In today’s fiercely competitive, dynamic social space, brands need to look for new ways of acquiring customers, staying engaged and generating awareness. Although social brand channels feature creative marketing messages/content, marketers need to go one step ahead and run contests at regular intervals. According to a study published by eMarketer, contests and giveaways were among the leading fan page benefits for Facebook fans worldwide.
Besides adding the “fun” factor to brands’ social channels, contests or sweepstakes help marketers:
- Boost their brands’ social following
- Increase webpage views and traffic to their social sites
- Engage consumers in a meaningful way
- Generate awareness by building word-of-mouth traffic about their brand(s)
- Gather valuable consumer information like age, gender, demography etc.
Before You Begin…
While launching a social media contest is relatively simple and inexpensive, there’s one crucial thing that marketers need to do before they get started; define their goals. This gives a direction to the campaign and helps marketers understand what they wish to accomplish, the type of audience they need to target and plan ahead. The goals can include:
- Making consumers aware of a newly launched product/service
- Generating leads/sales
- Driving traffic to social networking sites, increasing engagement etc.
- Finding demographic information about the customers who might be interested in their product etc.
Once the goals are clear, marketers can then proceed to the creation and launch stages.
Creating UGC Contests
One particular form of online marketing and engagement that has grown immensely in the last few years is user-generated content promotions. Considering how consumers are more than willing to contribute to social campaigns, we suggest brands include UGC contests as a crucial part of their marketing arsenal.
- Thismoment DEC UGC Engine: Thismoment’s UGC engine makes launching these contests easier, on multiple platforms as well as on mobile and tablet devices. Here’s what brands can do using the DEC UGC engine:
- Enable participants to submit multimedia content (photos and videos) as well as text-messages on various social sites. Users can upload content from a PC or via YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, or Flickr
- Support voting, rating and commenting per content
- Screen entries both before and after submissions go live
For instance, the Lexus Ignition UGC Facebook contest (created using DEC) was a success because of the fact that users were allowed to vote for their favorite high-tech start-up products.
Basic Sweepstakes
Sweepstakes are great for making social campaigns viral. Considering there are rewards involved, the likelihood of consumers sharing the campaign with others is higher. Also, the fact that basic sweepstakes involve the simple process of filling in entry forms makes it easier to participate. This not only improves engagement, but also is great for expanding brands’ reach and acquiring customers.
Create Your Contest Landing Page
Your objectives are clear, the campaign has been created and you’re ready to go…well almost. It’s now time to create that crucial contest-landing page. For a social media contest to be successful, it has to interest the user, and this is where creative, well thought out landing pages come into picture. Listed below are some useful tips for marketers planning their contest-landing page(s):
- Pick an innovative, attention-capturing title
- Make it visually appealing
- Include all the important information like ‘how to enter’, the prizes’, closing dates, official rules etc.
Measure the Outcome
After launching the contest, marketers need to measure the results. Basic metrics include:
- Engagement
- CTR of your social channels/website
- Conversion
- Revenue/sales
A robust CMS should not only be able to deploy and manage contests, but also measure the results. Thismoment DEC’s reporting and analytical capabilities help brands track how their contest is performing in real-time through its reporting and analytics dashboard. This provides marketers with relevant contest information and enables them to gain valuable information about audience preferences and interests. For UGC contests, for instance, the available metrics include submissions, votes, ratings, views, status and category breakdown.
Conclusion
The prospect of getting rewarded for engaging with brands on social sites encourages consumers to participate in contests, which is great for marketers as far as customer acquisition, improving engagement and extending brand reach is concerned. However, before launching contests, marketers need to remember that promotions on social sites are subject to various laws. Facebook, for instance, is very particular about running promotions and does not allow notifying winners through their site. That said, the power of UGC contests has made this a popular choice among marketers looking to generate positive brand experiences. Also, the fact that it’s cost-effective and a great way to build customer database, means brands will continue to leverage UGC as valuable marketing tool.
- Shama Ahmed
Thismoment
