While social media contests can be very effective at driving traffic to your site and engaging audiences with your brand, not all contests are equally successful. Here are four rules to remember when you start planning your next social media contest:
1. It needs to be compelling!
Whether it’s for a big prize, a charitable reason to support, or 15 minutes of fame, what you’re asking people to do must be compelling enough for them to take action. We've seen many UGC (user generated content) initiatives fail because there just wasn’t a compelling reason to participate.
2. It needs to be easy!
Keep it simple. If your contest requires too many steps, or too much preparation, most people won’t do it. They won’t have the time. And if there isn’t a compelling reason to do it in the first place, this will definitely turn them off.
Remember to remove roadblocks to entry. If you're requiring users to register, keep data collection to a minimum. Keep it to less than 2 minutes.
Also, don’t set approval standards too high. What’s the point of a UGC contest if no one makes the cut? The videos that go viral are the slightly-off, funny, interesting ones. Don’t make the mistake of cutting these out.
3. It needs to be legal!Contest and sweepstakes rules can be different from state to state, let alone country to country. If you're running a contest on a public social network such as Facebook or YouTube, you may also run into some restrictions. Make sure to check and adhere to any guidelines set by local government or site policies, then post these rules to your contest on a Rules & Regulations page.
4. You Need to Promote It!
Just because you announce it does not mean they will come and participate. Promote before launch, at launch, and keep promoting afterwards. Consider seeding the campaign with content so your audience gets a feel for what you're looking for. Take advantage of cross-promotion on other marketing and social media channels to maximize reach and potential engagement.
And just like any other marketing program, collect data and do a post-mortem afterwards to see what worked and what didn’t. Use that data to improve the next iteration of your campaign.
If you’re looking to launch a social media contest, Reality Digital can help. Visit www.realitydigital.com/social-media-contest.html to learn more about our social media platform and unique UGC campaign and contest solutions.