Running a social media competition can be an extremely efficient way to increase your fan base, engage your audience, generate traffic to your website, and excite your followers.
Over the past few years, we’ve been experimenting with different types of contests for different clients. Every time we’ve learned something new. So what are the keys to success? They are manyfold, but here are five things to keep in mind when planning a social media competition.
1) Define your objectives
Brand awareness? Email subscribers? Followers? Having a clear goal is the very first step to any online contest. It is the building block of your campaign. It will help you define a concept and decide on critical success factors.
2) Put yourself in the shoes of your audience
Knowing your audience is the key to success. What drives them? What are they interested in? What channel do they use and how? These are crucial questions you need to answer before you start conceptualizing your campaign.
3) Map out the journey of your audience
Whatever channel you choose, establish the journey of your potential participants. The objective here is to make things easy for them, reducing the number of clicks they need to make in order to participate.
4) Engage with your audience
During the contest, don’t forget to engage in conversations. Make sure potential participants understand every step they need to take. Give them tips and examples of what you’re expecting from them. Excite them with relevant content and updates on the contest.
5) Analyze, learn & adapt
During and after the contest, analyze your performance. Make sure you understand where the pain points are and what tactics contributed to the success of your competition. If you still have time, adapt your strategy, if not, take the learnings for next time.
Finally, don’t forget competitions are meant to be fun. So keep it simple and entertaining!
