Why you should start a competition on social media

Posted on 31 December 2017

Business-people are always looking for ways to market themselves and their businesses. Usually this is driven by wanting more business, paying too much in advertising and just the fact that they want to improve. We recently started a competition on our Facebook page and the results really were astonishing. We’ve gained a lot of page likes, comments, post likes and shares.

People love competing

This isn’t a reason why you should hold a competition but a reason as to why they work. There is a certain thrill in liking and sharing a post in the hope of winning. Our “Like and share” competition was only for a £10 Amazon gift card but we’ve gained more page likes since starting it than what we ever have. We’ve boosted blog posts on facebook before, posts about services and even promoted our own page to get more likes, I think we spent about £30 on boosting our page for likes and got 15 likes. Does anybody really want to pay £2 per potential lead?

It works out more affordable than “boosting”

So we were paying £2 per potential lead by boosting our page but with the current method we’ve gained over 90 page likes, over 100 post likes and shares and over 4,000 people have seen our post. Total cost on advertising – £3.09.

We didn’t think we would get as much interest as we have so when we first posted about our “Like and share for £10 Amazon gift card” post, we boosted it. After seeing how many people have got involved with the competition and how little the boost was performing, we decided to stop boosting the post. We’re going to have to pay £10 for the gift card but that’s still £13.09 pence. So far the competition has been running for 3 days and has 5 days left to run.

The domino effect

Presuming you have no likes at all, you might be inclined to boost the competition post. This should gain several likes and shares but the importance of the likes and shares is that their friends and family will see it on their own news feeds. With any luck they will hope that they’ll be in for a chance of winning and do the same. So on and so on.

After a bit of engagement you should be able to turn off the boost and let the domino effect do its thing. This will save you a lot where as before you may of been boosting your post for days just to get a few likes.

The followers will follow

If you add a line in your post “like us for more”, not everyone will but this will capture some people. They will like your page and providing that you keep putting out content, maybe even have the odd competition or 2 when the time is right, they will start to recognize your brand. If your branding is good and they can associate this with your services you’ve got a potential customer or someone that knows potential customers.

Consumers can try out your product or service

As an experiment we didn’t want to rush into giving a way a lot of time creating a website for someone that might not particularly want one or giving someone hosting that wouldn’t use it. Certain businesses have products and services with a much broader audience, these businesses are lucky because they can take their product or service and use that as the prize in the like and share competition.

An example of this… a window cleaner. Everyone I know has windows, if you could offer a free window clean as prize you’re going to have a high chance of a lot of people liking and sharing. Providing you’re a good window cleaner, you may even get a returning customer, maybe even new customers.

It’s engaging with your current followers

How much is a follower worth? How much is a potential follower worth? We don’t know what either is worth to you, but if you can keep engaging with your followers you’ll likely get more customers, your like and share for a… competition may even convert a follower into a buyer. This is a double win. Not only have you scored a sale but you’ve also got something to work with. You’ve got a following customer, a follower that is now that little bit more likely to buy from you again.

 

 

If you need help starting a competition on social media or improving your amount of followers then please get in touch for a free quote. If you’re planning on starting a social media competition then good luck!

Wishing you a Happy New Year from Plexaweb!

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