Social media is all the rage now. Every company has a Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram page as a necessity to reach their audience online. Brands need to zone in and focus on creating creative content to capture consumers’ attention and stand out. Running a social media contest is an effective and quick way to earn the attention of your audience in a saturated marketplace.
Contests are not only a great way to boost your social presence through increased followers, engagement, and awareness but also presents opportunities to further connect with your audience. Social contests can help speed up your brand’s ability to build relationships by hacking into the rule of reciprocation. Or in simpler terms, if you give someone something they feel obligated to give you something in return. Makes sense right?
But how can social media contests benefit your brand?
Whatever your goal, you can create a contest around it. For example, do you want to increase followers? Make an entry requirement to follow your page and tag their friends. This increases the reach of your message while incentivizing those to follow your page and share with their network to do the same.
Social media contests can:
Boost Online Engagement: Contests are a way for brands to connect with their audience on a deeper level while inspiring them to take certain actions. Requiring followers to tag others means your audience will organically expand outside of your following while enticing new comers to make the first move, reach out, and interact with your brand.
Build your Email List: Social media contests can also be an excellent form of lead generation. Offering an attractive prize will convince your following to comply by providing their email address for a chance to win.
Build Community: Face to face word of mouth is still a highly valued marketing effort (yes...talking to someone in person). Social media enhances word of mouth making it much faster to spread your message online. Every brand aspires to create this word of mouth and get people talking for them to break down the barriers of skepticism and ad blockers (Hello... free marketing!) Social Media contests with attractive prizes will provide the topic and get people talking/sharing it with their family, friends, and extended networks.
Incentivize Follows: A contest is a great way to reach new audiences and boost followers. Following your account is a great trade deal and will incentivize action in exchange for a chance to win.
Build Awareness: Build awareness about a product or page by encouraging people to share, retweet, repost etc. to increase organic reach, impressions, and engagement.
With #NationalGiveawayDay coming up Sunday July 15th… we wanted to make sure you are prepped and ready with some contest ideas for your page:
1) Referral Contest- Tag 3 friends! This is one of the basic contest ideas rewarding your fans for showing friends your page and convincing them to participate in the contest. This type of contest triggers word of mouth and can lead to virality, especially with great prizes.
2) Sharing is Caring:
People love to share details about themselves; it’s our nature. Why do you think social media is as popular as it is? Get to know your audience by asking them to share their favourite memory tying it in with your company’s core values. You can also ask your audience to tag other friends to participate to increase your reach and the number of contest entries. Going back to the rule of reciprocity, if your friend entered and tagged you, it feels natural for us to do the same.
3) Photo Contest:
Everyone owns a smartphone making it super easy to capture a photo and enter-to-win on the go. Not to mention this contest will generate great user generated content to be posted to your page later on. Require entries to tag your account and use a specific hashtag to easily find images/entries.
4) Cast Your Vote:
Voting contests are easy to participate in with the click of a button on a Facebook poll or IG story. Voting also allows you to gain valuable consumer insights. You can tell what your customer is more interested in, and how interested they are in your products. TIP: Create grid posts on Instagram enticing people to enter-to-win while driving traffic back to your story.
There you have it, 4 great contest ideas designed to attract new audiences, raise awareness, increase engagement, build connections, and not only name a lucky winner but position your brand as one!