Do you have a Facebook fan page that needs help? Executing a Facebook promotion is a great way to not only gain new fans for your business page, but also a great way to engage the current ones you already have. There's a variety of different types of promotions available for you to take advantage of and you need to be strategic about the type you decide to launch. This article helps you determine the kind of promotion that would be most suitable for your fan page and lists tools you will need to help you execute them.
First, there are some very specific rules that you need to abide by to ensure a successful promotion while making sure you are inline with Facebook's strict policies. The following are a few major rules, but we recommend reading over Facebook's Official Promotion Guidelines before you start the planning of your promotion:
- Use a third party application or your own iFrame application to run your promotion. This is the route you must take if you are truly going to stay within Facebook's guidelines. Some popular third party applications to consider are www.wildfireapp.com, www.strutta.com and www.offerpop.com.
- Check, double check & triple check your Terms & Conditions. Make sure you have the right start date, end date, times and time zones. Make sure you clearly define what the prize is and what the prize is valued at. Make sure you also clearly list prize eligibility, details and requirements. Are you going to limit entrants to people in a certain geographical area?
- If using your own iFrame application, make sure you clearly state that Facebook has ZERO involvement in your promotion. Facebook wants to distance themselves as far away as possible from being involved in any companies contests or giveaways. You need to clearly state that any information obtained is being given to, and will be used by, your business and NOT Facebook. If using a third party application, this disclosure will be taken care of for you and already listed.
- You can not use Facebook features or functionality to conduct a promotion. This means you can't give something away just because someone "likes" your page or tags you in a photo etc. This is why they say you must go through a third party or iFrame app.
- You can't notify the winner by messaging them or posting their name on your personal or businesses wall. Basically, because Facebook wants to be completely uninvolved in your promotion, they don't even want you to use them to notify the winner. You CAN however state the winner using your iFrame or third party app.
Next, when deciding which type of promotion would best fit your fan page, you need to evaluate your current situation. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What are your goals for this promotion? What will be your definition of a "successful" promotion? What kind of results are you expecting? Are you trying to reach a certain number of "likes"? What kind of fans are considered valuable to you? Are you just trying to get the fans that have already liked your page to be more engaged?
- What is your demographic? Depending on wether fans from a different country or state would be valuable to your business or not will determine how strict/detailed you need to make your terms & conditions.
- Is your fan page relatively new and/or have a low number of engaging followers? Are you looking to get those "likes" up with valuable fans that are in your demographic?
- Do you have a good amount of followers, but just aren't seeing any engagement or interaction? Are the fans there, but you just aren't seeing much engagement back from them?
- Do you currently have a very active page with a large amount of followers and are just trying to keep the momentum up? Is your page doing great, but you are just looking for a way to "reward" your fans with an exciting promotion?
- What is your budget? Be realistic about this number and clearly define what you are willing to spend. What is the cost of the "prize" being offered? Will you be using a Facebook Ad campaign to promote your contest to your current and/or prospective followers? Is there a fee associated with the third party application you have decided to use?
An important concept to understand when deciding on a promotion is this:
The more required steps (time) it takes for someone to enter into your promotion the less number of entrants you will see participate. If you're looking to just spike your "like" count, you need to go with a simple 1-2 step promotion. If you're looking to see some great content from you're already existing/engaging fan base, you can run a more involved multi-step promotion and expect to see a deeper level of engagement with great content, but a lower number of entrants.
Two General Types Of Promotions
Sweepstakes: In a sweepstakes, the winner(s) are selected by random or by chance. If you're looking to strategically get your "like" count up, then a sweepstakes and/or sign-up form promotion is the route you will want to take. These promotions are designed to give your fan page the jump start or push it needs. They require very little action from the entrants which is the best strategic approach for a page trying to gain new fans.
Contest: In a contest, the winner(s) are selected by a vote and/or audience and entries are selected due to skill or by achieving a goal. If your page has the followers in place, but you just need to encourage more engagement, then your best options would be to run a photo, video or essay based contest. These are all designed to help engage your already present fan base.
Will EVERY promotion I run be successful?
This depends on your definition of "successful" which, as I stated above, needs to be clearly defined during your promotion strategy planning phase. What you need to keep in mind is that although you have spent the time and money developing a promotion for your fan page this does not mean hundreds of people will automatically join in on the promotion. It's always smart to create a campaign strategy that consists on some type of advertising or promoting. One avenue to really look into is running a Facebook ad or sponsored story campaign. You can create variations of the ad and test which one is performing best. You can also create a daily or lifetime budget and get very targeted with who you want to see your ads. Also, don't stop there, make sure you incorporate this promotion into your posting schedule on all your social media platforms and all of your other advertising channels. Let your current fans know the promotion is going on and not to miss out on it!
Promotion Length
How long should your promotion run for? Well this may depend on the prize itself. If your prize is of a relatively high value then you can spread the contest out for a longer period of time. But, if you are planning on giving away a lower value item, such as a $25 gift card, then the promotion timeline will need to be a lot shorter. Smaller promotions can last as long as a few hours while larger promotions may last up to a month or sometimes even longer.
Don't be intimidated. Grow your page with promotions!
Don't let promotions scare you because they seem like a lot of work! Businesses who run contests on social media platforms are known to have twice as many followers as those who don't. Promotions are also a great way to let your creative side shine through and also let your fans have some fun. If you want to grow your Facebook fan page then promotions/contests are a very real way of helping you achieve this goal. However, if the task still seems a little out of your league, then there is always the option of looking into hiring a reputable social media agency who can take care of the details and technicality of it for you.
What are some of your experiences with Facebook promotions? Can you think of a business who runs Facebook promotions very well?
Co-Authored By: Ryan Adcroft