Facebook Competitions can be proven to be a very useful tool in your business for becoming active in your community and even signing on new clients. However, It’s important to realize that when you run a competition you are not going to get 100’s of new customer inquiries. What you will get though is an increase in your following and brand awareness.

It’s then your job to convert those new followers into customers in the future.

Biggest Takeaways You Don't Want To Miss

Why Run Competitions on Facebook?

Facebook competitions are a great way to increase your visibility in your area. If you are trying to build your Facebook following, then competitions can be a great way to get in front of new people that perhaps would not have heard of you. People tend to share competitions with friends and family, so it’s a great way to get more people to see your business.

They can also help you create a loyal following. If people enter your competitions’ there are lots of ways to then get them to follow more of your channels and content. You could collect email addresses, invite them to like your page or invite them over to another social channel.

Facebook contests are a cheap way to grow your audience. Running a good competition can be a relatively cheap way of growing your following. If you collaborate with another brand, then you are tapping into an audience you would otherwise have to pay for. Also, people tend to share competitions more freely than they do blog posts or ads for your services. So, this can be great for brand awareness.

The Best Type of Competitions On Facebook

Caption This

Spot the Difference

Guess The….Breed/Location etc?

Share a Picture/Story

Annual Competition

Should You Always Give Away A Prize?

I wouldn’t advise giving away a prize every time you run a competition. If you do, then your page will attract people who enter every competition online regardless of the product/Service/Brand. These people are probably not your ideal customers. You could decide that maybe you will run a number of small competitions each week/fortnight and then have one larger competition with a prize every month/quarter/year. Don’t be tempted to run competitions where you give away things like iPads or non-pet related gift vouchers. Again, you will attract the wrong type of person.

Instead, think of people you can collaborate with you have a larger audience you can leverage. For example, there might be a popular pet store in town that would be happy to share your competition on their Facebook Page in exchange for promotion with your client base. It also means you share the cost of the prize.

How to Convert Entrants to Customers

Invite them to like your page

Every time someone likes your post you can go into that post and invite them to like your page. If you do this as soon as they have liked the competition post it’s likely that they will like your page.

If you continue to create interesting and engaging content, then it’s likely they will continue to follow you and engage with more of your content.

Create a downloadable freebie that is related to the competition

Can you create something that people can sign up to after the competition, so you can capture their email address? For example, if you were doing a competition about baking for your pets could you create an ebook full of recipes or them. Gather email addresses for larger competitions. If you are running a large competition, then you should get people to provide an email address for entry so that you can market your services to them afterward. Make sure you are clear that you are going to be sending them emails when they enter.

Resources:

Podcast with Kate telling about her competition:

/episode-77-competition-consistency-kate-mcquillan/

Kate's contest: https://www.facebook.com/noseoftralee/

Kate's page: https://www.facebook.com/PetSittersIreland/

Pictures for the competition: https://petbusinessowners.