The first and most important consideration regarding this issue is to clarify if you wish to run a social media contest directly on Instagram, Facebook, or X, or to launch a stand-alone contest and share it on social media to attract participants. This decision is fundamental, as each alternative will be the most appropriate depending on which marketing objectives you wish to achieve.
Which kind of social media contest you need to launch
Because of their very nature, social media platforms provide the perfect platform for your brand if you are looking to:
- Enhance brand visibility and create a buzz around your brand.
- Expand your social media presence and grow your follower base organically.
- Increase engagement and create meaningful exchanges between your brand and your audience.
- Promote your products and turn followers into brand ambassadors.
Basically, there are two types of social media contests you can run, depending on these objectives.
- Social Media Giveaways if you want to increase your brand visibility and create engage with social networks audience. It is also a good first step to grow your brand’s social media presence and reach before moving into more complex contests. It should also go without saying that the prize you offer should be both attractive and relevant to your target audience. The most logical option is to give away one of your products as it would naturally appeal to your audience and is a great way to promote your brand.
- Social Media Contest in a microsite format is ideal when you’re targeting multiple marketing goals that require extra features like an entry form, voting system, and a contestant’s gallery.
In this article, we focus on more complex social media contests—those aimed at turning your social media audience into participants, voters, or visitors of the campaign. For example, a photo contest organized by a brand but promoted through social media to capture the audience’s attention and raise awareness of the campaign.
Let’s dive in and explore how to create a social media contest that delivers results.
First Steps to Create a Social Media Contest
The first step in organizing a social media contest is to clearly define your objective and choose the type of contest that will best help you achieve it. For example, if you want to obtain user-generated content, a photo competition, video competition, or text contest would be the best option, depending on your needs.
Social Media Contest to gather UGC and generate leads
As much as a social media contest is great for brand awareness and exposure, you might be looking into taking your social media contest a step further to collect user data and user-generated content. If this is your case, you will need a more comprehensive solution. Enter the Mention + Hashtag contest by Easypromos, which allows you to collect UGC and contact details, respectively.
In the example above, the ABB professional basketball team Girona Basket launched a Mention + Hashtag photo contest among its followers. Participants had to upload a photo of themselves in the teams fan zone and mention the team’s sponsor for the chance to win a prize.
Another option is to organize a stand-alone contest and share the link to access it on your social media accounts. The advantage of this modality is that you will not be restricted to gathering only the data allowed by each social network, as the contest itself will not be held directly on the social network but on its own microsite.
This is the ideal solution to gather UGC and collect user data. Invite your audience to participate by uploading their own photos, videos, or writings. All Easypromos contests apps feature an anti-fraud system to guarantee reliable and fair voting. It’s perfect for engaging your followers and collecting user-generated content. It also allows you to display several options for the audience to choose their favorite videos, stories, designs, or projects.
Diving Special is a company specializing in scuba diving trips. The company organized a photo contest directed at their female members. Participants had to submit a photo and the winners were chosen by popular vote. Users who sent their picture could then share the link to the gallery to get more votes, which gave the contest greater reach.
Interested in running a social media contest? Try this Video Contest DEMO to test the real user experience.
It might be sometimes difficult to encourage random social media users to create a special video for your online video competition. That’s why organizing a contest for a group of people who like video shooting is a great idea. For example, if you’re looking for extreme content to promote an action camera, you’re quite likely to attract the attention of adrenaline junkies, as they love to record their daring activities. And of course, to motivate them further you should reward them with an amazing prize. This makes your customers feel special and a part of the community.
Like in this example where Quark Expeditions asked past passengers a voyage to Antarctica to submit a 30-60 second video. They could montage the clip using videos, photos, music, special effects, voice over and text to create a “truly artistic expression of amazing Antarctica”. The prize was 2 tickets to East Greenland: Northern Lights voyage.
Do you want to connect with a new customer segment? Maybe you want to reach a younger target audience and renew your customer base. Video contests normally attract younger users so you’re in for a treat if you’re looking to attract new potential customers.
Idea 3: Obtain quality user-generated content and increase engagement
Using athletes, radio hosts or other publicly known figures in your marketing strategy can be a good way to attract the attention of a specific target audience. If you co-work with popular celebrities or influencers, make sure they help you promote your social media video contest.
Jamaica Jazz and Blues Music Festival looked for new talents to perform in front of a live audience. They organized a contest for all interested musicians and shared it on social media channels to reach as many users as possible. Participants shared their contact details and a direct link to a YouTube video of their performance. The organizing brand collected high-quality user-generated content out of the contest as well as the engagement and viral reach.
Idea 4: Co-branded online video contest to create brand awareness
Co-branded marketing actions are a good way to take advantage of a collaborating company’s social media following and reputation. Pair up with other businesses who sell their products or services for the same type of events as you and create a co-branded social media video contest to attract new prospects and grow your community.
Diamonds Direct is an American jewelry company with an online shop and several physical stores that mainly sell engagement and wedding rings. They teamed up with Simon G. Jewelry and A Way to Go Travel agency.
The two brands hosted a honeymoon video contest where they asked soon-to-be-wed couples to submit videos of their engagements. The first prize was an all-inclusive honeymoon in the Excellence El Carmen in the Dominican Republic, the second prize was wedding bands, and the third prize a jewelry gift for the bride. The winners were selected by a public vote.
Social Media Contest to collect user data
If you’re in possession of the video material for your campaign and you want your audience to vote for their favorite, you can use the Pick your Favorite app in gallery format. This lets you have full control over what is published in the gallery since you’re the one publishing it. The videos are published in the gallery as if it were a regular video contest and you enable voting to select the winners or the finalists.
This is what the Italian music contest ‘Talent Move 2017’ did with their video voting contests. Local talents, groups or soloists could sign up for a chance to record a performance of either a cover or one of their own songs in one of three shopping malls in Tuscany. A Pick you favorite contest was created for each mall and the 15 performances were published in the gallery of the contest and Facebook users could vote for their favorite. The jury took the votes into account before selecting the final winner.
The Entry Form Giveaway application allows you to run a giveaway with a fully customizable registration form that you can set up to include the user information that you’re interested in. After setting up your giveaway, simply create a post for your social media profiles and include the access link.
Know your video audience
Video contests normally don’t attract thousands of participants, but the users that participate are loyal customers of your brand.
Be careful with too many limitations and rules for participation: Length, intro, content etc. Even though it’s easy to record and share a video, it doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody knows how to edit a video. Make sure you keep your target audience in mind; set entry requirements adequate to the age of your target audience.
In this example, the car restoration supplies company Eastwood organized a Black Friday Giveaway and shared it on its socials with a link that directed participants to the giveaway’s registration for the chance to win over $10,000 in prizes.
Last step to create a Social Media contest: select the winner
When using the Easypromos platform to host your social media video contest, you have several different ways to select the winners of the competition. Enabling voting is a good way to increase the viral reach of the contest. Our anti-fraud control system will help you determine whether participants have committed fraud to get votes and you can easily exclude them from the control panel.
We recommend using voting to pick the finalists, and then, for example, you can run a random giveaway among the finalists. Another option is to have a jury that will select the final winner. This is entirely up to how you want to run your video competition, just make sure to explain the dynamics in the description of the contest and the terms and conditions.
Do you have your idea ready to create your own social media video contest? If you don’t already have your Easypromos account, you can create it here. It’s free to create your account and to create promotions in draft mode, you will only be asked for payment when you want to activate your promotion.
We hope you find this article useful when deciding which is he best option to launch your social media contest. If you have any additional questions, don’t hesitate to contact us via live-chat or request a personalized demos from our sales team. We will. be happy to help!
