Contests are a great way to increase engagement on Facebook. If you’re a marketer, you want to increase the activity on your page in anyway that you can. The more your followers are talking, sharing and engaging in your posts the more people are interacting with your brand and ultimately, that’s what we want, brand recognition and growth.
Contests are not only a great way to increase engagement on your page but they have other benefits too– such as increasing page likes, getting to know your followers, gaining exposure for your page and growing your email database. All of which are crucial aspects in a successful social media-marketing plan.
Increasing page likes and gaining exposure for your page can go hand in hand, and with our Howl-O-Ween contest we did just that. We asked fans to submit photos of their pets dressed up for Halloween and the winner would be determined by the most likes on a single photo. We decided to go with a ‘Most Likes’ contest to really get our followers involved.
The contest reached over 8,000 people, of which approximately 4,500 were engaged in our contest. To enter the contest we created a form on the website homepage that required an email address and we also accepted directly emailed photos which grew our email database substantially. This email database will be used for e-blasts letting clients know about sales, specials and other Facebook contests in the future. With over 5,000 likes within the contest, 1,200 shares and 670 new Facebook page likes we deemed our Howl-O-Ween contest a success.