lacking in good quality page likes, that may have to be your main focus from the campaign. If you are happy with the page likes, but want to improve engagement, focus on increasing the engagement of the post.
2. Understand the rules – the holy grail of any post is for it to go viral, getting people from all around the world sharing your content and discovering your brand. Facebook don’t actually allow you to ask people to share posts to win a competition, so using a third party app can be a great way to get people to share. You could also enjoy the benefits of data capture forms, adding to your email address spreadsheet, which could result in future sales.
Along with this, make sure to list a set of rules for entering. For example, if you are offering a product in a competition, you may want to make it only available for people in the UK.
3. Be eye-catching – you may be offering a fantastic product, but nobody will notice it if the design doesn’t jump out at them in their news feed. Ensure the artwork that accompanies the competition is on brand whilst being visually appealing.
4. Advertise – it’s no secret that the organic reach of business pages has declined rapidly in recent years. After posting your competition, it can easily be missed by all of your fans. Spending as little as £3.50 a day with advertisements optimised for post engagement can really increase your reach from 16% of your fans to 100%. Combine this with an advertisement optimised for page likes. With this method, you can target people based on their interests, age, location and more. You can even target fans of your competitors, gaining great quality likes from people that have specifically joined your page to engage in what you have to offer.
