Tips for Running a Facebook Contest

Facebook Contest Winner

Running a contest on Facebook presents a wonderful opportunity to reach more potential fans, and grow your social media following. By following some of these best practices — you’re sure to have a successful contest.

  • Make sure you have an appealing, awesome prize. Your prize should align with what your business actually does. For example, a spa could give away a free massage or a facial; or a car dealership could give a gas card. The prize is always going to be the first thing a person looks at when entering a contest, and if it’s not appealing to them — they may not take the time to enter, so choose carefully!
  • Promote, promote, promote! In order to reach the largest amount of your fans (and their friends), you need to make sure you’re telling them about the contest! Be creative in your status updates by using photos and videos to create buzz and interest in entering. Additionally, use what you’ve got! Add a call to action to your cover photo, which is public — that means anyone can see it, even someone who is not a fan of your page!
  • Highlight or ‘Pin’ your contest posts. These are two really easy, free ways to pull attention to your contest. Highlight — just hover over one of your posts and click on the star in the top right corner to expand it to cover the full width of your timeline. This really helps important posts to stand out from the rest! Pinning — Show off your contest by pinning a post to the top of your timeline. By pinning the post, it prevents it from getting buried, and keeps full attention on it for seven days!
  • Create a Custom Contest Tab — Keep all of your contest under the custom tabs at the top of your timeline. Branding this tab till allow your fans to find your contests with ease every time!
  • Mobile friendly URLs — The total number of Facebook mobile users tops 1 billion – so it is ESSENTIAL to create a mobile friendly URL to promote your contest on Facebook.
  • Like-Gate Your Contest — Facebook recently changed it’s rules, and now you can request for people to like your page first, before seeing the details of the contest. To see all of Facebook’s contest/promotion rules — click here.

Overall, be engaging, creative and just have fun with it!

Contact us at sales@chartlocal.com to get your Facebook Contest started!