To stay relevant, brands must continue to engage their customers through ads, contests, and other marketing strategies.
But what is a Facebook competition? How does it work? And why should I care?
Competitions are a great way to get noticed and build brand awareness. They are excellent for getting more likes on your page and in your group or boosting traffic to your site. They also provide a fun opportunity to interact with your audience.
Competitions on Facebook can involve posting a question or challenge, then promoting it to engage your followers.
Rewards can include cash prizes, gifts, or even admission to exclusive events.
But before jumping into a competition, there are some things you should consider. To ensure your competition is a success, check out these helpful tips.
Like most aspects of Facebook, there are official rules, including rules for all competitions.
However, the rules tend to change as new policies arise, so it’s important to check them before starting a competition. The current ones include:
When you create a competition, the owner of the Facebook Page or Group’s job is to ensure they run properly and lawfully.
This means you have to set up terms and eligibility requirements which would include the age range for who can participate and the region for the competition.
So, for example, a brand can set guidelines that only people 18 plus in the U.S. can participate in the competition.
It also means that there need to be clear standards of how the competition will be run. Such as how and when the participants will participate and receive rewards.
Transparency is paramount. It will ensure everyone knows how the competition will operate and won’t get your brand in any sticky situations with Facebook or the law.
You will also need to mention in a post or release that Facebook is not involved in the competition in any way. And that the brand itself is in charge and responsible for the competition.
The participants also need to agree to these terms. So, it’s your job to get the participants to consent to these terms before participating.
Only official Facebook Pages, Groups, or Events can be used as platforms to promote a competition.
A brand can’t encourage its team or other participants to promote, tag, or share the competition on their personal Timelines.
People can find this as a spammy way to promote a competition anyway, so this shouldn’t impact promoting your competition.
Unfortunately, you are on your own and in charge of running a campaign on Facebook. So, Facebook can’t get involved if issues arise; it’s your job to manage any potential problems.
Now that you know the rules, it’s time to set your goals for the competition.
There are numerous objectives you can select for a Facebook competition.
Some of them include:
If you want to increase the number of likes you receive for posts and use a competition to help with this, then you need to post regularly and interact with users.
To build engagement, you should ask questions to your participants and answer any responses they give.
Additionally, if you want to promote a product or service, you should use promotion tools like Facebook ads.
Generally, the main objectives of any Facebook competition are to increase engagement and gain followers.
If you want to achieve higher engagement rates, you need to create a competition where participants feel like they have something to gain.
This could mean giving away prizes to select participants after encouraging them to participate on your social media pages or directing them back to your website to sign up for your email subscription.
This helps you get more active leads while also generating engagement.
As you would set goals for other social media campaigns, selecting specific and measurable objectives is paramount. This way, you can track the success of the campaign.
Putting together a couple of key performance indicators (KPIs) can help inform your promotional strategy for your Facebook competition.
It’s also incredibly important to set a schedule to monitor Facebook promotion analytics regularly.
For your competition to gain traction, you need to leverage your marketing efforts.
Whether your competition is run solely on Facebook or you’re using it across multiple platforms, it’s crucial to hit all areas where your customers follow you.
Either direct them back to Facebook to participate or be clear about how and where they can enter the competition on other platforms, such as your website.
Also, depending on your brand goals for the competition, it may be worth boosting it as a paid Facebook post.
You can also customize your campaign by creating unique hashtags. This will help participants associate a post with your competition to remind them to enter if they haven’t done so already or reignite their excitement about potential prizes.
In addition, remember to establish a set schedule for when and how you will post about your competition throughout its duration.
Using a third-party app to run your competition removes a lot of the headache associated with running a promotion but also has some drawbacks.
For example, they may not offer any additional functionality beyond what your team can manage.
Also, if you plan on promoting through Facebook ads, you’ll need to pay separately for each campaign (which could get expensive).
And finally, these apps aren’t usually designed to work on mobile devices, so you won’t be able to access them easily from a smartphone or tablet.
3. Who Is The Audience You Want To Enter?With your objectives and rules established, it’s time to decide who you want to get involved in your competition.
