Social Media Contests Help Create Brand Awareness

Remember  50/50 raffle ticket contests at your local town’s basketball game? Waiting with anticipation for the announcer to call your ticket’s numbers for the prize money? Today, social media contests provide consumers a way to be involved with their favorite brands and enable businesses to create brand awareness.

First Things First

Individuals spend plenty of time on social media, following their favorite brands. For many, having followers on social media is an important component for businesses to push brand awareness. However, Kate Endres, Associate Director of Engagement Marketing for Blue Fountain Media says otherwise. In a recent post Endres states, “Measuring the success of a social media campaign is no longer dependent on the number of followers you acquire, but the number of people that engage with your brand along the way.”

Engaging online is a new way to market to consumers. According to Endres, “Social Media contests, promotions, sweepstakes, and giveaways are becoming an increasingly popular way to get the name of your brand in front of potential customers in a new and exciting way.”

Social Media Contests Rules and Guidelines

Rules and guidelines are regularly changing on social media platforms.  Gina Calvert, author of the article ENTER TO WIN: HOW TO HOST A SOCIAL MEDIA CONTEST provides the following contest guidelines for Twitter and Facebook:

• Twitter contest guidelines
• Facebook contest guidelines
• New Facebook promotion rules
• More Facebook promotion amendments

5 Easy Strategies for Success

Who doesn’t like a chance to win free items?  Participants have a chance to win free items and gain a sense of happiness, especially with the brand the consumer won it from. Hootsuite blogger, Hannah Clark dives into strategies for social media contests in the article 5 Awesome Social Media Contests (Plus How to Create Your Own). Here are Clark’s five strategies for running a successful contest on social media:

• Set yourself a goal                                                                                                                                         
• Be creative
• Leverage all your social media channels                                                                          
• Don’t let things drag out
• MEASURE EVERYTHING

 

Everyone Likes to Win

With social media today there are endless amounts of traffic on business pages. By creating a contest every so often, businesses can create brand awareness and have fun at the same time.

Will businesses take advantage of contests on social media?

What will be the next “big thing” to create brand awareness online?