How to Create Engaging Facebook Contests

Contests can be one of the most lucrative marketing payoffs if done right. The idea of winning prizes has a tendency to draws crowd, and Facebook is the only true way to reach so many diverse demographics with such a limited budget. Make the most out of your online marketing by creating engaging Facebook contests that will pay off for you.

Setting Up A Contest

Setting up an engaging Facebook Contest requires some initial planning much like you would do if you were hosting any other contest. The great thing about Facebook is that Facebook is a high traffic platform that over 1-billion individuals.

Determine Clear Goals

Set clear objects before you start putting together the contest page. Do you want to get more followers, increase your web traffic, or draw awareness to your brand? It is important to decide what you actually want to get out of creating a Facebook event so that you can tailor the contest toward those goals.

Select a Prize That Attracts

Select a prize that will attract a wide demographic of potential participants. Gift cards are always a good choice as it gives the winner a little freedom to buy with it what they please; that way you won't turn anybody away if they aren't interested in the prize that you are offering.

Set Obtainable Requirements

Require some type of action in order to sign up. This is the most important part of a contest and the best way to engage others into participating in your contest. For instance, if you want to increase your web traffic, make all participants click on a link and go to your website in order to enter, or perhaps ask users to follow you or provide their email address.

Asking for an email address allows you to contact the winner, but it also helps when building your marketing list so you can later follow up with those individuals for sales leads. You can also make it a requirement for users to post pictures of themselves with your brand, giving you the opportunity to use those pictures in later ad campaigns. Don't make it too difficult for someone to sign up unless you have a really fantastic prize or you might turn some away.

Marketing

After you have set up your contest and established all of the details, you want to begin marketing your contest. The quality of the marketing is what distinguishes between what is and is not an engaging contest.

Ask for Referrals

You drastically increase the number of participants in your contest if you ask them to refer a friend or give them some type of extra-entry incentive for doing so. This will increase awareness of your contest and increase your brand notoriety.

Promote Your Contest Regularly

Connect to all channels of social media to regularly promote your contest and keep your fans and participants informed of the progress. Increase the regularity of these reminds as your contest gets closer and closer to the deadline day so that anyone who is interested in signing up will be inclined to do so right away.

Advertise On Your Page

Set your profile picture and the banner of your Facebook to the contest logo or a snippet about the contest. This will maintain visibility and help to increase entries as individuals decide to sign up whenever they scroll past a page on their friend's dashboard.

Invest In A Paid Advertisement

Based on the value of your prize and what you expect to get from the contest, you might want to consider investing in a Facebook advertisement. Advertising on Facebook works a lot like advertising on Google AdWords and will help you to expand beyond your current group of subscribers and reach out to potential new contestants.

Now it's your turn. Review all of the steps above, give some thought to your contest objectives, the prize and the any special requirements. Put your marketing in place and watch your mailing list increase and the leads start rolling in.