Looking to boost brand awareness, and get more reach for your social media campaigns?

Contests are a great way to generate engagement with your campaigns, and because social platform algorithms are designed to amplify content which stimulates user interest and activity, contest posts can be perfect for maximizing reach and exposure on social channels. 

In fact, according to research by Kontest, 34% of new fans are acquired through contests, and a third of entrants want to receive more information from brands. 

But in order to run an effective engaging contest, you'll need the right tools to help. In this post, I’ll go over five of the best tools that can help you create and run better social media contests:  

1. Easypromos

Easypromos is one of the best tools you can use for running your contests. The app enables you to create competitions for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. 

You can choose the aim of your campaign - be it to increase followers, improve brand awareness, etc. - and you can run various types of promotional initiatives, including giveaways, games and quizzes. In fact, you get access to 30 different types of promos via Easypromos' application listings. 

You can also ensure your competition forms/details are mobile-friendly, and you have the option to create contests in multiple languages. 

After creating your campaign, you can also embed it on your website, blog, or eCommerce page. What’s more, you can even set up automated emails to nurture your leads after they enter your contest. 

Plus, you can track campaign performance and qualify your leads and even calculate the ROI for your contests.

2. Woobox

Over four million brands use Woobox, and it's easy to see why it's so popular. With Woobox, you can run sweepstakes, photo contests, video contests, polls, and others, across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. 

Woobox also enables you to run other promotions, like giveaways, coupons, and quizzes. When you're done creating your contest, you can embed it on your website or social media pages. 

Additionally, you can also create popups that prompt your website visitors to enter your contests. And if you run a WordPress website, Woobox has a plugin that makes the process easier. 

Another useful feature is that you can track your campaign performance while it's running, enabling you to adjust on the fly and improve your results. 

3. Shortstack

If you want to run contests on Facebook, this is one of the most robust tools available. But beyond that, Shortstack also enalbes you to run contests on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. 

With Shortstack, you can run a range of different contests, including sweepstakes, photo contests, voting contests, and hashtag campaigns.

To promote your contest, you'll have the option to embed it into your website, blog, or eCommerce pages. 

Shortstack also has a landing page builder, which provides more than 65 landing page templates which you can customize to fit your unique needs. 

4. Wishpond

Wishpond enables you to run contests as part of your marketing campaigns, incorporating promotions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

Wishpond users can run photo, video and essay contests, and even Instagram hashtag campaigns, tying direclty into the platform. Meanwhile, with Wishpond's drag-and-drop builder, you can customize any of the professional landing page templates to capture more leads. 

Wishpond also has a WordPress plugin, and its analytics feature enables you to track real-time performance, and make necessary updates. You can also run A/B tests to improve your contest's performance. 

Apart from acquiring leads, Wishpond also provides marketing automation tools which can help to nurture the leads you generate and convert them to customers. There's also an option to set up email drip campaigns after you capture a lead. 

5. Rafflecopter

There's a reason why Rafflecopter calls itself "the world's easiest way to run a giveaway."

If you're a solopreneur, have limited design skills, and would like to get a contest running fast, this might be the tool for you. 

Rafflecopter has a simple interface which enables you to create contests for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. You can also add different weights to actions, such as page likes, comments, shares, votes, etc. 

Rafflecopter also has a 1-click email list integration, which enabless you to connect to your email service provider. With this, lead nurturing becomes easier. 

You also get access to real-time analytics, which helps to track your campaign performance while it's running. This provides information to make the necessary adjustments. 

Conclusion

Running contests on social media can be a great way to boost your brand exposure, but in order to maximize the benefits, you need the right tools, covering all the key elements.

Check out the free trials (or free plans) of these tools in order to pick the right one for your desired approach.