Running Effective Promotions Through Social Media

Running promotions through your social media channels is an effective way to draw and engage more people than you ever had before. There are many ways to accomplish this and it should be part of your social media strategy.

When it comes to promotions through your social media channels, it is important that you go about it in the most appropriate manner possible so that you are able to achieve whatever  you want. There are several things that you should keep in mind before you even begin and if you follow this advice,  your promotions will prove to be successful.

What is needed to run a promotion on Facebook?

Facebook has established guidelines on how you should go about running your promotion. Among the many rules that Facebook has written down, one of the most important rules is that all promotions through Facebook must go through an application (app). If you have enough technical knowledge, you may be able to create your own app; however, if you aren’t technically savvy enough, you can hire someone else to do it for you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an expensive proposition. It just depends on how sophisticated you want it to be. If you do happen to hire someone else to do it for you, you should make sure that the person you hire is knowledgeable about Facebook. You should look for the icon that says “Preferred Marketing Developer” when you are searching for a developer. That is a guarantee that you will get what you need.

What is needed to run a promotion on Twitter?

When running a promotion through Twitter, make sure that you give the participants the terms and conditions of entry into the contest. Twitter will be more challenging than other social media channels because of its 140-character maximum per tweet. You can get around it by making the rules available on a different web page. You would include a short link to the page in your tweets about the contest. Another option is having a landing page that states all of the contest rules and regulations. You would direct your website traffic to that page. It’s a pretty effective way to go. If your contest is more complicated, you may choose to hire someone else to do it all for you. In that case, the individual (or company) would make sure that everyone adheres to the rules. