Hi Dea

You run contests on Facebook to keep people engaged with your brand and to keep them entertained. They can also be used to grow your page Likes. They work really well if done properly. 

For example, the last contest I ran for one of my clients I managed to increase page Likes by just over 40% and increased their “Talking About” to the highest levels they have seen. 

One thing to be aware of are Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines, which you can find here or you can find a more readable version on my blog. The most important rule is: don’t run contests on your wall – a big no-no. You need to use an app. 

Indeed, the best way to run them is via an app. I find Wildfire to be the best I have used, and you can find a review of them on my blog as well. 

The best way to be successful with a contest on Facebook is to make it as appealing to your target audience as possible and to make it relevant to your business in some way. 

If you want some ideas or help with running one, then don’t be shy and ask me!  

Cheers!Russell Allert

As for length, it really depends on the contest, but I would say no longer than a month for most. You have to think about the type of contest you are running though. 

The last contest I ran was a photo contest, where people would send in photos of their pets and then everyone got to vote on who would be the winner. The contest was split into two main parts – the entry phase and the voting phase. The former ran for just under one month, and the latter ran for two weeks. 

I also have run a video contest which didn’t get a lot of entries (the more work people have to do to enter the less entries you will get) but the voting phase really paid off. 

Also, think about what you want to achieve. Sweepstakes-type contests are good for building page Likes but the level of engagement is low. 

Hope that helps!  

@russellallert @johnnarettig good stuff to know, thanks Russell and Johnna

@russellallert what about giveaways? For example one of my clients does freshly roasted coffee and we’re planning several giveaways over the next few months.

Do we need to be using an app for that? One idea I had was to post a question/poll and then randomly choose one of the people who answered the question to win a free pound of coffee.

Cheers,
Stef

@stefaniefrank good idea and great advice that Russell gave about using a separate app @russellallert

@stefaniefrank giveaways are great! We have done that with a few clients with great success. You do need to use an app. we have used shortstack and been really happy with it. They even have a button you can press for the app to randomly choose a winner.
Definitely take a look at the post @russellallert put in his message with a link to his simple version of the rules, they are really helpful.
@russellallert do you know if I am correct that you can run ads for a giveaway? I have not been able to find anything saying you can’t and we have done this and it has gone well, but I thought I should ask! Thanks!!

Hi Everyone!

First up, thanks for the praise. I wrote that post because I was getting a lot of people coming to me not realising there were rules at all, so I am glad you are getting some use out of it.

Giveaways are a great idea and, like Lee says, they can work really well. Anything promotional needs to be handled through an app, but this can work to your advantage as you can then easily capture a person’s name and email address to add to your email marketing campaign (you do have one of those, don’t you? )

With any sort of promotion – whether it is a contest or giveaway – you need to very specific about what you want to achieve with it. If it’s gaining Likes then use a giveaway where people have to Like your page before being able to get the item. If it’s to gain email addresses then give away the item in exchange for their email (just make sure you state clearly that they are signing up for your e-newsletter).

I guess what I am saying, is have a goal. And then design the promotion to achieve that goal.

@stefaniefrank There are a lot of grey areas around the promotional guidelines, and I have seen businesses (especially small businesses) get away with running contests on their wall, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Just last month a local pizza place got busted by Facebook for running a Christmas promo and had to stop it and appoligize to their Facebook fans – never a good look.

I love ShortStack – they are free if you have under 2000 Likes and they offer a great service, from creating page-tabs to running promos. Highly recommend them! Although if you do want someone to develop your Facebook page or strategy for you my services are always available (at low low prices!)

I hope I answered everyone’s questions! If not, let me know.

Cheers!
Russ

Any time,  @deairby

@russellallert I’ve had great results with several sweepstakes. In my experience some of the contests we run tend to be a bit more challenging requiring more involvement and thought from the users. 

@johnnarettig Russell is right, got to have a strategy to keep your fans engaged. Some options could be to incorporate trivia, polls or periodic releases of valuable content. Everybody loves free stuff, so sweepstakes, contests, instant win games often do the trick.

One thing to consider is the importance of having rules drafted that explain how contestants or sweeps winners will be judged/selected, how to enter, what you will do with the data, prizing info, etc etc. When prizes are over $5K, by law, the rules may need to be registered and bonded; different states have different rules.

Wildfire and Shortstack are good inexpensive FB tools to use to setup the FB apps to run promotions. 

Well for running a successful contest, we must take care of these 3-

1) Prize or giveaways that is relevant to our fans (2) Time Length of the Contest (3) Promotions of your Contest

Also check out my blog here to get some insights on Contest & sweepstakes– http://blog.socialappshq.com/2012/06/27/check-out-incredibly-powerful-sweepstake-campaigns-that-drive-most-of-the-engagement-on-facebook/

Dea Irby,
We have just launched a new suite of Facebook apps that includes a sweepstake app, coupon app, welcome page app and a Scratch Off Promotion App.
https://www.facebook.com/bleapp/app_160116404051502

The scratch off app is a very viral contest app that people can play and you can control how often they play as well as being able to control everything within the app such as prizes and odds.
Thanks, Jim