Competitions can be a great way to interact with your followers and customers. Rather than simply keeping in touch with them, a brand offering regular, tangible rewards to its fan base also keeps them active. However, scrolling through any social media platform yields a highly competitive market for social media competitions. How, then, can you make sure yours stands out from the rest and offers you a positive return on investment?
Research your industry
You should always know your industry inside and out. Whether you’re the founder and owner, or an agency social executive, it’s your job to understand your service and the audience you’re serving. Look at what’s worked in the past with competitors and get a feel for the mood of your audience and what they’re talking about. Content and research from a year ago is useless if the landscape of your niche changes on a daily basis. Is your industry right for competitions? What type of prizes are other people offering and can you compete with them? Dunkin Donuts ran a simple competition to promote their iced coffee which asked users to submit Vines telling them how their coffee put ‘a spring in their step.’ Back in May 2013, Instagram hadn’t launched its video features yet so Vine was still very much at the forefront of social video. Dunkin Donuts tapped in to their younger, creative target market (who were all using Vine at the time) and offered them a years’ worth of free coffee as well as the exposure of their Vine video being shared on the brand’s social platforms.
Identify influencers
You want maximum coverage for everything you do on social, but it has to be the right type of exposure. You might get 20,000 retweets for a competition but if it’s not generating interest within your target audience it won’t have the long-term effect you want. Brands such as the famous UK tearoom Bettys must be thankful for programmes like The Great British Bake Off which have helped catapult intricate bakery into the public psyche in a massive way. This year’s winner, Nadiya Hussain, really struck a chord with viewers and as a fellow resident of their native county Bettys have inducted her as an unofficial ambassador. She’s been invited to conduct events with the brand and has been showcased all over their social media, yielding fantastic interaction. They also gave away free tickets to industry publications for their ‘Cake & Conversation’ event with Nadiya, which these publications used for their own competitions, maximising exposure for all parties.
Tailor your content
Now that you’ve researched and identified your audience and influencers, the hardest part is developing a competition that connects with them effectively. What type of content will work with your audience? A selfie competition might work well for a young fashion brand but probably wouldn’t for an over 60s holiday company. Whatever your focus, make it interactive and engaging. A competition will only work with certain audiences and prizes are very important. Choose something your audience really want, enough that entering your competition will be worth their while. A parent blogger, for example, might be looking for the latest toy for their child while a young fashionista may be looking for a high street voucher.
Keep your new audience
A successful competition will simultaneously give your current customers what they want and expect but should also, in turn, create a new audience for your content and adverts. While the main aim of your competition is for people is to win your prize, they should still have fun submitting their entries and you must keep their attention after the competition has ended. Make sure you keep up to date with what this specific group is talking about and doing. Interact with them and follow up with personal responses to keep them engaged to show they’re important. Managing these relationships will help establish your brand with new people and is the first step of many towards new sales leads.
Take your collateral and run
Choose a competition that will give you some great user generated collateral and take advantage of the opportunities that gives you. You can use this new content for imagery on your website and for your social media posts. UK flooring seller Posh Flooring recently ran a competition to find Britain’s Ugliest Carpet. They invited Twitter users to send in their pictures with the chance of winning a Red Letter Day getaway. After the competition, the brand continued to use this user-generated imagery for follow-up social media posts.
Follow up with targeted adverts
You can also use your new collateral to create ads for your new audience. Follow up on all your entrants with some adverts targeted to them and look for demographic trends. If a large proportion of your competition entrants are women, aged 30-55 who like Downton Abbey, then you could set up an ad at the same time as the programme airs related to the episode. Your followers will recognise your references and feel more aligned with your brand. If you promote relevant products to people you know are interested in your brand through these streams you can get real return on investment.
In order to use social media successfully, you need to integrate it with all aspects of your marketing strategies. Running competitions that have great prizes but are irrelevant to your target audience might generate entries but it won’t create and sustain an audience interested in your brand. Research your audience, use influencers in your niche with good followings and make engaging content that will interest your readers. If you follow up with adverts and related content you’ll be sure to make your competitions aren’t a lottery.
Digital & Social Articles on Business 2 Community(50)
