I have been very interested in running a competition from my page but felt a bit overwhelmed when I first contemplated it.
Do I open the competition internationally? What if I get 14,000 entrants (Hey! A girl can dream...)? What if I get *no* entrants? How do I pick a winner?! These questions made me put it off as I didn't have the confidence.
After ruminating a bit I decided I wasn't going to let this put me off as a running competition seems to be a really good way to generate likes for your page, get your name out there and I think overall shows that your business is fun and cares about its fans.
After doing some proper research I found that running a competition is not that hard and there are tools out there to help you make it that much easier.
1. Pick a product that you'd like to use in your giveaway and if you can pick something "relevant". For my competition I have decided on a custom Christmas bauble - as we're nearing Christmas, I think it just makes sense!
2. Make a fun and interesting image to go with the competition: make it bright and cheerful! This is the best way to grab someone's attention. I used my go to image editing site, PicMonkey, to create mine.
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| The image is bright, showcases the prize and it's clear what it is all about. |
3. Promote yourself! This is admittedly my biggest hurdle: I have a hard time putting myself/business out there. But if you're trying to get new customers and get started, you just have to do a bit of self promotion. Obviously you don't want to go overboard and clog up everyone's news feeds with spammy posts about your competition. A good way to get them out there throughout the day/week/month is to schedule posts. You can schedule posts on Facebook as well as Twitter (using TweetDeck). Spend 15 minutes scheduling posts (changing up the language so they don't appear too "cut and paste") and then you don't have to worry about getting the word out there.
4. Decided on the conditions of your competition: how long will it run? Who can enter? How can they enter? What about posting and packaging - will you include it for all entrants, if the competition is open internationally?
5. Make sure that you follow the rules of running a competition on Facebook. The best place to read the rules is from Facebook itself.
The biggest takeaway from this is: You can ask them to like and comment as a means of entering (or both) BUT you cannot ask them to tag friends or share the post to get an entry in the competition as a condition of entry.
From what I can see from the many competitions by other businesses that I have looked at, is that you can say that people can share the post as it's welcome but NOT mandatory, and to be very clear about that.
It is also very important that you mention the competition is in no way endorsed/affiliated with/sponsored by Facebook.
6. Pin the post! Make sure you pin your competition post to the top of your page. That way, when people visit they do not have to go searching for it and scroll through your page. Also, anyone new visiting your page will see it right there and will *hopefully* enter.
7. And finally, find a good method of choosing your winner. I always wondered how people went about doing this - some competitions have hundreds or thousands of entrants. Do they go through every single one? Do they use an app? How do they make it fair? I found this great blog post about two different apps that help you choose winners. Visit this link to read about both tools in depth.
I've decided to use Woobox as it pretty much does everything for you. It's free and it's really easy to use. All I had to do was sign in to my personal Facebook account, go Woobox's site, create an account (by linking up with my Facebook account) and then it just pulled in all the relevant information. When my competition ends I'll be able to select the appropriate post and then use their tools to pick a winner.
I plan on taking a video as I do this so that all those who participated in the contest can see that it's done by a third party app and in a fair manner. I also think that having a video is a bit different - I've not seen many people do this. It adds a level of excitement to the whole thing!
So there you go - if you're a beginner like me, I hope that this can provide some good information to get started!
Also if you'd like to take part in my competition...you know where to go!
5. Make sure that you follow the rules of running a competition on Facebook. The best place to read the rules is from Facebook itself.
The biggest takeaway from this is: You can ask them to like and comment as a means of entering (or both) BUT you cannot ask them to tag friends or share the post to get an entry in the competition as a condition of entry.
From what I can see from the many competitions by other businesses that I have looked at, is that you can say that people can share the post as it's welcome but NOT mandatory, and to be very clear about that.
6. Pin the post! Make sure you pin your competition post to the top of your page. That way, when people visit they do not have to go searching for it and scroll through your page. Also, anyone new visiting your page will see it right there and will *hopefully* enter.
7. And finally, find a good method of choosing your winner. I always wondered how people went about doing this - some competitions have hundreds or thousands of entrants. Do they go through every single one? Do they use an app? How do they make it fair? I found this great blog post about two different apps that help you choose winners. Visit this link to read about both tools in depth.
I've decided to use Woobox as it pretty much does everything for you. It's free and it's really easy to use. All I had to do was sign in to my personal Facebook account, go Woobox's site, create an account (by linking up with my Facebook account) and then it just pulled in all the relevant information. When my competition ends I'll be able to select the appropriate post and then use their tools to pick a winner.
I plan on taking a video as I do this so that all those who participated in the contest can see that it's done by a third party app and in a fair manner. I also think that having a video is a bit different - I've not seen many people do this. It adds a level of excitement to the whole thing!
So there you go - if you're a beginner like me, I hope that this can provide some good information to get started!
Also if you'd like to take part in my competition...you know where to go!
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