So, you’ve created a Facebook contest and published it to your fan page. Now what? A contest that’s left to sit on its own will see little engagement. That’s where promoting your campaign comes in.
Promoting Your Campaign is unarguably one of the most important steps in running a successful Facebook campaign. But where should you promote your campaign? Everywhere.
Promoting Your Campaign: First Steps
The first audience you should think about pulling into your contest is the one you already have – promote to your Facebook fan base, visitors to your blog or website, and your email lists. Get the word out to those who know you and are already enthusiastic about your brand. This will encourage sharing and ensure that your fans are the first to know about new contests.
Promoting Your Campaign on Facebook:
Okay, so this one is a gimme. To start, you should promote your contest on your Facebook timeline. Doing these will make sure fans, new and old alike, will know that you are running a contest, and check out your contest tab.
Running Facebook Ads:
Promoting your campaign with Facebook Ads is also recommended. Using the advertising page on Facebook, you can market your contest directly to your target demographic, based on age, gender, location, and much more. Facebook also allows you to buy ads based on your budget, so that you can promote your contest no matter the size. You can also boost the post you just published.
Promoting Your Campaign to Your Email List:
Already have an email list? Send out a communication to your newsletter subscribers. These fans are probably already leads, but getting the word out to them first gives them a chance to check out your campaign and share it with their friends.
Promoting Your Campaign on Your Blog/Website:
This one might also seem like a no brainer, but it’s important to include in a promotional plan. Similar to your Facebook fan page, you will be targeting people that already visit your site. Make a blog post promoting your campaign, add a custom header promoting your contest; whatever you do, make sure you prominently feature your campaign to your audience. This is an excellent way to ensure that people who regularly visit your site and/or follow your RSS feed get the news.
Embed your campaign on Your Blog/Website:
Campaigns work great as Facebook apps, landing pages, and more, but did you know you can embed your Campaign right on your website?
Whether you’re using FanMagnet to run contests, hold voting competitions, or offer discounts, you can get more eyes on your Campaigns by embedding them on your website.
With FanMagnet’s embed feature, all you do is copy and paste the embed code we provide you on any web page that accepts an iframe. The process is no different than embedding a YouTube video in a blog post.
Many people don’t think of LinkedIn as a promotional site, but if you are a B2B brand, LinkedIn is invaluable. You can promote contests and campaigns on both your personal page and your company page, as well as promoting directly to groups and interests. Promoting your campaign directly to groups ensures that your contest finds a relevant audience with an interest in brands like yours.
Have a Twitter following? Send out a couple of tweets promoting your contest! Make sure to use appropriate hashtags and space out your contest tweets in order to reach the largest audience. Because Twitter is a noisy place, make sure you’re promoting your campaign in a few, well spaced out tweets, like the one below. This way, you won’t be cluttering your followers Twitter feeds, and you will be able to reach more fans who might not leave Twitter open all day.
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One of the best places for product discovery, Pinterest is a great option for promoting new campaigns. Success on Pinterest centers around strong visual content, so make sure that you’re using strong graphics to advertise your contest and/or feature your products. It is also very important to keep the Pinterest audience in mind when posting – retailers, home decor and improvement, cooking and baking, and other, highly visual business fields do well on Pinterest.
Google+
Is your business or contest prize tech related? Consider promoting your campaign on Google+. Google+ does have a very specific user base (skewed in the male direction with a heavy emphasis on the tech industry), so you will need to consider this before promoting. A major benefit to promoting with Google+ is that Google will index your posts, meaning that potential fans (and leads) may find your campaign when running a Google search.
List your contest on an aggregator
You can list your contest on an aggregator like ContestListing.com , a human-maintained database of giveaways and contests, and for a few extra $$ you can take advantage of their targeted promotion services.
Now that you have an idea of where you should promote your contest, go out there and get the marketing ball rolling!
