Now that you have that healthy following on social media, you want to turn that interest into engaged customers. If you don’t want your Social Media Followers to just see your posts, but to interact with your brand, here are some contest ideas to get them interested:
Creative Response
Creative response contests are fun and a simple way to get people thinking outside the box. All you need to do is, ask your audience a question and pick the winner with the most creative answer. Ask questions related to your services or product, such as what changes you should make to your system or how you can improve your customer service. This is a great way to encourage customer feedback because it rewards them for being honest and helpful. You might want to put a word or character count on the answers to make it more challenging.
Photo Contest
For a photo contest, start by providing your audience with a theme, which may or may not be related to your business or product. Then, encourage your followers to get the craziest, most creative or most extreme photo that relates to the theme. One of the main points of the contest is to show that your company isn’t only about turning a profit — it’s also about having fun, being cool and doing something different. Set a date and time for when these pictures must be submitted, then reward your favorite photographer with a gift card or a free product.
Solve the Riddle
This is a text-based contest in which you write out a riddle with hashtagged clues. Participants must use the hashtag when submitting their answers so they can be easily tracked. This way you can see the answers coming in and know who answered it correctly first.
Fast Fingers
The premise of this contest is to see who can reply the fastest. To do this, you can ask your followers a question, have them take a picture of a certain object or make them follow a certain theme. The difference between this and any of the other contest formats is that quality isn’t taken into consideration — instead it is only speed that counts.
Awards
While giving discounts on services and products are a great way to promote your business, it’s also a good idea to show your appreciation for your customers’ interaction and participation with rewards. For instance, customers love gift cards for date nights and shopping sprees. You also may want to offer rewards that are loosely connected to your business. For instance, a dating service can offer tickets to a play for the winning couple. This provides value to your customer without seeming greedy on your end.
No matter what kind of contests you hold, use your imagination to get the best results. Your Social Media Followers can tell if you put in the time and thought it takes to hold a successful contest, so have fun and don’t cut any corners.
