Facebook contests can drive huge fan growth over a short period of time and can make a massive impact to your Facebook page. Is this something you are running on a regular basis on your page? Do you want some ideas/inspiration for what might work for your brand?
Business Objective of this article
If you are thinking of running a Facebook competition for the first time, or are looking for some ideas for your next competition, then this post will certainly give you some food for thought.
1. Heyo – Lilly Pulitizer rocks Facebook with their Agenda
Client: Lilly Pulitizer -Fashion retailer
Current number of Facebook Fans: 529,000
Competition Objective: Increase sales of their ‘Agenda’ product
Details of Facebook competition
On a yearly basis Lilly Pulitizer sell really stylish looking ‘Agendas’ (Diaries) which their clients love. Each year they run a promotion campaign and this year they decided to use Heyo. They ran a Facebook contest to give away 50 Agenda’s. To enter the competition you had to register your personal details and e-mail, select your favorite Agenda and share out to your friends. A key part of this promotion was being able to enter it via mobile devices. Although Facebook Apps are not supported on mobile devices Heyo have a smart solution. Clients that try to access the competition from a mobile device are automatically redirected to a mobile app where they can enter the competition.
Results
The results of the competition were as follows:
- 9,000 e-mails captured, 2,000 of those e-mails were collected via a mobile device.
- 23,000 likes
- 388,700 unique views
- 200% return on investment on orders in the first 10 days
Summary
A simple competition that encourages the sharing of something visually appealing works quite well. And when you see that 22% of all entries were through a mobile device it’s clear that supporting mobile for your competition is essential.
2. ShortStack – Smart Shelters earn $750,000 more in one year
Client: Smart Shelters – Provide Storm Shelters
Current number of Facebook Fans: 19,100
Competition Objective: Grow sales of their Storm Shelter product
Details of Facebook competition
Smart Shelters ran a 12 month giveaway, where each month they gave away a storm shelter. Using a customized version of ShortStack they created an e-mail entry competition and supported the campaign with Facebook ads.
Results
The page started with only 800 fans and within 5 months went to 5,950 (they are over 19k now). There were 8,551 email submissions and 4,500 Facebook shares. Since launching the Facebook app they have generated over $750,000 in additional revenue for their products. Of course some of this growth would have happened organically but they believe the Facebook App had a key part to this growth.
Summary
This competition provided something of real value so it was worthwhile running it on a monthly basis. As well as significant growth in email subscribers there was a large number of shares which helped build awareness for the products and also drive more email subscribers.
3. SocialAppsHQ – Brush Buddies gets their singer for their singing toothbrushes!
Client: BrushBuddies: Innovative products to make tooth brushing fun!
Current Facebook Fans: 100k
Competition Objective: Increase awareness of Brush Buddies globally
Details of Facebook Competition
Brush Buddies have a range of singing toothbrushes and they ran a competition to find the best singer that would be put on the singing toothbrushes! Using SocialAppsHQ they let people upload a video of themselves singing and the fans could then vote to find the best artist. Fans were also allowed to comment on the video uploaded and share it out to their social network.
Summary
If there is a good enough incentive, your fans will upload videos and through a platform such as SocialAppsHQ you can run a really great video competition. Video is very engaging and the videos uploaded through the competition would have encouraged people to stay longer on the page which is beneficial to the brand.
4. Agorapulse – Abbé Pierre Foundation gets 75k petitions signed
Client: Abbé Pierre Foundation, Charity to improve housing conditions of the poor
Current Facebook Fans: 248k
Competition Objective: Get signatures on a petition app
Details of Facebook Competition
The Agorapulse petition app was used to collect names for a petition against inadequate housing. Each person that provided their digital signature were able to invite their friends to sign the petition and they also automatically shared the signatures with all their friends using Facebook Open Graph frictionless sharing. A leaderboard was created showing who got the most friends to sign the petition so this created the competition angle.
Results
The Facebook signature application was very successful at leveraging the viral potential of social media. On average, two out of six friends invited by the original signatory ended up signing the petition. Some of the most active fans of the Abbé Pierre Foundation generated more than 150 signatures from their friends.
- The Facebook campaign succeeded in generating over half of all signatories to the petition – 75,000
- 220,000 fans on the organization’s Facebook page, from a starting point of zero
- 40,000 email opt-ins, for future email marketing campaigns
- Average reach of 50 to 75k fans for every post they publish now, all for free
- 2,000 potential ‘super-fans’ (fans who have liked at least 50 page posts) identified thanks to the CRM feature of Agorapulse
Summary
A leaderboard can be very powerful and does not need to be tied to a prize. People like climbing the leaderboard and this is a strong incentive to do more sharing. Consider how you could introduce a leaderboard as part of your competitions. The frictionless sharing feature used within this competition also helped to build awareness of this campaign.
5. Voice Heard Media – Nature Clean, clean up on Facebook!
Client: Nature Clean: Canadian cleaning product brand
Current Facebook Fans: 8,548
Competition Objective: Collect relevant email subscribers, increase fans and gather research
Details of Facebook Competition
A competition based around a survey and sweepstakes app was created which users could enter via their mobile device or through their desktop. They had to complete a survey and provide their details to enter the competition. The survey and sweepstakes were targeted to women but the questions were based around the cleaning behavior of household men, bringing a humor and fun element to the competition!
Result
The campaign ran for a total of 3 months, in which time the survey/sweepstakes was shared nearly 700 times. The Facebook tab where the campaign was held had over 50,000 visitors, of which over 40,000 took the survey and entered into the
sweepstakes.
Summary
A competition app can be a great way of building up profile information on your target audience. Consider what questions you could ask to survey your audience, but try to have a light-hearted/fun angle to the questions so people don’t mind filling it in and more importantly are inclined to share it with their friends.
If you want to hear what I have to say in 140 characters or less, please follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/erikpenn.