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If you have been personally frequenting social media platforms, you probably noticed other brands utilizing social media contests as part of their Internet marketing strategies. Social media contests are among the online marketing tools that brands take advantage of today. While social media contests can help you increase your target market and spur engagement leading to enormous sales, mishandling this marketing concept can cost you a lot of money.

 

How Can You Benefit from Social Media Contests?

 

 Infographic from Binkd.com

 

1. Identify Clear Goals For Your Target Audience

 

The first thing to do before announcing major-yet-not-carefully-thought-about social media contests is to identify a vivid goal. Why are you doing social media contests? Who are your target participants? It is essential for you to ask these questions first because not all goals are geared towards customer acquisition.

 

Chances are you might be holding major social media contests that spur wider, untargeted audience and giving away expensive prizes without any clear ROI. You will be bombarded with responses from people who just liked or shared your page or submitted what you asked for merely because they like to win prizes yet they care less about your brand. Once you have identified your goal, select your target audience and create social media contests aligned with these two pre-determined factors.

 

2. Apply Social Media Contests Rules

 

Before giving your social media contests a go, find out about applicable rules or guidelines to make sure you aren’t stepping on them. Facebook, for example has stricter guidelines on running social media contests through it.

 

3. Give Away Small, Targeted Prizes

 

Instead of trying to impress your audience with large, expensive prizes for your social media contests, I recommend you take a backseat and go for smaller, targeted prizes. Staying away from humongous prizes that will attract participants who will unlikely be converted as customers will do you a lot of good. Instead, give smaller prizes that are matched to your products or services. This will attract participants who are aligned to your business and will more likely patronize your brand later on. This will make you eyed by people who are constantly looking for freebies without sacrificing your ROI.

 

4. Social Media Contests Should Not Be Spammy

 

While your objective in creating social media contests is intended for the best, overdoing it can harm your brand. At first, people will certainly get excited about your social media contests but doing the same thing over and over would tire your audience. Instead of resulting to larger customer base, you might be surprised when they choose to opt-out from broadcasts from you. Weaving your social media contests with a variety of relevant and interesting message can make the difference. This can result to people sharing your social media contests and can serve your best interest.

 

5. Try To Participate In Other Brands’ Social Media Contests

 

If you are still clueless about running your own social media contests, I advise you to check out and engage in social media contests posted by other brands. This will help you understand what targeted social media contests are, how people react to these, what you can actually gain from these.

Check out this video to find out about social media contests that actually work

 

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