Here at Delivered Social, we are big believers in running competitions on social media. They can bring an influx of new followers to your brand and as a result, help to boost your business. Even better, they are pretty cheap to run and take minimal time and effort if you do them right! One of the best platforms to run a competition on is Facebook. So, if you’d like to increase your Facebook likes and get more visibility for your business online, this is the blog post for you! We’ll take you through how to run a Facebook competition and all the best hints and tips you should know before you start.

What will you give away?

Firstly, you need to decide what you’re actually going to be giving away in this competition. There are pros and cons to every option, but they can be split into two main choices. These are something to do with your business, and something general. But what are the pros and cons of each?

Something to do with your business

Now, this will probably be your first thought when it comes to choosing something to give away. This could be one of your products, a service, a voucher to spend at your business, and so on. This is a great option because it comes with the lowest cost to you. Furthermore, only people who are actually interested in what you do will enter the competition. So, the new followers you get are more likely to be relevant and stick around after the competition, even if they didn’t win. However, it can limit your scope and lead to fewer new followers and leads, because what you’re giving away isn’t of general interest to everyone. For example, if you’re a dog groomer giving away a free grooming session, only people with dogs are going to enter. Possibly the exception here is with vouchers for food if you are a food establishment because this definitely has a wider appeal! We would say that this is the option to choose if you want to build a profile of quality followers who are genuinely your target market.

Something general

This could be giving away something like an Amazon voucher- anything that’s not directly related to your business and what you do. We think that this is the option for you if you want to build a larger following. As it has a more general appeal, more people will want to enter! However, bear in mind that they may just be with you for the competition, and unfollow after if they didn’t win, because they’re not genuinely interested in what you do and are not always going to be your target customer. Also, if your products and services are all too expensive or time-consuming to give away for free, this could also be a good option for you.

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Decide on the type of competition

Once you’ve chosen what you’re going to give away, you need to decide on the conditions for people entering! Here are a few different types that people enjoy. Facebook does have some rules for running competitions, which you can find here on Gleam’s website. It’s probably a good idea to give them a read through before posting your competition, as they are subject to change at any time!

A basic giveaway

The most common route is to produce a post outlining what you’re giving away and why, and ask people to like the giveaway post. This drives likes and engagement on that post. It’s the most simple and quick for people to do, so they’re also the most likely to do it! However, with this option, you’re probably more limited to people who already like your page, unless you push the giveaway further out there with advertising. But this may not be necessary. There is a way to spread the word of your giveaway without spending a penny on advertising!

But what is it? Well, you need to encourage people to tag a friend (or two, or three) on the giveaway post (as well as liking it). This will widen the scope of the giveaway because their friends will then see it, and perhaps want to enter for themselves! So, they will then tag more friends, and so on, and so on! This will bring an influx of new eyes on your page, helping you to build your page likes with people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer.  You can also encourage them to comment, thus sharing the giveaway, by wording it in a way like ‘tag a friend who deserves a free coffee/ meal/ whatever you are giving away’, and then both the commenter and the friend they have tagged can win something! It’s important to bear in mind that it is actually against Facebook’s rules to require entrants to share the giveaway with a friend to enter (including tagging them in a comment), so you need to keep it as a way to get an ‘extra entry.’ Tagging a friend should be a suggestion, not a requirement to win.

A photo contest

Running a photo contest, especially one where people vote for the winner, is also another really good way to drive engagement to your page. This is especially fun if the photos are themed, such as cutest pets, or best photo of the local area. This is great for engagement because the voting system (for example, the photo with the highest number of likes by X date wins) means that entrants are really motivated to share the contest, and by extension your page, of their own accord, because they want their entry to win above everyone else’s!

A ‘caption this’ contest

This is another really popular and fun competition! Essentially, you can post a funny photo, either to do with your business or totally random, and ask people to caption it! You can then pick the best caption either randomly, or get people to like the comment that has their favourite caption. Then, the caption with the most likes at the end of the competition wins. This is a super fun way to run a competition and really get your fans and followers to have some fun with you!

A quiz

Why not challenge your fans with a tricky quiz? This could be about everything, from your business or industry to the local area you are based in! It’s a good way for everyone to get competitive and really work to get that prize! Then, you can award the prize to either the highest scorer or, if there is more than one, enter all of the highest scorers int a prize draw to pick the winner at random.

More hints and tips for your Facebook competition

Once you’ve chosen your giveaway type, there is still more that you can do before and after it is live! Check out some more of our hints and tips here:

Engage with the comments

People really like it when businesses engage with them and their comments on Facebook! So, try and reply to as many as you can. This will also encourage more people to enter and stick around, as they will see that you’re a business that really does care about their followers.

Create an eye-catching graphic or photo

If you want your post to get people’s attention on a busy Facebook feed, you need to have a great photo or graphic to go with it! We recommend using Canva to make a great graphic with ease that is sure to catch people’s attention quickly.

Consider boosting the competition

If you really want to skyrocket your competition entries, then you could consider boosting it. Facebook has some really good options for paid advertisements, and some are a lot cheaper than you might think! If you’re struggling for entries, or just want to do a bit of advertising to get even more people to enter, this is the way to go!

Spread the competition everywhere

If you don’t want to boost your competition on Facebook (and, even if you do), make sure that you spread it literally EVERYWHERE! Send it to your mailing list, put a link to it on your other social media accounts, tell people about it in person… anything you can think of to get the word out there and get even more entrants!

Don’t forget the rules

It’s important to set out some rules or terms and conditions for the competition, and to ensure that they comply with Facebook’s rules, too! This includes ensuring that no purchase is necessary to enter the competition. Also, don’t forget to set a time limit for entrants clearly on the post, so they know when it ends and when they can expect the winner to be announced. Finally, ensure that you state that your competition is not affiliated with Facebook in any way, as this is another of their rules!

Announce the winner publically

This gives entrants the peace of mind that your competition is not a scam, and that someone genuine actually won it. This builds trust in your brand and ensures that people will still enter the next time that you run one!

We hope that this article has helped you set up your very first Facebook competition! We think you’ll agree that it is a great way to boost likes and general engagement on your businesses Facebook page. If you’d like more hints and tips on anything to do with social media, why not book in for one of our FREE Social Media Clinics so we can help? Just click here today.