If you want to interact with your customers online in the long term, you have to come up with something special. And again and again. Because virtual competition never sleeps. Especially not the ones on social media. People post, comment, and like as much as they can. And that’s what these platforms are for. Don’t miss this activity and use it cleverly for your marketing. One possibility for positive interaction with users is social media sweepstakes. Because if something is available for free, it still attracts participants in the digital age just as it used to with the discount stamps in corner shops.
That’s why many online marketers take advantage of the appeal of sweepstakes. The offers are widespread, but of course not all meet the same quality standards. So that you don’t go to the trouble in vain and your customers aren’t disappointed in the end, we present promising strategies with the competition here.
Are social media sweepstakes actually still useful today?
The answer to this question is a clear ‘yes, but’. Yes, because the excitement of winning is in people’s blood. But, because it has to be a great competition. There are so many sweepstakes on social media that users have a diverse range of choices. So why should they join your offer? Because it’s particularly great. Because it stands out from the rest. How do you manage that? Read on.
The price must be hot
When it comes to which content is most likely to captivate users, the experts agree. This is exactly what content marketers were asked in a survey by Content Marketing Institute and in interactive. 81 percent considered interactive content such as competitions, surveys, or sweepstakes to be more engaging than static content. Unsurprisingly, more than half of the content marketers surveyed also stated that they regularly integrate social media sweepstakes into their online marketing strategy.
A successful feature that the advertising experts believe in. It is all the more important that you stand out from the oversized and wide range of offers.
What lures the user to take part in a competition?
- Attractive prices: Only the prospect of something that you really want challenges the player in you.
- Having fun: Everyone likes to take part in an interesting game that promises fun and excitement. The prospect of experiencing something new is also a good incentive. And of course the humor factor.
- An appealing display: When surfing the World Wide Web and interacting on social networks, an appealing look is required so that the user stops scrolling. That’s why a visual highlight is needed to draw the user’s attention. What is cheaply made or looks 08/15 is not appreciated.
How much is a life worth?
Likes are the basic requirement for the success of social media sweepstakes and also the yardstick for their success. However, even thousands of likes mean nothing if they come from the wrong people. So your competition can go viral and you still didn’t get anything out of it. And even the largest number of collected leads brings you little if they do not relate to your target group. What use are contacts who are not at all interested in your products or services? Nothing.
So focus your social media sweepstakes on potential buyers. You need a good strategy for that.
The types of social media sweepstakes
First of all, the type of sweepstakes must fit the group of people you want to address with it.
| Sweepstakes type | Example |
|---|---|
| User Generated Content | Users are prompted to post a photo. Make sure your attendees post photos related to your business. In the case of a fashion label, for example, these could be pictures of a specific piece of clothing from the label. |
| Comments | Commenting is easier than posting photos or videos. For example, ask users to comment on two variants of a product. |
| caption | The creativity of the user is required here, which can be a lot of fun. Choose an original picture for participants to create a fun caption for. You can use it to trigger fun interactions between participants. The humor factor plays a big role here. |
| Quiz | The passion for quizzes is spreading in Germany. Take advantage of this with one or more questions, the correct answers to which users can find on your website. The more the topic has to do with you and your offer, the better. |
| Skilltests | Skill tests, in which users can prove their skills on a specific product, are of course not suitable for every company. However, if your products are suitable for this, this is a very promising social media competition. |
| charitable purpose | Most users really appreciate it when a brand does some kind of social engagement. Social media sweepstakes that serve a good cause therefore usually achieve high interaction rates. |
| Chatbot Contests | To achieve direct interaction, you can, for example, launch a competition in which chatbots ask users questions. |
Tips and tricks for successful social media sweepstakes
Here are some suggestions that could make your sweepstakes even more successful:
- Influencer: Some influencers offer to organize or promote competitions for you. Working with an influencer who addresses your target group is very promising.
- Prizes: With the right prizes, you can also target sweepstakes directly to the target group. And you get to know the needs of your target group even better.
- Videos: Images and videos bring more interaction than mere text content. It gets even more exciting with a live video. For example, if you’re hosting a live contest, you can use the ‘now or never’ moment as an added incentive. However, this principle only works if you advertise and publicize your competition sufficiently beforehand.
- Storytelling: Social media contests become even more interesting when you build them into a story. Story contests are suitable for many different types of games.
