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🎁  G-i-v-e-a-w-a-y-s - What to Watch out for Choosin' a Winner.

Giveaways - do you do them? If so, what do you need to watch out for? What should you give away? How do they enter? How do you make the post? How do you choose a winner?

🧠 Giveaways are tempting - I mean, who doesn't want free stuff? Marrying a giveaway to audience growth seems like a no-brainer - 👀 buuut there are a few things you need to watch out for before you pick that winner.

🎁 Giveaways - Things to Know

🆓 Watch out for the freebies. You're always going to hear me say, "How you get them is how you keep them" meaning if you gain an audience through giveaways, you'll retain an audience who wants free stuff. ✨ So use giveaways sparingly.✨ They're a great option to get more reach before you offer a presale or pop-up. They are also a great way to resuscitate a dead page.

⚠️ A warning about your words. There's a new scam running on Facebook (I mean, there's always a scam running on Facebook) that's triggered by using contest-type verbiage in the copy on a Facebook page. Words to watch out for: winner, win, enter, contest, giveaway. There may be more, but those are the mostly-for-sure-don't-use-these ones. A workaround is using dashes or writing the giveaway details in the JPG (image) of your post.

🎁 Giveaways - How to Execute

🪤 Easy Entry. Make entering easy. Having people spin around three times, tag 20 people, do a backflip, 🏅 and then win a gold medal in the Olympics to win a free cookie ain't gonna help you (being sarcastic, but not by much). The takeaway is this: it makes sense to ask people to share a post, tag three people, comment, and like - ✨ that's engagement, right? ✨ But it's also too complicated. 😓 We find that the easier the entry requirement, the more likely more people are to enter - and that's the engagement goal. 

Easy entry ideas:

• ✅ Invite someone to a private group (Facebook will tell you who invited someone - just write their names down before letting the member into the group)
• ✅ Follow my Instagram account (very easy entry - two clicks max)
• ✅ Sign up for a newsletter to win (and then offer anyone who didn't win $5 off their next order)
• ✅ Comment to win (probably my favorite because its the easiest - have them answer a prompt to get engagement going or make it easy by saying comment with a GIF (not jiff, Corrie)
• ✅ Tag a friend - and you both win (skirting around being annoying, both the tagger and the taggee stand to win)

🛑 Cut off the contest. While it makes sense to leave a giveaway open for longer so that more people can enter - it's an energy drainer. ⏰ Keep the contest window short to maintain excitement. Having a contest that ends in 24 hours will get more entries than one that ends in 2 weeks - 🌟 when everyone's mentally moved on to the next shiny object. 

🎁 Giveaways - What to Give

Okay - you know how to run it, you know how they have to enter, but what the heck do you give away?? Give away what you want to grow. As in - if you're introducing cake-pops to your lineup, give away cake-pops (enter to be my taste tester is a winner according to twin2).

🎟️ If you want to grow classes? Give away a class ticket. We donated a class ticket and it resulted in 2 more class ticket sales and a custom order. 

Try not to give away products you don't like to bake - 🚩 you're essentially waving a giant flag saying "CONTACT ME TO BAKE THESE" instead of clearing out the "shelf of cookie shame" like you intended.