How to Craft the Perfect Social Media Contest

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Companies using Twitter to promote themselves and offer giveaways and incentives to followers is nothing new. But as more people integrate social networking into their daily lives, it's important to understand how to do it right.

Felipe Coimbra launched Montreal-based OneKontest in 2010 to help businesses facilitate promotions on
Twitter. The platform allows companies to offer prizes to social media
users, and selects winners at random. And while OneKontest eases the
logistics of such a campaign, it's important to have a few things in
place before it launches.

OneKontest's clients include big names like Vodafone and the WWE,
which has increased its Twitter followers by several hundred thousand
with the help of Twitter-centric promotions. But it can work for smaller
operations, too.

We spoke with Coimbra about what it takes to build a plan for a
successful social media promotion. If done right, it can benefit not
only your followers, but your company as well.

Build a network

Without a robust network of followers or fans to see and participate
in your promotion, it could tank. In order for a campaign to succeed,
use your existing fan or follower base to amplify your reach online.
Clearly, the more people who see your promotion teaser on Twitter or Facebook,
the greater the number of people who are interested in it–and
consequently, the higher the engagement between those users and your
company's social media channels.

Larger corporations that use online promotions, like prominent
OneKontest client Vodafone, have a ready-made swath of social media
users to tap into. For small businesses, though, it's a little trickier
to deepen that user pool. Coimbra says personal friends and your most
loyal clients are typically the best advocates.

"It's more genuine that way than just trying to get random people to participate in the contest," he says.

Do your homework

Especially if you're a first-timer, take a look at other brands in
your industry and evaluate their promotions. It'll help you understand
your competition, as well as the general landscape of social media promotion.

Coimbra recommends looking to heavy-hitters like Virgin and Southwest Airlines as case studies for successful social media contests and promotions.

Define the goal

Understanding your objectives for your social media campaign ahead of
its launch helps you craft one that makes the most sense and has the
best chance at success for your small business. Do you want to increase
the number of Twitter followers you have? If so, by what margin? Do you
want to get more subscribers to an e-newsletter service, or boost
traffic to your website?

You need to set a specific desired outcome so that you can approach
your promotion the right way, focusing on the proper platforms and
engaging with the right audience. But Coimbra says there's one
fundamental goal that should steer virtually all social media
contests–expanding your reach by going viral.

Know the formula

A few things about what you're offering that should always be true, according to Coimbra:

• It has to be something people are interested in winning–if it's a
  run-of-the mill or second-rate prize, your social media network won't be
  wowed, and probably won't participate. People like free stuff, but they
  love something that's actually desirable, useful or otherwise
  outstanding.
• It has to be a product or service directly related to your
  brand–without that link, it'll be hard to generate any kind of lasting
  publicity for your company.
• It has to be original–the idea of a contest is to shine a little
  spotlight on your business, and you could augment that with a prize
  that's notable.

Use common sense

It seems obvious, but playing on touchy subjects like religion,
politics and even natural disasters is essentially a guaranteed way to alienate people and garner some bad publicity for your business.

For those who argue that no PR is
bad PR, remember there are safer ways to get people interested in your
campaigns than taking the edgiest approach. Do your best to make your
promotion interesting, but not at the expense of your reputation.

Understand the risks

Not every social media promotion is a resounding success. And with so
many factors at play (think: audience size, timing, frequency, cost,
number of prizes awarded, prize quality, etc.), small businesses have a
tougher time nailing it than their larger counterparts, which have
built-in fan bases and far more resources.

That said, if your campaign doesn't yield the results you hoped to achieve, don't write off the marketing tactic.

"There's no recipe of success. It's all depending on the timing, the
kind of people that actually get interested in your promotion," Coimbra
says. "You may try one and you may not get too [many] results, but you
may try again and get more results."

Improve your method

If you launch a campaign keeping in mind that it might not yield the
results you want the first time, you should also be prepared to make the
adjustments necessary to achieve a better outcome next time. Likewise,
if your promotion goes as well as you had planned, be a critical thinker
to improve upon those results in your next go-round.

"This is the same thing that goes with any kind of marketing strategy
you try," Coimbra says. "Just keep doing different things and learn as
you go."

Retain your audience

A successful social media promotion should infuse you business with a
sudden boost, but you'll still need to convert those new followers and
fans to serve a more meaningful function (as customers and clients). The
promotion, fundamentally, is a springboard.

Keep delivering interesting content, hand-pick the items you share on
social media and, if it works for you, make contests on Twitter or
Facebook a regular thing. Ensuring your social network maintains a
certain level of interest in your brand is critical–without that, you'll
lose out on the valuable business that might have been.