With the digital space getting saturated by different brands trying to capture the attention of their target audience, social media contests provide an excellent way to generate buzz around their brand and re-engage their audience. When done properly and effectively, social media contests can bring a number of benefits to your brand. In fact, businesses, both big and small, are using this tactic to generate more leads, promote their products and services, and increase brand awareness?
While your brand might not garner the same level of enthusiasm that game shows get, you can certainly benefit from hosting a contest or a giveaway on social media.
Here are 5 reasons why contests should be a part of your
marketing strategy.
Give people a reason to follow your brand
Most brands would share interesting and informative content in the hopes of capturing the attention of their audience. But despite their efforts, many of them are having a hard time standing out from the competition. If you want to have more followers and expand your reach, consider hosting a contest on social media.
When running a contest, most brands would ask people to like their social media accounts and share their content. Knowing that they’ll get an opportunity to win something, most people would gladly do as they are asked. This is a win-win for both the brand and consumers. You get the opportunity to reach more people while they get the chance to win something – a gift, a discount voucher, a gift certificate or a free period of service.
If you’re looking to grow your fan base, contests and giveaways are a great way to do it. We’ve seen brands grow their following from 100 to 1,ooo or 10,000 to 25,000 in a matter of days or weeks. While some may argue that follower count is just a vanity metric, having more followers will certainly be beneficial for you if you can keep your engagement rate high. So don’t just stop at running a contest. Make sure that you keep your audience engaged and you’ll reap all the benefits soon enough.
Improve brand awareness
Most people aren’t aware that your business exists until they hear it from their family and friends. Social media contests allows you to get the word out about your business without directly promoting it.
Regardless of how well established your brand is, contests can be a simple yet effective way to improve brand awareness. If your contest includes a voting component, people would tag their family and friends for support. This strategy helps generate buzz around your brand. People are already talking about your brand and promoting your business on your behalf. People get to join in on the fun. Some even walks away with a prize, and you get to reach a wider audience. It’s a win-win for everyone.
Collect data
Often, people are hesitant to share their information for the fear of identity theft. Social media contests provide an easy way to grow your email list and collect data. People will be more willing to provide you with their personal information, knowing that they get something in return.
You can ask people to leave their name, contact number, and email address to enter the contest. Also, think of the type of information you need for your future marketing campaigns. Want to know how many of them went to the local university? How many of them have kids? Now is your chance to find out.
Increase engagement
Contests are one of the best ways to boost your engagement. When you host a social media contest, your post is likely to get a lot of likes, shares, and comments. It’s a fun and interactive way to get people to interact with your brand.
More than the number of fans and followers, engagement is the most important element in social media. The engagement rate represents the number of people who are talking about your brand. The higher the engagement rate is, the higher the reach rate. That means, your content will be viewed by a wider audience. In addition to that, hosting a contest gives you more opportunity to interact with your audience and deepen the connection as well.
Collect user-generated content
Let’s face it. Most customers won’t leave a review unless you ask them to. And if you’re looking for a way get tons of reviews and user-generated content fast, contests are the way to do it. Simply ask your audience to provide their photos to enter, and you’ll be flooded with user-generated content in no time.
Not only will you have lots of photos to use for your future marketing campaigns, but it will also give your target audience the perception that people love your brand. After all, those who submitted their photos are already invested in your brand.
Why social media contests are a good idea
Holding contests and campaigns
on social media is more popular than ever, and we don’t see that changing anytime soon. Any company can give out free gift cards or electronics, so that really is not enough to hold the attention of social media users anymore. What is taking your contest to the next level? If you are running a contest, you must make sure your contest stands out from the rest.
As we know, consumers are constantly interacting with social media on their mobile phones. This means it is vital to take advantage of location. Urge users to check-in on social media when they are interacting with your company’s physical location. Offer some sort of incentive such as a discount, a charitable donation, a few points in a contest, etc. Getting social media users to check in not only allows you to generate more traffic but also creates a deeper user interaction (physical and digital).
Do your users have a reason to keep coming back to your page? Include your fans and contest participants in every possible step of the contest. Brands often do this by allowing the fans to vote on a winner, respond to a question, or answer a poll. Get creative here and choose what seems most relevant to your brand and product.
Although your contest is Facebook based, ask yourself if other social media platforms would enhance your contest. For example, say you are the marketer for a line of gluten-free butter and your Facebook contest asked users to post pictures and recipes of things they made with your butter. In this case, it would make sense to start a Pinterest board, displaying the recipes. Using more than one social media platform can allow you to reach a larger audience. The key here is to make sure your second social media platform is relevant to your contest.
The general goal of Facebook contests is to allow users to interact with your brand. Anybody can make a Facebook contest, but your goal is to expand that user interaction as far as possible. Think of ways to take your contests to other social media platforms, physical locations, and beyond.
Twitter has over 300 million active users, making it one of the biggest social media platforms around! For marketers, the potential Twitter has to offer is huge! Additionally, the latest brand pages that have been introduced make it an even stronger platform for promoting content to customers. Countless companies have successfully used Twitter to build-up their brand’s identity. However, while several marketers have climbed aboard the Twitter bandwagon, many have yet to efficiently use the tool as a strategic channel.
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