4 Reasons You Should Run a Social Media Contest

If you are on social media, chances are you've seen a company or individual you follow run a social media contest. These contests serve a variety of purposes. For one, they're fun for customers and clients. Secondly, they're a great way for the company in question to advertise itself and its products and to expose both to a broader base of customers. If you run an online business, it might be a good time for you to follow suit and start running your own social media contest. Today, companies in the technology, entertainment, and music industries, among many others, are running highly productive contests on social media, and you can too! Here's what you need to know about the process, and how it can benefit you.

What is a Social Media Contest?

The great thing about social media contest is that they are as diverse as the brands that create them. For a service company, for example, a social media contest could take the form of the company in question raffling off a service package to customers who enter their name in a drawing. For a company that sells physical products, the giveaway might be awarded to the customer that answers a question correctly or shares a photo of themselves using the company's products. There's no real “wrong way” to do a giveaway. Instead, it all comes down to you, your brand, and what you value.

4 Winning Reasons to Host a Social Media Contest

If you've ever considered running a social media contest, questions about the ROI of the process are probably what has kept you from taking the leap. Fortunately, social media contests have a high ROI, generally. In fact, a good contest can create some real, tangible benefits for the people that organize them. With that in mind, here are our top four favorite reasons to run a social media contest:

1. Contests Build Community

Want to establish more of a community around your brand? Run a social media contest! Good social media contests and giveaways build a following of engaged customers. In a lot of cases, a customer might not be familiar with a brand or product until they see it in a social media contest or giveaway. Once that happens, and they're much more likely to share information about your company or products with their friends and family members. This, in turn, helps your brand grow, spread the news about your offerings, and enables you to gain future customers down the road. Additionally, running a social media contest is one of the easiest ways to build community. While things like marketing and customer engagement take a great deal of time, effort, and commitment, running a social media contest is easy, fast, and inexpensive. Additionally, contests are an excellent way to build a following and spread the word about your brand, business, or venture. If you have an advertising budget you’re willing to dedicate to your contest, you can quickly boost your entrants by about 10x. Today, most social contests are structured in a way that encourages people to reach out and inform their friends and family about the event. This, again, spreads the word about your products, goods, and services, and helps you create an audience of interested, engaged followers.

2. Contests Give People a Reason to Follow You

In the world of marketing, you have to reward people for good behavior. Your followers, for example, deserve something for their loyalty to you. A contest or giveaway is a great solution! Once you've gained a new segment of social audience through your marketing tactics, reward them by offering a contest or giveaway. Not only is this is a great way to communicate the value of your brand immediately, but it’ll go a long way toward keeping your new (and existing) customers loyal.

3. Contests can Grow Your Subscriber List

We’ve talked before about how to build a good email list. As it turns out, contests can be one excellent tactic to employ. Depending on the CTA associated with your contest, and what you direct people to do, you can easily use your contest and platform to grow your email list subscribers and build a following around your newsletter. The unique thing about this benefit is that, once you've grown your subscriber list with contests, you can turn around and publicize your social contests through your email newsletter. It’s a mutually beneficial approach!

4. Boost Sales

Last but not least, there’s the financial aspect of your contests to consider. Driving sales is a logical and necessary evolution of your contests. After all, you’re giving away a product, good, or service to build awareness around your company and encourage people to get involved. If you’ve done a good job in your pre-marketing research and you’ve managed to target a segment of your following with a giveaway or contest that’s relevant to them, you should see a spike in your sales following the competition. Another unique benefit of this is that customers who receive your product for free through a giveaway, or who purchase it after the fact, are very likely to recommend you to their friends and family. It’s word-of-mouth marketing, coming back to support you again!

Let Us Help You Craft a Winning Social Contest

Social contests offer a whole host of benefits for your company, but it can be challenging to know where to start. Fortunately, you don’t have to go it alone. When you work with us, our team of social media marketing experts can help you craft the perfect social media strategy - whether you’re running a one-off contest or a monthly giveaway. So, don’t go it alone - come to our team and let us work with you to understand your goals and create a contest that reflects your values, your mission, and your audience. We’ve run thousands of successful social contests already, and we look forward to helping you with yours.