A Winning Contest Means a

Lot! Let's Create it Through

Social Media

Let's face it! People love to "win" prizes and

when this word is paired with an objective,

the outcome becomes extraordinarily good.

That's why online contests or sweepstakes

often generate more sales, gains you more

leads or whatever you are trying to get more of it.

Contests have become a chief promotional strategy for decades, but the

success of the online contests depends a lot on the volume of

participation, a right promotional strategy is the key

Why Social media and Not any Other Platform?

Because social media reaches you to the larger audience at simply a

nominal cost! No wonder it's a superb outlet for the giveaways and

contests. Moreover, it's easier to spread the word through social

channels and it's quite obvious that if done right, contests can go viral in

no time. People have always a nose for "contests to win". No wonder, if

you run it through social media, you can expect a good volume of

participation. Isn't it what you also expect?

Let's share some great examples here! We will be basically talking about

the format, so that it becomes easier to understand how should you

promote as winning contest

Example-1 – Contest giving away gift hampers and

Amazon cards

Looking for some extra cash? Reach

immediately at HubSpot. Currently it's

giving away a $500 Amazon gift card to

a lucky winner every day.

For the Why's and How's click here…

And that's not all. There's a grand prize

of too. Those who will be posting the

best photo and also blog about it will stand a chance to grab an iPad.

So it's a Double Bonanza! Participate now to win.

Example-2 – Contest giving away cash prize

Are you the one with a skin for adventure? Would you love to explore the

unknown? Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is looking for web-savvy

individuals to stay in the museum for a month and report his observations to

the visitors. Get to win cash prize

of $10,000, tech gadgets, and

what not? The winner can also be

an honorary member to MSI.

So what are you waiting for?

Participate now to win loads!

The Promotional Campaigns

To create a buzz, you can create teaser campaigns. Post banners or run

conversations in Facebook or Twitter to spread the word. The point is to interact with

people and get them engaged. It will not only spur interest, but also help you get

more participation, which in the long run helps boosting up the success rate.

Let's talk with an example here.

Suppose, you are soon to launch an online

photo contest, where a lucky winner will get a

DSLR camera. Such kind of contest makes a

superb crowd-puller, but only when people get to

know about it and feel interested. So, here's how

we should go with the teaser campaign.

Day- 1

Let Your Love for Photography Be Prized! Stay Tuned to

Know How! (Must be supported with a creative banner)

Day- 3

The wait is over! Online registration for the Photography

Contest is open. Click here to register now!

*********** The grand prize is a few click away! ***********

These kinds of tips offs trigger a good deal of interest because , people get to know that something

exciting is coming up, but at the same time do not know what exactly it is. Being instinctive, most of

the people will revisit the space just to explore what it is. Some of them will also show an intent for

joining, the others will probably try to get into the matter before signing up. Thus, a teaser campaign

will win you some impulsive participants in the first place and also a bunch of interested folks who

would like to know more about it. This way, your contest will get considerable social shares even

before it gets launched. The result is an increased success rate.

Day- 2

3 Days to Go! Spread the word to the world! And a DSLR

will be all yours! (Must be supported with a creative

banner)

THE TAKE AWAY POINTS

As mentioned earlier, contests are a superb way to market your products

or service. They are crowd pullers too. Here's some takeaway points that

will give you a definite idea about running contests that will surely reap

good outcomes in terms of sales.

1. Not on websites only, run contests in the social media Social media enables you to reach out to the wider audience

within a short period of time. Thus, it's a more convenient and

utilitarian promotional tool that definitely triggers a large volume of

participation.

2. Promotion should be an integrated Strategy: Just because your traditional marketing strategies stood

the test of time, it does not mean that you will exclusively rely

on that. Experts say, not to rely on one promotional outlet only.

With the traditional methods, use all the social

networks too. Recently, Twitter Pools, Facebook

Timeline Contests and LinkedIn Contests are making

quite a buzz.

3. Make Contests Sharable

No matter how exciting is the giveaway, if the contest idea is not appealing, it

won't have any far-fetched impact. So, you must have an

awesome contest idea, a visually appealing creative

backed by a URL shortener like bit.ly. In addition, there

should be the links to share the contest in Twitter and

Facebook, so that promotion becomes easier.

4. Generate pre-contest buzz: This is definitely a fantastic way to increase participation.

Leverage the potential of social media at its best to

promote your contest even before it officially starts.

Pre-contest buzz always takes you a step ahead to

increase conversions.

5. Keep a tab on your success: There should be a way to track the

success rate of your contest. Get a unique tag or a phrase or link for tracking

the contests. It can be a Twitter hashtag or an exclusive landing page right on

your website that is meant for figuring out the results and the efficiency of your

social media initiatives.

BEFORE WE FINISH…

No doubt, contests play a key role in creating PR opportunities and

reaching out to the target group effectively. At the same time, these

are fun and entertaining way to involve customers. No wonder, social

media makes a great tool for churning out great contests.