There are many different contests that can be run through various social platforms. What are the best practices for these? Which methods are more successful in the promotion of them? Find out here!

Promotion

Recognition
People want to be recognized! They want to be able to get their few minutes of fame, bragging rights, and pride associated with being mentioned in a specific social group. Some prizes for contests can be solely based on recognition awards (i.e. giving badges, link backs, etc.). If you’ve got a different reward, make sure to post their photo, contest entry, or at least their name on your social platform so they can share their win with their peers.

Hashtags
Get creative! Hashtags have made their mark on social generations. They are recognized by main social platforms and can direct people to your specific topic. Make sure you do your research to make sure others aren’t currently using the hashtag you would like to implement. By doing this, visitors won’t get confused as to which tweet is referring to what topic. Keep it simple, specific, and catchy.

Media
As with all social posts, pictures and video get A LOT more attention than simple syntax posts. Get creative with your contest posters, images, and videos. Also, contests requiring photo or video submissions generate a lot of page visits.

Voting
Voting makes your fans and followers feel included in your company’s community. You can implement requirements for voters to share the contest or their action on your site to get even more publicity.

Running Your Contests

Rules
Make sure rules and regulations are clearly posted for the contest. This can be done briefly on the social page itself, or expanded upon with a provided link. Either way, make sure you cover your company and those entering into the competition.

Expand Your Reach
Require your entrants to like, comment, repin, etc. so that your contest gets further exposure. Be careful though, some sites, such as Facebook have specific rules excluding requirement of having to share a post. Make sure you read up on the social platform’s rules regarding contests before engaging in them.

Add an App
When wanting to secure more information from entrants, implement an app to collect emails, birthdays, locations, etc.

Post the Winner
I know it’s obvious but make sure you post the winner, not just email/phone/message them. Posting the winner on your social sites excites others about your company and raises their attention to the fact that you hold contests. More than likely they will begin following you in case you launch another one soon.

So there you have it. Over 70% of companies will use gamification in their strategies by 2014. Have you joined in on this successful trend?