Hosting a sweepstakes is a great way to attract new ‘likes’ to your Facebook page while boosting sales/conversions in the process. The allure of receiving a free t-shirt or gift card is often enough to convince a user to visit and engage on your Facebook page. However, there’s a right way and a wrong way to host a sweepstakes.
Do Choose Between a Timeline or Third-Party App
In the past, Facebook required all sweepstakes to be hosted through a third-party app. The social media giant has since eased these restrictions to allow the use of Timeline promotions. Business owners may now choose between Timeline promotions, which are conducted straight on the Timeline, or using an app such as Woobox.
Do Read and Follow Facebook’s Guidelines
Of course, you’ll also want to familiarize yourself with Facebook’s guidelines for conducting sweepstakes. Inadvertently violating one or more of these guidelines could result in the removal of both your sweepstakes, as well as your Facebook page, which is something no one wants to see happen.
Photo by Stephen Depolo via Flickr Creative Commons.
Do Choose a Relevant Prize
The right prize will go a long ways in creating a successful sweepstakes. Think about your target demographic and choose a prize that’s relevant to them. If you operate a local dog training business, for instance, you could give away free dog leashes, collars, water/food dishes, treats, or even vouchers for training sessions. Prizes such as this would obviously fare better than generic prizes like a free dinner coupon or t-shirt (unless it’s a dog shirt).
Do Follow Up With the Winner
Once you’ve chosen a winner for the sweepstakes, send him or her a message to let them know they’ve won. The easiest way to notify winners is to message them from your personal Facebook profile, telling them to email you their name and address. If you use a third-party app to conduct sweepstakes, you may be able to capture users’ email address during the initial entry, at which point you can bypass this step and email the winner.
Don’t Ask Users to Share a Post
As per Facebook’s guidelines, you may collect sweepstakes entries by having users comment on a post or like a post, but you cannot ask them to a share a post on your Timeline. Granted, many business owners violate this rule without repercussion, but it’s best to follow the rules and avoid asking users to share your post.
Don’t Run the Sweepstakes Indefinitely
Another rule of running Facebook sweepstakes is to set a time limit. In other words, all sweepstakes must have a specified date on which the promotion ends.
If you’d like to run a Sweepstakes on Facebook, but don’t want to manage it yourself, please give us a call. We can help!
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