It’s essential to tailor your competition to your target audience.
What do you think your target audience wants? Do you have a new product or product line coming out soon? Then maybe you can gift a couple of participants some of these products.
Or perhaps there is a product that is generally sold out. Then a couple of lucky winners can receive this elusive good.
You could also create a limited edition product specifically for the competition. This way, more people will get excited to participate, so they don’t miss out on this one-time offer.
Figuring out what your audience wants most can help improve the success of your competition. Choose a prize that appeals to your ideal customers. You want your participants to be excited when they finally get their gift.
Finally, think carefully about how you’re reaching your target audience.
Will they respond positively to how you plan to promote your competition? Are you offering enough prizes for the type of following you have on Facebook or across social media?
What Type Of Competition Do You Choose?A Facebook competition requires a lot of planning. Before starting any Facebook competition, you need to decide how much effort and money you want to put into the competition.
Such as how much money you want to spend on Facebook ads and other promotional activities, as well as what prizes you want to give away and how many prizes you’re willing to offer. Then it’ll be easier to select what type of competition would work best.
Three traditional competitions include giveaways, sweepstakes, and contests. Each has different rules.
If you plan to run a giveaway, you should consider limiting how many products you give away. Usually, with a giveaway, a set number of the people who participate first receive a prize.
A sweepstake is more of a lottery where you would select a certain number of participants from the pull of participants that enter the competition over a period of time.
And a contest would have more specific criteria that the participants need to follow, and then the participant(s) who best follow the criteria would win.
Such as a picture contest.
If you want to run a competition on Facebook, then you should know how long the competition will last. The typical duration is one month.
However, some competitions may be open longer if you have the budget and time or certain long-term goals for that competition.
Some competitions end when they reach a certain number of entries, while others continue until a specific date.
It’s crucial to communicate how you will follow up with your participants to let them know who won the competition.
This way, you won’t create any unnecessary upsetness or miscommunicate about when the prizes will go out. You don’t want to waste all your hard work by ending the competition on a sour note.
Here are some tips on how you can follow up with participants after the competition ends:
Facebook competitions are a fun way to promote your company, brand, product, service, or cause.
Also, they are a great way to build a community around your brand and get feedback from followers.
They’re free to enter, easy to set up, and fun to watch. So, if you want to build a community around your product or service, try creating a Facebook competition.
More Resources:
Featured Image: Dean Drobot/Shutterstock
Category Social Media Facebook
Looking to gain traction on Facebook?
Want to drum up some excitement amongst your Facebook fans?
How about some friendly competition?
In this article you’ll find 50 Facebook competition ideas, tips, and examples to help you supercharge your social media marketing.
The most common Facebook competition out there, a sweepstakes simply involves entering with your information… and that’s it! These are the majority of competitions you’ll find on Facebook with the primary objective being lead generation.
Photo competitions entail your fans submitting a photo based around a specific topic and you selecting an appropriate winner. Photo competitions are an excellent way to collect user generated content for social sharing.
A caption competition involves selecting a photo, preferably a funny photo, and asking your fans to submit captions. You select your favourite and crown the winner.
A vote competition is much like a photo competition except fans vote on the winner. It has the added benefit of including a larger audience and the promotion of entrants to their own networks.
A video competition is exactly the same as a photo competition… except with video. Fans create and submit videos based on a topic and a winner is crowned.
Ask your fans to help pick the name of your mascot! Use a caption Contest and allow entrants to submit their own names and have your fans vote on their favourite.
Fans that fancy themselves designers can submit their designs for a chance to win and have their logo used as an official design. You might be surprised at what they come up with.
Selfie contests have been phenomenally popular on Instagram and Facebook in the past few years. They’re also a great way to get user generated content of your customers as different venues and events. These photos can then be aggregated into a gallery to help build a community around your brand.
Curious to see your product out in the real world? Ask your Facebook fans to submit photos of them using your product for a chance to win.
It’ll give you great content to share with your fans and potential fans alike.
Get your fans to flex their creativity and submit their own t-shirt designs for print. You can either have your fans vote for their favourite or pick your favourite, the choice is yours.
