November 1st, 2011
by Nicki Gauthier
Facebook contests can be a great way to increase interest and drive traffic. I recently did some research to review successful and creative Facebook contests and why they were successful. Todd Wasserman posted a great article: 4 Successful And Creative Facebook Contests on OpenForum.com. Here are key notes I pulled from the article:
- The prize is secondary. The main appeal of Facebook contests is to communicate something about yourself.
- In each contest example below, users get more out of the program than a gift certificate or whatever the nominal prize is.
- Individuals also get a forum to define themselves to like-minded people. The best prize you can offer these days is bragging rights.
- Consumers are looking for experiences as well as prizes.
- You don’t need a huge prize to lure contestants, just the chance to strut one’s stuff before some peers.
EXAMPLE 1. Contiki Vacations’ “Get on the Bus” Promotion challenged fans to get a crew with four friends together, choose a trip and then try to get as many votes as possible in order to win. The campaign ran from February 23 through March 31, garnered 8,000 Likes for Contiki and generated more than 10 million ad impressions through Facebook shares, Likes, tweets and blog coverage. One reason for the success was a feature that let users and their friends create a bus, which incorporated music, movies, Likes and interests that users had in common via their Facebook profiles. Says Troia: “We wanted to go beyond ‘enter and win’ and create an experience.”
Example 2. Maybelline’s “Show Us Your Red Lips” ran a promo for its Super Stay24h lipstick in Switzerland that offered the chance to be the face of the product on the Facebook Page in Switzerland. The promotion got 183 responses in three weeks. Part of the reason was that the contest was pretty easy to enter: All you had to do was take a picture of your lips. A lot more people—9,000—voted in the contest than entered it, leading to a dramatic jump in the product’s Facebook fans. Before the contest, the Page had 3,000 fans, but when it was over, there were 13,000.
Read example 3: Coca-Cola’s “The Recycling King”and example 4: Blocket.se’s “The Funniest Classified Ad on Blocket” here; http://www.openforum.com/articles/4-successful-and-creative-facebook-contests.
Michele Nicolette
(November 3rd, 2011 at 11:06 am)
Love this! We ran a facebook contest for our new wall decal site last month and went from 20 fans to nearly 2,000. We offered 300 in prizes and will definitely see about creating something more engaging next time!
Nicki Gauthier
(November 3rd, 2011 at 11:25 am)
Congrats! Now you have one more fan
We look forward to your next successful and engaging contest!