Launch a competition – using Facebook as an example
On Facebook, you are undoubtedly the winner with your competition when it comes to reaching. In total, the network has around 2.7 billion active users. The more important number is probably that of the daily visitors. In October 2020 that was around 1.8 million. And more than 200 million companies use at least one Facebook service, and ten million also advertise here.
So you can not only reach private prospects on Facebook, but you can also make business contacts. With original competition, you can also attract the attention of companies in your industry or potential business partners.
However, if you want to launch a social media sweepstakes on Facebook, you have to take a lot of things into account. On the one hand, there is German law, which every lottery operator in this country must comply with. On the other hand, social networks have their own rules that must also be taken into account. Using Facebook as an example, we go through the planning of a competition step by step.
The preparation
If you want to come up with a strategy, you first have to clarify what it is about. Before you start a competition, answer the following questions:
- What do I want to achieve? Attention, interaction, or lead generation?
- How long should the competition run?
- How do I collect the required data?
- Which advertising measures should go hand in hand with the competition?
- How much money and what tools do I need for this?
- What is the overall budget for the game?
- Which price is suitable as an incentive for my target group?
- What do I need to design and create the competition?
- How can I analyze the success of my competition?
- Follow-up, further actions, or follow-up communication?
The legal issues
All social networks have clear guidelines for sweepstakes on their portals. On Facebook these are:
- Local law must be observed. Many local laws may apply, especially in the case of international games.
- Facebook disclaimer clarifying that your contest has nothing to do with the platform itself.
A particularly sensitive Facebook policy is the use of timelines. Nothing may take place on the private timelines of game participants. Examples:
| Permitted | Not allowed | |
|---|---|---|
| Participation by | Like or comment | share content |
| Private message | marking in the picture | |
| Post a picture on the page | Post on your own profile | |
| Award by | Raffle among all likes | tag friends |
| Most likes | Automatically via hashtag | |
| Selection of the best comment |
Danger
Many organizers of sweepstakes on Facebook do not follow these rules. This also applies to other social networks, by the way. And such offenses often go unpunished. So you could be tempted to ignore one or the other rule. The risk then of course lies with the respective operator of the game. So it could happen that Facebook removes your whole page. Then you would have to remove this platform from your online marketing strategy. It would be a shame.
The Conditions of Participation
The specification of conditions of participation is mandatory in Germany for every competition. Since the required information is quite extensive, this information actually goes beyond the scope of a single post.
That’s why you should create a Facebook note for the terms and conditions of your social media sweepstakes or even provide a dedicated website for it to be clickable.
The conditions of participation must contain information about …
- … who is allowed to participate in the game.
- … when the game starts and ends.
- … which prizes will be raffled.
- … when the raffle takes place.
- … how the winners are determined.
- … who hosts the game.
- … which data is recorded.
- … how data is stored.
- … how long this data is stored.
- … what this data is used for.
- … which information rights the participants have.
In addition to the mandatory information, you can also point out that your participants are not allowed to post any illegal content as part of the competition. The responsibility for this lies with the organizer anyway, but the tip can’t do any harm.
It is also advisable to let participants know in advance how the winners will be published. For contests with user-generated content, you should also provide information about what rights the participants give you by posting their content.
Realize a competition on Facebook: That’s how it works
There are three steps you can take to run a contest on Facebook.
Set target
1. Get likes for your page
2. Generate qualified leads
3. Increase brand awareness
4. Get more traffic for the website
5. Maximize interactions
Facilitate participation
1. Install no more than two steps
2. Don’t ask for too much information
3. Provide easily fillable forms
4. Adapt screens to mobile devices
Attractive prices
| Target | Price |
|---|---|
| increase interactions | Should be well received by many users, but does not have to have a high value. |
| User Generated Content | If participants are to contribute their own content, the prize must be of higher monetary value. |
| Qualified Leads | The price must be particularly well-tailored to the intended target group. If possible with a specific reference to your company. |
| Comments (brand awareness, interaction) | In photo competitions or when searching for the best caption, recognition as a prize is sometimes sufficient. |
Create social media sweepstakes with the Facebook app
On Facebook, you can create your competition directly via the app and then publish it on your page.
Advertise the competition on Facebook
There are special competition pages on Facebook that list current campaigns and report on them. There are sometimes competition from other social networks or blogs.