A competition is a fun and exciting way to create hype around your Facebook page. It’ll expose new and old fans alike to some friendly competition and grow your following in the process.
Getting a Facebook competition in front of your target audience is all about incentives. A fantastic prize is sure to draw in people enthusiastic about the industry you service.
Collect a long list of lead information from the folks entering your Facebook competition. This way you can promote to these leads further down the road.
The fact that they’re interested in your industry makes them that much more interested in your future offers.
Creating awesome content to share on Facebook is not always a cake walk. Let your fans in on the action and collect some user generated content to share in the future.
Getting your Facebook competition in front of your target audience provides a perfect opportunity to collect user feedback. Speaking with the people who win your product is an easy way to gather valuable feedback.
It’s expected that you’ll get busy with other areas of your business and neglect to engage your followers. Not to worry. A Facebook competition is a perfect way to re-engage your audience and get them excited about winning some free stuff.
As a part of the exposure you receive for running a Facebook competition expect that to translate into sales.
Have a new product/service to promote? Get your new product/service into the hands of your audience immediately and start generating hype for it.
Folks generally go nuts for free stuff. Generate more traffic to your website by including an entry page directly on your website. You can include additional contest entry details and other content ultimately leading to more traffic for your website.
Don’t forget the social media is… social. It’s a prime opportunity to engage with your audience during your Facebook competition. Respond to questions, ask questions, get feedback, and get to know who you’ve set out to serve. Learn more about your target market with a Facebook competition.
Use a competition building platform Don’t bother messing with custom codes to build your own Facebook competition. The best way to run a Facebook competition is with a competition platform (like Wishpond). It’ll make life easier by giving you an easy embed code to copy and paste onto your Facebook business page.
Like a beautiful storefront, your headline is what draws visitors in. A compelling headline should speak directly to the reader’s emotions. Directly address the benefits of entering into your Facebook competitions. Do they win an awesome prize? Do they win Cheetos for life? Or how about eternal life? Make it clear what they stand to benefit from.
A unique hashtag for your contest makes searching up the entries on Facebook easy. A hashtag organizes all of the entries under one unique name.
Visitors want to know what’s in it for them immediately.
If nothing catches their interest they’re most likely going to split. A benefit checklist can help. Why should you enter? This, this, and this. Make it clear what they stand to benefit from.
Online readers are anything but patient. They need to know what you’re offering quick. They need to understand what the deal is and what they stand to gain. Visuals will help you do the job of communicating value quickly. A guy jumping off a ski ramp is fun, exciting, and puts viewers in a winter sports frame of mind. Those interested in winter sports will be immediately compelled to explore more.
Don’t make entering your Facebook competition any trickier than is has to be. The rules for qualifying and disqualifying participants must be explicitly clear. The last thing you want in an angry participant.
Along with making your entry rules clear, be upfront on how the winner will be chosen.
Make the choosing process simple. A social competition app like Wishpond will randomly choose and automatically email the winner to let them know.
Experiment with bonus entries for everyone who enters. Sharing the competition with their network or entering once a day for example, are a couple of ways to give bonus entries for extra participation. People love bonuses that give them a leg up on the competition.
Once your Facebook competition is up and running don’t forget to change your Facebook cover image to let the rest of your followers know. A bright and attention-grabbing cover photo will let everyone who visits know to enter.
To host your Facebook competition directly on your Facebook page you’ll need to create a custom tab and landing page. Customize the image in your brand’s look and feel.
Use checkboxes Filling out the entry form is most likely the most painful part of the entry process. I don’t know anyone who enjoys filling out online forms. To make life a bit easier for your visitors, use checkboxes instead of form fields where possible.
This is a big one. A countdown timer creates urgency. Big bright numbers counting down to zero will drive more entries for fear of missing out on an awesome prize.
The entry dates of the competition matter more than you would think. Too long and the excitement can dim as time goes on. Too short and you might miss out on some entries. Pick and experiment with different lengths for each competition you run.
