So now you’ve gotten to know a little bit about social media, but you want to do more with it.
What can you do?
One fun and creative thing you can do – and yet another thing The Silent Partner Marketing can help you with – is to hold a contest on your social media channels.
It could be photos, videos, telling a joke on the Facebook wall, etc., and will generate buzz and accelerate engagement.
Contests are “skill-based” promotions – the fans and followers are invited to write an essay, upload a picture or a video. Entrants will ask friends to vote on their uploaded entry, so contests are a perfect way to reach the friends of fans.
Want to know more?
There are different type of contests.
One is a photo contest. Entrants should upload a photo to enter, and ask friends to vote. Another is an essay contest. Entrants may share their story in a specific topic, and ask friends to vote. Yet another is a video contest. This is the most engaging as entrants need to work a lot with videos. Entrants need to upload videos to enter, and ask friends to vote.
The photograph is an incredibly powerful tool. The fact that we are able to capture a single moment and keep it forever is mind-blowing. People enjoy looking at photos, but more importantly people love sharing photos, especially on social media. Not only will people participate to share their photo, they’ll get to compete to win a prize.
Running a photo contest will get you more engagement with your fans on your business or organization’s social media page, and also expand your reach and attract new people to the page. You might also have other goals in mind, such as spreading awareness about an event, promotion or service. You can run the contest through social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook.
The winner should never be the entry with the most votes. It’s quite discouraging for entrants if someone gathers a lot of votes so they will lose motivation and stop promoting their own entry. You should include “luck” to the winner selection process, and pick winner(s) from the top 5 voted entries.You should also draw a winner among voters. If you want a big buzz around your promotion, consider drawing a prize among voters too. If you vote on your favorite, you can win something too.
The contest should also work on mobile. This one is especially important at photo contests, as these days, people use their mobile to take pictures. There is a 60 percent chance that people will see your contest on mobile, and this number will just grow. Let fans enter right away with the accessibility to upload photos from their mobile or take a picture immediately.
If a contest isn’t your thing, you could also advertise on social media. From sponsored posts to promoted pins, native advertising has found a home in social media.
With promoted posts, businesses pay to feature their posts in news feeds. And in December 2013, Facebook announced the launch of video ads, which are sponsored videos that automatically play in news feeds.
In 2010, Twitter launched Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends, and Promoted Accounts. In December 2013, Twitter updated its advertising to better target ads to users. The product, called “tailored audiences,” uses data from browser histories to show users ads that directly relate to the sites they’ve recently visited.
Instagram, the photo- and video-sharing site, started selling ads to businesses in late 2013. Advertisers can purchase sponsored photos and videos to show up in news feeds, and users have the option to hide and provide feedback about ads.
Want to know more about contests and advertising on social media?
Give The Silent Partner Marketing a call at 866-432-6456 or e-mail Kyle Reyes at kyle@thesilentpartnermarketing.com and we can get you started.
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Erin Quinlan is the Content Marketing Manager of The Silent Partner Marketing, a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology. You can find The Silent Partner Marketing on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.
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