A link leads interested parties from here directly to your competition, where they can then take part. If you enter your competition on such a page, make sure that the individual elements are editorially checked. Otherwise, you might end up in a collection of spam or fake games. Registration for a competition is usually free.
Make the competition known beyond Facebook
Users will only enter your sweepstakes if they find out you’re hosting it. So you have to ensure awareness and advertise your social media sweepstakes in as many ways as possible.
You should never neglect the keyword cross-channel promotion, because most users are active on several networks. For example, announce your Facebook competition on Twitter and Instagram.
In addition, paid media can also be used to announce your competition. LeadAds are particularly suitable in this case because they make participation easier by entering user data beforehand.
When promoting a social media sweepstakes, focusing on your target audience is particularly important. Target group optimization is an important point when it comes to getting likes. So that it doesn’t turn into an angry comment, you have to be very careful about who you’re directing your advertising to. The Facebook options are very dedicated.
An example: Imagine you are an American company with many fans in Canada. Now, if you launch social media sweepstakes that, for various reasons, are reserved for US citizens only, it could upset your Canadian followers a lot if they saw your promotion and were very interested in your prize. You can easily prevent this with Facebook geotargeting by not letting your Canadian followers see your announcement at all. This allows you to choose the locations where your competition post should appear. And on which ones not.
How successful was the competition?
After the end of the social media competition, it is time to analyze the success. However, not only the pure numbers are relevant. If you want to draw lessons from both your successes and your failures for future campaigns, then it is important to first compare the goals with the achievements.
However, a goal that is not reached does not necessarily mean that the entire competition has failed. It can show you the direction for better performance next time. The number of new followers you gained is below your expectations? Perhaps there were unexpected successes elsewhere. For example, if the engagement of your existing fans has increased significantly, this may be more important for your marketing than the original goal. You have identified a new set screws for further competition.
The following questions will help you to optimize success when planning future sweepstakes:
- Was the type of competition right?
- Did the game run long enough?
- Was the target group approach correct?
- Was the price attractive enough?
- What obstacles did you encounter in the planning?
If you ask these questions after every single social media sweepstakes, you can always fine-tune your strategy. You get to know your target group better and find out what works best for your product or service.
Numerous providers provide extensive analytics packages for the detailed evaluation of sweepstakes. You can use this to determine, for example, via which channel most participants came to you. Or when most users quit the game. Or you can hire a professional to organize your competition for you. The success analysis is then usually included in the package.
Competitions by professionals for professionals
If you really want to implement competitions professionally, you can hire an appropriate marketing expert. Some providers make their services available for a fee. Some of the offers are very expensive and are aimed at larger companies. Here are three agencies of the middle or lower price level.
King Sumo
An American provider that addresses WordPress users with a special plugin. With this application, customers can set up lottery forms. However, this requires a certain technical know-how and appropriate WordPress knowledge.
The license costs a one-time fee of 198 US dollars. In addition, there is a web app in the portfolio for conducting sweepstakes. You can test the app for free and then book it for 19 US dollars per month.
Appcentrics
With the Appcentrics Suite, you can create sweepstakes, surveys, advent calendars, and similar applications. The cheapest package from the German provider costs 99 euros per month and allows an unlimited number of the applications mentioned. These can be launched either on social networks or on your own website.
CoolTabs
The Spanish provider has so far only offered its tool in English. There are three different packages, the entry-level version costs 39 euros per month. The professional versions cost 149 or 299 euros. There are unlimited interactive campaigns and corresponding analysis tools in all packages.
Conclusion: How to design social media sweepstakes
Sweepstakes are proven successful measures in online marketing when it comes to gaining likes, generating leads, or increasing brand awareness. It allows businesses to drive traffic to their website and maximize interaction with their customers and prospects.
Social media are ideal platforms for such campaigns because social media sweepstakes are extremely popular. The range that can be achieved on these portals is not even remotely possible elsewhere. Facebook is unbeatable here, but not perfectly suited for every target group. Instagram is a good alternative when it comes to sweepstakes, as surveys show. They found out that users of this platform gain new followers 70 percent faster when they run social media sweepstakes. This impressive number clearly shows that such actions are also successful on Instagram.
If you don’t want to make a decision and don’t have much to do with online marketing, you can hire professional agencies to organize your competitions. They find a suitable platform and address your target group accurately.