The Startacus Guide to social media competitions
by Startacus Admin
You cannot escape them…they are everywhere.
They began as something of a novelty - a happy quirk adding a bit of variety to your news feed, but now they have taken over! We are of course talking
about the overused and much lamented social media competition. Some of you will be wondering why our tone is so aggrieved, as you glide past such competitions with hardly a second thought, whilst others will be nodding their head in vigorous agreement, greatly incensed by an endless parade of ‘like this’ and ‘retweet that’ requests.
Don’t misunderstand us, we are not condemning the use of social media competitions, they can be a great way of promoting your business and offering your audience some really neat free stuff! But we take issue with the seemingly pointless ones - those that are headed with things like ‘share this picture and win a tablet’ or ‘like this elephant and win a tshirt’ . Why...just why?
So in response we think the time has come - we’ve compiled a little bit of guidance to help you run an interesting, relevant and successful social media competition.
Know why you are running the competition in the first place
OK, this seems like an obvious one, but the truth is that social media competitions are so convenient to set up and can take so little effort that the temptation can be to jump on in there with the first thing that pops into your head with no real idea of what you want to achieve. This will most likely result in a) very few responses or b) low quality responses which are likely to be of little use to you or your business. By taking the time to consider at length who you are targeting the competition at and what the ultimate goal in doing so is, you will have a much better chance of getting relevant and good quality responses. Some reasons that you may consider running a social media competition are; to increase sales, to increase traffic to your site, to boost brand awareness or to increase your level of email subscribers.
Feature prizes that your target audience will actually want
Again, this seems like an obvious one, but those of you familiar with such competitions will be aware of some of the incredibly obscure stuff being peddled all over the place. We once came across a marketing company that was offering rubber chickens in exchange for liking and sharing their post. Ironically the rubber chicken comp did exceptionally well, no doubt as a result of the public’s ever surprising love of the ridiculous...meerkats spring to mind!
Meerkats and rubber chickens aside, your best bet will be to ensure that the prizes available have real value and significance to your target audience. It might only take a click but these days whilst online, people are being more and more selective of what they put their digital seal of approval to. You may well be in a position to provide these prizes yourself, but if not see if there are any other businesses which could partner up with you.
Use the information you have gatheredIt can be all too easy for the valuable information you have gathered to get tossed by the wayside once the competition is over and the prizes have been dished out. Remember that your competition was never about giving out prizes, it was about achieving your original goal. Take the time now to follow up on the information that you have found and make sure that you put your hard won attention to good use. Women in tech platforms with a key focus on providing empowerment, inspiration & support to female entrepreneurs, innovators & tech workers. The FinTech startup that is “on a mission to transform credit control” for small businesses everywhere... Collaborative workspace & community providers, WeWork, are committing over $20m to empower creators from around the world through a new platform called the Creator Awards. Augmented Reality is all about to further change thanks to Apple's latest technology... The startup that's on a mission to make contact lenses more affordable than ever... Future tech trends that could impact the travel industry going forward. This article aims to clarify some of the facts around the EU General Data Protection Regulation & how it impacts you as a founder of a startup. The digital EdTech platform which “connects experts and learners around the world for live, interactive video lessons”. Start Up Loans Company have produced an interactive timeline highlighting some key turning points over the past 100 years that have shaped some of the big businesses we know today. Leading online market research company Marketest, share some invaluable thoughts on why market research is an essential part of the business startup process.
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