It’s always wise to give everyone you can a heads up before your Facebook competition goes live. Send out a friendly email to let them know entry starts tomorrow and to avoid missing the opportunity to win.
Once your Facebook competition is live it’s time to shift to getting as many people to enter as possible. Don’t forget to cross promote your competition on all of your other channels. Twitter, Instagram, email, blogs, and forums.
Once your competition is published make sure to pin it to the top of your Facebook feed. A pinned post sticks to the top of the feed and accumulates more exposure from visitors. Anyone who looks down your feed will see your competition first.
When choosing your prize package make sure it is tied back to your business. If your business sells appliances it’s not a good idea to give away an iPad. People will enter to specifically for the iPad and take off once it’s over. You want to make sure that they’re interested in the niche you serve. Giving away gift card, store credit, or one of your products makes sure that all participants are interested in what you have to offer.
Don’t just set it and forget it. Keep your fans and participants updated on the status of your competition. This means making regular mentions of the number of entries or time left. It will encourage people to sign up or share the competition before it finishes.
Facebook ads are by far one of the most effective avenues for capturing immediate traffic for your Facebook competition. Facebook ads target users based on interests so it’s critical to locate those who are interested in your specific niche. Those who are strapped for time or who don’t have much of a social media following can generate immediate traffic with Facebook ads.
A banner at the top of your website or blog is meant to redirect visitors to your competition entry page. A brightly coloured design is meant to grab the attention of every visitor and make sure they’re aware.
When it comes to Facebook competitions it can help to include additional prizes to appeal to more people.
Partner with a company that is aligned with your business to offer an even larger prize. Both of your companies can promote the competition for twice the marketing power.
A Facebook competition theme like a holiday or anniversary can help establish more of a purpose for your competition. Celebrating one year in business for example, acts as a more compelling reason for visitors to accept your offer. Not having an occasion or theme lowers the apparent value of the competition because it may be assumed that you run them all the time.
Before constructing any part of your Facebook competition makes sure you have measurable goals. Your goal will determine the measure of success for your competition. Leads, exposure, or follower growth are typical goals that can be measured against your acquisition costs. Keep your goal in mind when deciding how much you’d like to spend on a prize and advertising.
Instead of a single massive grand prize, break it up into an entire prize package made of smaller prizes. Doing so will make the competition appeal to a broader range of people. You can then include parts that tie back to your business as well as things that don’t.
Half of all web traffic is now coming from mobile devices which means that your competitions need to be mobile responsive. The best way to do this is to start with a Facebook competition building tool which comes with fully responsive templates, like Wishpond. Although Facebook itself is always mobile responsive, your Facebook competition page may not be.
Like we said before, online readers aren’t the most patient bunch. A faster web experience makes for a more happy user. Speed up your competition page by:
For a competition that is running for a longer period of time it is a good idea to run A/B tests on your call to action. By split testing your CTA you can see what language compels your visitors to convert more. Facebook competition platforms, like Wishpond, are able to divide the traffic and send them to two different competition pages and see which works best.
Don’t forget to mention your new Facebook competition in your weekly/monthly newsletter for the people who don’t follow one of your social channels. If recipients are already receiving your newsletter they’re in your system but they may be able to share it within their networks as well.
For one of your bonus entries try using a pre-populated tweet for your visitors to share.
Write up some exciting copy for your visitors to share with one click. You’ll receive more attention for your Facebook competition and they’ll receive a bonus entry.
When the fierce competition is all said and done feature the lucky winner. It’s important to highlight the honor of winning and be sure to make them feel as special as possible. The amount of praise you’re able to give will prep and excite people anticipating your next competition.
Hopefully these 50 Facebook competition ideas have sparked your creativity for your next competition. A great prize, defined rules, and a bit of interactivity will surely delight your fans.
Are you planning on running a Facebook competition soon?
Leave your comments and questions below!
jordan-lore
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Updated
Facebook changes its rules regularly, so be sure to check for up-to-date data before organizing a contest.
For Russia, the rules are published here.
Do not run a contest on Facebook. Spend it on Vkontakte or Instagram. Unless you have a high-quality, large group with active members, a Facebook contest will perform much worse than other sites.
