Have you hosted a Timeline promotion yet? If not, this post will help you get inspired to run one soon!
As most Facebook marketers know by now, Facebook recently announced changes to their promotion guidelines. According to their August 27, 2013 update, promotions and contests can now be hosted on a Page's Timeline. This is exciting news for Page admins who want to host simple, low-fuss Facebook promotions.
I recently published an article for Social Media Today on 5 awesome Timeline promotion ideas, that got great feedback. I wanted to give you 5 more awesome ideas for you to implement on your Facebook Page.
Timeline Promotion Idea #1:
"The comment with the most likes wins" promotion
Host a Timeline promotion asking users to comment on your post for a chance to win a prize from your business. Within the rules of your promotion, state that the comment with the most likes, i.e., votes, wins!
This kind of Timeline promotion is great for virality as it encourages people to reach out to their Facebook friends for votes. Thus, spreading the reach of your promotion to users who are not yet familiar with your brand.
Timeline Promotion Idea #2:
Photo-voting contest
This Timeline promotion idea is a lot like the previous idea I just talked about. The difference? Instead of encouraging text comments, ask for photo comments.
Facebook allows users to comment on a post with a photo. This feature is awesome for brands that want to host a really simple photo-voting contest on the Timeline, allowing them to collect valuable user generated content (UGC).
UGC (like photos) are great because they can be shared later on Facebook to feature fans in posts or they can be shared on your business's other social profiles like Pinterest. Photos submitted by your fans can also give your business really useful insight into who your fans are.
For businesses that will get lots of entries, use a Comment/Like Importer to import all photos entries into a database to save and use for later. This also makes it easier to select a winner.
Timeline Promotion Idea #3:
Video-voting contest
When a user comments on a post with a video URL, the video appears and can be played within the comments feed on the Timeline. To host a Timeline video-voting contest, ask users to comment on your post with a link to their videos. For example, if you're a restaurant, have users share video tutorials of their favorite holiday dishes and then ask your fans to vote on their favorites.
Hosting a video-voting promotion on the Timeline is fun because entries are easy to look through and play back in the comments feed. Choosing a winner is simple, too. The winner of your Timeline promotion could be fan-selected according to the video comment with the most likes. Or the winner could be chosen by your brand, according to which video entry you thought was best.
Timeline Promotion Idea #4:
Crowdsourcing promotion
If your business wants fast feedback from users, host a Timeline promotion that gets users to comment for a chance to win. This kind of Timeline promotion doubles as a great crowdsourcing tool!
For instance, you could ask users to leave a comment with their favorite thing about the fall season and get lots of quick engagement. You could also learn something valuable from your fans that could benefit your company by asking something like, "What's your favorite fall product of ours and why?" If there are multiple of the same kind of comments, use that insight to determine which products you should promote or feature most during your fall campaigns.
Timeline Promotion Idea #5:
Incentivized-interaction promotion
If you want to drive lots of interaction on your Timeline promotion, host a promotion which incentivizes and rewards users who want to go the extra mile to engage with your brand.
Test an incentivized weighted-interaction promotion on the Timeline this holiday season. If you're a clothing company, for instance, you could post a status update with a video of your fall look book and ask users to like or comment on the post with their thoughts for a chance to win. This is a great way to get feedback and create a little bit of hype before your products officially go on sale.
All five of these Timeline promotion ideas are excellent for engagement. But keep in mind, if you want to collect valuable information (like email addresses and user demographics) from your promotion entrants, you'll want to use an app.
Another thing to remember: It's best to have a game plan for how you're going to combat cheating prior to hosting your Timeline promotion.
With Timeline promotions, it's fairly easy for people to cheat by either creating fake profiles or by sourcing cheap services like Fiverr to help an entry get more likes. Especially for businesses offering a significant prize, it's best to consider an app to host your promotion, as it makes it really simple to detect contest fraud.