#InTheStudioThisWeek we’re talking about the power of a social media competition!

Over the last year, we’ve had a big push to increase our social media engagement and build a strong online brand presence.

We think social media competitions are an excellent way to create the most amount of interaction on all platforms. So, what are the benefits of running your own social media competition and how do you create a successful campaign?

6 tips to run a successful social media competition:

1. Keep it simple
   Like/share this post, follow us, comment below, share your photos. All of these take very little effort, usually one or two clicks, a few taps on the keyboard. Make it easy to enter and increase amount of entries you will receive.
   
2. An obtainable prize
   Select a prize that your business can afford, and that people will want to win. It doesn’t have to be huge, but remember the higher the prize, the more interaction you will receive. Consider what you want to achieve from running a competition, more followers, brand awareness, interaction? Pair your prize accordingly.
3. Decide on length
   Set a realistic run time for your competition and let people know when you will announce the winner. Remember, if you’re asking people to do an action, this may require more time.
4. Select your platform
   Choose which social media platforms you’re going to use, consider how it will work on each one, and remember to monitor and collate them all.
5. Promote, promote, promote
   Create a hashtag and visuals if you can – make your competition stand out above all the others!
6. Moderate
   Make sure your entries do not contain any inappropriate material – this is directly linked to your business so keep an eye out.

What are the benefits or running a social media competition?

1. Increases your followers/subscribers
2. Builds brand awareness
3. Increases engagement, which leads to…
4. Increased sales

A great Glow example:

Every year, we run a ‘Pimp Your Pumpkin’ competition, where we encourage people to share images of their carved pumpkins at Halloween to win a sweet treat.

This year we broke all records with over 120 entries, which made it an exceptionally hard job to pick out favourite! Not only that, but we gained over 100 followers on Twitter.

Just check out how our interaction increased when running this social media competiton:

And, if you’re interested, here is the lucky winner of our #PimpYourPumpkin competition. We loved the creativity and thought that had gone into the design!