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<\/p>\nRunning a successful social media competition is a great way to drum up enthusiasm for your brand, increase subscriptions and gain new followers. However, before announcing your contest, proper planning is required to ensure it runs smoothly and effectively.<\/p>\n
Here are some tips to ensure your social media competition is a success.<\/p>\n
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Building your competition around clear goals will help guide the process. Are you trying to increase newsletter subscriptions? Grow your social media following? Or maybe you\u2019ve got a new product to promote?<\/p>\n
Be sure to define your goals in measurable terms, such as a certain percentage increase or X more followers.<\/p>\n
These are some straightforward objectives to consider setting for your social media competition:<\/p>\n
Be realistic when deciding which goals to prioritise. Your competition\u2019s objectives should matter to your business and be achievable within your budget.<\/p>\n
RELATED: <\/b>Choosing the right social platforms for your business.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n There are a number of social media competition formats that could work for you. Consider the pros and cons of each one before determining which type to choose.<\/p>\n Photo contests involve asking your followers to post a photo accompanied by a specific hashtag. Winners can be chosen at random or judged on the creativity or quality of their photo. You might also require that contestants follow your page to enter.<\/p>\n Photo competitions thrive in image-based markets, such as the health and beauty industry.<\/p>\n Voting promotions asking your followers to vote on either user-generated content (content submitted by your followers) or your own content.<\/p>\n For example, landscape and gardening businesses can engage with audiences by asking them to vote on the best garden makeover of the year. In this case, you might require audiences to sign up in order to vote.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve got a funny image that\u2019s somehow related to your business, ask your followers to come up with a caption for it. You can either choose a number of your favourite captions, or ask followers to vote for their favourite caption to determine the winner\/s.<\/p>\n This type of contest is great for adding personality to your social media. It can be particularly useful for brands that typically deal with dry subject matter, such as financial institutions.<\/p>\n Remember that even if you don\u2019t require audiences to follow your page in order to enter, these kinds of social media competitions can organically increase engagement and follower numbers.<\/p>\n Simple yet effective, free giveaways are one of the most popular competition formats out there. Your followers can enter the giveaway through a simple prompt (such as liking or sharing a photo), and the winner can be chosen at random.<\/p>\n The beauty of free giveaways is that they work for every industry out there. For example, service-based industries such as mechanics and home maintenance professionals can provide free essential services, whereas product-based services can offer items to give away.<\/p>\n The tag-a-friend format is extremely popular, and for good reason. With this format, you\u2019ll ask followers to tag a friend in one of your posts. This could put your follower into a draw for them both to win a prize, with an extra entry if the friend also follows your page.<\/p>\n Are you aiming to reach a certain milestone in followers, such as 100,000 followers on Facebook?<\/p>\n This competition format will be specific to a platform, and will select one lucky follower (or any number) to win a prize simply by following you. Make the draw once you reach your milestone, and don\u2019t forget to reward new followers with fun, interesting, and useful content even if they don\u2019t win.<\/p>\n Want to get your brand name in front of more people? Try a share-to-win competition, where followers must share (or retweet, or re-gram etc.) your post in order to enter.<\/p>\n This is a good option for small businesses looking to get their brand and products in front of more audiences.<\/p>\n On Facebook, the likelihood of your fans seeing a non-boosted post<\/a> is low. Make sure the competition you\u2019re running makes an impact by \u2018boosting\u2019 it.<\/p>\n You can boost a post or competition via paid social promotion, an email marketing campaign with a link to your competition, or by blogging about it on your website. Increase your promotional efforts just before the competition closes and be sure to have some fun announcing the winner.<\/p>\n Download our handy infographic guide to 7 social media competition formats below.<\/strong><\/p>\n Download infographic<\/a><\/p>\n Running a competition is a fun way to strengthen your social presence, but if you don\u2019t have the time to do this, Social Ads can help you make some noise<\/a>. Social Ads with Yellow Pages offers:<\/p>\nChoose the right competition format.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Photo Contests.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Voting Promotions.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Caption Contests.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Free Giveaways.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Tag a friend.<\/b><\/h3>\n
Follower milestones.<\/b><\/h3>\n
Share to win. <\/b><\/h3>\n
Boost your social media competitions for more views.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Social Ads with Yellow Pages.<\/strong><\/h2>\n