How to Build Successful Online Contests for your Business

Contests and sweepstakes have been here for long. As times change, so have the platforms in which we could see these engaging activities. Since social media has been used as a marketing strategy, infusing online contests have been instrumental in generating business advantages.

Taking contests into the platform of social media has become a trendsetter in the range of marketing techniques. While it is not the main solution to increase revenues, incorporating contests and probably sweepstakes in your social media page is a must in your marketing toolkit.

Benefits of Online Contests to your Business

To give you a general view of what sets online contests apart from other social media marketing strategies, here are some of its benefits.

• Builds solid fan base. In a just short span of days, you can observe an upsurge of likes in your Facebook page through online contests. It is established that the probability of turning 100 likes to 1,000 likes in a few days is at 85%. The promotional power of online contests is really formidable since it sets a domino effect to your likers to key in more entries for more chances of winning.
• Engages audience. The bulk of likes you will gain is reflective of the bulk of connection online contests have deepened. In every winner’s thirty minutes of fame, your brand gets promoted to strings of audiences through participants’ uploads of photos and brand content.
• Empowers audience to market your brand. This is very true for online contests that needs extensive public liking. With the desperation to win, people will like, post and share your page and refer it to their Facebook friends. As this goes on, more and more people will get familiar with your brand. Instead of you marketing your brand, it is your contestants who shall do it for you.

Pointers in Making a Successful Online Contest

Now that you know the advantages of integrating online contests to your social media marketing, here are some tips that you could use to develop a successful online contest.

• It should be mobile friendly. Facebook has 1.04 billion users. 934 million of these users are mobile-based for easier and more portable access. An online contest that does not capitalize on mobiles will lose 92.7% of all potential entries. At this point, the use of mobile phones has never been more crucial in business.
• Use linkshare posts. Capturing contestants for an online contest needs a lot of effort and creativity. You can promote your online contest through email marketing, sharing it in your social networks, writing about it and its mechanics in a blog post or even by word of mouth. Alongside these, you should share your online contest through Facebook’s linkshare post. Linkshare works by directly pasting the link of your promotional campaign in a Facebook status. After you click post, there will be an added campaign preview to your status which your followers could see (and share at their own disposal).
• Give relevant prizes. Choosing generic prizes decrease the interest of people. If you are running a photography homepage, you must give camera; if it’s about food; make sure that the prize is about food too. Specific prizes catch the attention of specific groups of people. You have to make it relevant as possible to post up brand credibility too.
• Let your contestants do the marketing for you. To increase the rate of liking and sharing, an effective tool would be announcing an official hashtag for your contest. Each posted photo, link or tweet must contain the hashtag you set so that promotion will still be there.
• Establish a sense of urgency. To spice things up, you have to set a particular draw date or deadline of submitting entries. You could heighten this up by posting an everyday countdown at your social media page.

Indeed, online contests are good additions to your collection of social media marketing strategies. Knowing the benefits and tools to set your online contests up in your platform has just gained you a business edge. If you want to build a manpack out of this information, check out the social media plans we have at Startup Café India. Get in touch with us now to get a customized proposal for your business.