If you work in marketing, we’re willing to bet that you’ve seen a decline in your Facebook engagement levels in recent months – in spite of your best efforts to consistently post high-quality social media content.
It’s more than likely to be because Facebook has been making significant adjustments to its ranking algorithms, presenting users with content from friends and family before that of brands. This is compounded by the fact that Facebook now takes engagement rates into consideration when deciding which content to show in News Feeds; if your fans fail to engage with your updates, subsequent posts will appear lower down the News Feed, creating something of a vicious circle.
But before you throw in the towel and give up on Facebook marketing altogether, we have some good news. You can turn the situation around by adding competitions and contests to your marketing mix. And while the basic principle is simple, there are some techniques you can use to maximise engagement levels.
Here are our top 5 tips for getting the most from your Facebook competitions:
1. Make it visible
Use an app to give your competition prominence. An app will sit in your Facebook Page’s top navigation, where it can’t be missed. Encourage fans to click the tab by giving the competition an exciting name.
Be sure to share a link to the competition across all of your social media profiles too, so you maximise the number of people that see it.
2. Make it cheap
Competition prizes don’t need to be expensive. In fact, there’s a psychological phenomenon that means the higher the value of the prize, the less likely you think you are to win. That means more people will enter competitions with low value prizes, because they fancy their odds.
3. Make it easy
You should make entry as easy as possible. For instance, if all your fans have to do is supply their email address to enter, they’ll probably do so, increasing your engagement rates. As an added bonus, you’ll capture your fans’ contact data too, so you can send them email marketing in future (providing you state that in your terms and conditions).
4. Make it shareable
You should also encourage people to share your Facebook competitions with their friends. Use a mechanism that gives fans more entries for each share. For instance, if they share it on Facebook, they get a second entry, Twitter a third and so on. That way, you get in front of your fans’ friends, raising brand awareness and engagement with a new audience.
5. Make it Facebook friendly
Facebook’s competition guidelines are notoriously changeable, so make sure you’re not violating their terms each and every time you launch a competition. If not, you might find your page is penalised and drops off News Feeds altogether.
Current competition no-nos include asking fans to post your content on their Timelines, asking them to tag their friends, or asking for Page Likes as a method of entry. You must also have terms and conditions published somewhere, so entrants can find closing dates and any limits to entry.
If you want help setting up an engaging Facebook competition for your brand – or tips on improving your social media engagement in general – drop us a line today.