4 Steps to Promote Competitions & Giveaways

Due to Facebook's ease of use and ability for fan interaction, competitions on this platform have become an essential marketing tool for many small businesses. This post outlines how you can get the most out of your competition. These steps can be used across most of the social media platforms, not just Facebook.

1. Build Excitement
Before you even start the competition, promote it in advance. About a week before, announce that you will be running a competition. Get people excited and open to reading your upcoming posts. It is advised to add a picture to all your posts as it will help to grab the attention of your fans.

2. Commence the Games
When announcing your competition, here are a few points to keep in mind:

• Make sure your post is easily legible
  Use the first line to describe the post. The following is a good intro as it is tidy and quickly explains what the post is about:
  *** Competition Time ***
• ALWAYS promote your competition with a picture
  Statistics show that posts with images get more engagement. A photo of the prizes is ideal.
• Add a Tag
  When promoting your competition, add relevant tags such as #competition #giveaway #'YourProduct' to the bottom on your post. By adding a tag, you are increasing the chances of your post being seen by people search for particular topics. This works best with Twitter. Don't go overboard with the tagging, we don't want to look desperate.

3. Third Parties
Promote your competition with third parties, this could be with particular forum threads, such as on Boards.ie. Who you promote with, depends entirely on the goals of your competition. If your goal is to advertise your brand and to get as many entries as possible, you should advertise on relevant giveaway websites.

• Competitions.ie
  This is a great website for advertising competitions as it has many Irish followers. The best part is, it's free to advertise. There are paid packages also if required. When I used Competitions.ie back in December 2013, I gained about an additional 200+ fans. Many are 'active' fans, in that they Like, Share and comment on my posts still. 

Advertise for free on Competitions.ie

• Etsy Ireland Blog
  Members can promote their competitions with us. On the top right of the page, there is a 'Competitions' tab. If you would like us to include your competition, just convo ShenWongJewellery at her Etsy shop. Be sure to include your competition start and end date, competition details, prizes and a link to your competition.

4. Cross Promotion
Promote your competition across all your own platforms: blog, Etsy shop, Twitter, LinkedIn Google+ etc.
In your Etsy shop, include information about the competition on the introduction section, be sure to add a link to it. You need to sit down and think if there is anywhere else online that you have control over the content, these are potential opportunities for you to spread the word yourself.


Tips

• Add your logo to your images when posting. As other people share your competition on their walls, their friends may not notice your business name. You want to increase your brand exposure with every given opportunity, so it is important not to miss this chance.
• Don't forget to promote the competition yourself on your own Facebook profile!

Include Your Brand to Images

When I ran my competition, I used ShortStacked to create an app. By using an app, was was able to 'Fan gate' competition entries, ensuring that people 'Like' my page before entering. If you would like to know more about creating an app, just let me know in a comment.

To follow my activities, you can 'Like' my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ShenWongCo

Was this post helpful? Have some thoughts? Leave a comment. 

Thank you for reading,

Shen x