3 Ways to Boost Contest Engagement through Facebook

Looking for a way to utilize your social media presence to boost engagement for a big promotion? Perhaps your sponsor’s budget doesn’t have room for paid Facebook promotions and boosted posts. Here are three free and easy things that you can do today to boost engagement and drive traffic to a big sponsored contest:

1. Use a promotional graphic as your fan page cover photo.

Your cover photo is the first thing followers see when they visit your Facebook fan page.  Take advantage of this high visibility by temporarily uploading an image here that promotes your contest. You can even monetize this opportunity by offering to include the sponsor’s logo on the graphic.

While an eye-catching cover photo is a great way to call attention to a big promotion, you can go a step further and drive traffic straight to the contest itself–or even to your sponsor’s site–by customizing your fan page’s "Add a Button" option.  

The "Add a Button" option is located in the bottom right corner of your fan page’s cover photo and can be modified to elicit a specific response from followers. From the list of possible actions, select the “Learn More” option and place your contest page or sponsor link into the Website field. Push “Create”, and voila! You have an attractive promotional image and call to action combo right at the top of your fan page!

2. Use the video feature to post a promotional video for the contest, and include a custom call to action at the end of it.

Encourage your on-air staff to film a short video clip promoting the contest, or even have the sponsor send over a special message. You can then upload the video to share in your fan page’s video gallery and directly on your timeline.  Include video tags to make it easily searchable, and add a “Sign Up” or “Learn More” call to action button to display at the end of the video. Customize the “Link Description” field in order to direct traffic to your contest landing page or sponsor page.

3. Create a public event page and invite your followers.

Over 500 million people engage with the Facebook Events feature each month. Creating a public Facebook event takes only a few minutes and is a great way to boost awareness of your promotion by inviting your followers and allowing them to invite their friends and family.  Facebook guidelines only allow for an online event to last a maximum of two weeks, so this feature is perfect for increasing traffic in a contest’s final weeks. Tag your sponsor in the Co-hosts field to drive engagement to their Facebook fan page too!

An event page for a big promotion serves as both a reminder to your followers to sign up and also as a way to create a sense of community centered around the promotion itself. Engage your followers in the Discussion tab of the page by posting news, updates, and reminders about the contest, or create extra content, such as polls, right within the event page’s timeline.

There you have it!  Three simple and engaging ways to drive traffic to your big contests through your Facebook fan page. Now you’re prepared to go forth and promote those big sponsored sweepstakes like a social media pro!

Have questions? Reach out to our Syndicated Content Team and be sure to stay tuned for more posts on how to optimize contest engagement through social media.