Everybody loves the winning feeling. When you participate in a contest, the most crucial pull factor is the fact that you can win something that you want.

Back when the internet wasn't around, the idea of a contest was already fervent. Be it a beauty contest, a photo contest, a giveaway contest or even a radio contest. In today's context, nothing has changed, just the media used to participate is different.

A business Facebook page has 2 main difficulties to focus on. 1 is to generate more fans to reach out to. The next is to engage them and keep them involved. Many businesses have turned to the tried and tested way of creating a contest to do just that.

Benefits

As a marketer, every promotion campaign created must have a purpose. Whether it is to acquire more fans, or to link up with an event or to reward your fans. So what does a contest do for you?

Market Research

Running contests can help you to research into what your fans actually think of your product and also what they would like. Depending on how you position your contest, it will allow you to get more information from your fans.

Generate Buzz

Contests always garner people's interest, but most importantly in Facebook's context, your participating fans will also promote your contest to their friends if it is something that they can relate to. Conversations will be created and possibly help in converting more new fans.

ROI

How do you measure marketing success? A contest allows you to see real numbers of participants, whether you are targeting the right target group and also whether your campaigns are tweaked to their liking. So whether you are doing it right, or simply way off, contests are a good indicator.

Target Market

With all marketing campaigns, its important to look at your targeted market and determine 2 factors before carrying on.

1) Is your targeted market group the type to enter competitions? If yes, which type of competition?

2) What prizes will entice them to participate?

Once you have answered the 2 factors and determine what kind of competition you can organize, you are able to streamline your competition and increase participation from your fans.

Incorporate it into your Marketing Plan 

We know that social media is the current hype now, but jumping in without a plan is like charging into war with no back up resources to maintain, at the start you might win over more fans, but as time goes by, the impact will diminish and you would be back at square one or even worse.

A contest will help you to acquire new fans, but if there is no constant engagement between you and your fans, their interest in your business will dwindle, stopping their progression into becoming your potential customers.

A contest helps you to acquire new users and reward your exisiting users, incorporate it into your marketing plans for the year, both offline and online. This will help your business pace its fan engagement. Remember that sustainence is key.

How to Optimize Your Contest

Few things to keep in mind when creating your contest.

Keep it simple to win

Keep the conditions for your fans to participate simple. For example, "To enter our Family Day contest, just simply submit a photo of you and your family enjoying a day out!" The easier it is to participate, the higher the chances people will make the effort to participate.

Dont ask open ended questions

If your question needs an essay like answer, then chances are you wouldn't be receiving very much participants. Its simple, would you want to take 20 mins writing an essay to just stand a chance of winning something? Nuff said.

Give enticing prizes

Imagine what you as a contestant would want, or ask your friends who might fall into your target group what they would want. Its better to offer only a few prizes that is more costly but have more appeal to people, than offer a lot of prizes that nobody really wants or needs.

Keep to the Facebook Guidelines

Before you proceed to create your own contest, please read and follow the Facebook’s Promotions Guidelines. You wouldn't want to put in all your effort to create your promotion campaign, arrange your prizes and then get your contest removed by Facebook due to not following their guidelines.