Or run a contest on your website and use Facebook to promote.
But if your manager wants Facebook, or the sales department has already told the client how cool it would be, read on.
Facebook refers to contests as "Promotions" in its policies.
This means activation, where:
• Confirmation of membership or registration required.
• An element of chance.
• Prize.
Facebook, not surprisingly, bans:
* Create fraudulent or deceptive groups, pages and events.
Or indicate in the title or description that this is an unofficial page. Rules for designing business pages
Facebook contest rules
Contests can be run on Facebook business pages, groups, events, and apps.
It is better to place the rules on the page on a separate landing page. They will be detailed and legally correct. Write:
And that's just about the legality of the contest on Facebook. In order for the promotion to be successful, we also need interesting and understandable mechanics, as well as promotion.
Do not forget before the start of the competition and the creation of an alert publication about the analysis of your audience and the audience of competitors. The Popsters service can help you with this.
With it, you will learn more about the preferences of the target audience, based on advanced statistics of Facebook groups.
Useful articles continued:
Try Popsters free trial plan to get activity statistics for up to 10 pages in the next 7 days
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Pranks for the audience - an excellent way to attract attention to the public, increase the number of subscribers. Let's talk about how to properly conduct a drawing on Facebook, form a list of candidates and organize the procedure as honestly as possible, without a hitch.
Content:
Mandatory addition of the following information:
An example of a contest
Usually, users are invited to participate in various drawings:
These are the most common conditions, but the organizers may indicate their own, based on the situation.
Most often, the winner is determined live using a random number generator.
The organizers of some communities hold not just a draw among users, but a competition for the best content, where the best are determined:
Example of a creative contest
If the content collected during the contest is intended to be used in whole or in part, the organizers must notify the participants in advance.
And here is the idea of the contest, the holding of which does not require any special efforts by the organizers. But at the same time, such a contest very well stimulates the activity of users on a page or in a group.
The essence of the contest : at the end of each week, users receive gifts (at least purely symbolic) who have received the top fan status on the page, and the status of the top co-author in the group.
Facebook rules categorize sweepstakes and contests as "Promotions".
Promotions are subject to the following requirements:
However, despite the fact that reposts in the personal chronicle are prohibited, this practice is used all the time. So far, no one has been punished for it. But, going to break the rules, you still need to remember about the possible consequences.
The organizers of the competition should carefully consider what will be awarded to the winner. The prize of a raffle or competition must certainly correspond to the theme of the community that organized the event or the interests of its participants. If the prize is voluminous or weighty, then you need to either limit the geography of the competition, or think about the way the gift is delivered.
Territorial restrictions for participants are appropriate if the organizer wants to present the prize in a special place. For example, in your store.
Example of possible prizes
It is very important to create a successful competition or giveaway announcement.
Experts advise choosing an option such as a banner.
How to issue it:
If such a banner is supposed to be used when placing paid advertising, its dimensions must be maintained in the parameters 1200x628, and the text should account for no more than 20% of the area.
All other information about the draw or competition must be placed in the text attached to the banner of the publication.
In order for as many people as possible to learn about the upcoming draw or competition, promotional tools are used, their set is not small. Specific means are selected based on the goals, scope and budget of the planned activity.
Competent promotion of the competition at the same time will help increase the number of page subscribers, group members, and increase brand awareness.
Commonly used means are:
From the very beginning of the promotion, it is necessary to regularly publish intermediate information: the number of participants, the number of free places (if there are restrictions), the number of days until the end of registration.
Increases credibility and encourages people to participate by posting information with tips on how to register and win.
To announce a draw or contest on the page, you can use the "Event" option.
Or add a link to the promotion site, if one exists.
The culmination of the drawing or competition is the final summing up and determining the winner. A lot depends on the type of event.
These services are used for large-scale contests and sweepstakes. With the help of such services, a selection is made and the winner is honestly determined.
During the draw, it is necessary to constantly monitor statistics using Facebook tools: daily check traffic, the number of subscribers, analyze user activity. This is the only way to determine the effectiveness of a marketing campaign.
