Thinking of trying your hand at a social media competition but don’t know where to begin?  Take a look at our handy how-to guide packed with examples, suggestions, and potential pitfalls to avoid.

Not only is running a competition on social media a lot of fun, it is also a positive way of drawing attention to your brand.  It’s also a great way to thank your current followers and reward them for their loyalty.

Before you get carried away with the excitement of new followers and increased engagement you will need to think carefully about your competition objectives and how best to go about achieving these.

1. Make a plan.

Good intention only goes so far without a strategy.  A competition must have clear objectives – usually generating more business or increasing exposure of your brand and services – and a step-by-step plan for achieving these, or you will simply waste time and resources.

2. Consider your platforms.

Are you hosting your competition on one platform or several? Multiple platforms will require more planning but could earn you more entries. If you’re worried about the logistics of planning a large scale competition, stick to one network until you’re comfortable with handling more platforms.

3. Make your rules, and stick to them.

You will need to decide on clear and concise rules including how long your competition will run for, the start date, who can enter, how the winner will be selected, and what kind of entries will be excluded. It is important to keep a list of these details and make sure they are accessible to entrants throughout the competition.

If your contest is being run on Twitter you will be restricted by the site’s 140-character limit.  To get around this keep a document containing the rules list on your website and link to it in a tweet – this will use only a few characters and will make sure that entrants have access to the rules.

4. Be creative.

What kind of competition do you want to run? Again, here you will need to weigh up the pros and cons of each type.

Many businesses ask followers to comment on posts, share content, or like pages to enter. While this is straightforward and does increase follower numbers it’s not the most interesting or ‘shareable’ content.  Remember that social media is different to traditional forms of marketing in that you need to be creative and in order to stand out.  Be conservative, however, and you’re more likely to miss out.

Another popular competition idea is harnessing the power of images.  We’re living in the age of the selfie, so asking your fans for their snaps of their lives including activities, pets, holidays, or other everyday moments usually results in good engagement.  The National Trust does very well with this. Take a look at their Facebook page for a recent competition in which they asked fans to send in images of bluebells.  The concept is simple but they received thousands of entries and many organic comments, likes, and shares.

If you’re running a Facebook competition be aware that the site penalises users who violate its Promotion Guidelines.  Basically, running a competition that asks your followers to like, share, tag a friend, or comment on a specific post are prohibited by Facebook in order to “maintain the accuracy of page content”.  Love it or hate it, don’t take the risk – Facebook can and does shut down these illegal competitions.  You can find a definitive list of the site’s competition rules here.

5. #Hashtag it.

Take a look at what some of the big players are doing with social media – think Coca Cola and other similar brands – and you’ll often come across custom hashtags.  These can help a competition to stand out in the noisy social media sphere.

Rebecca Guest, Shake Social Intern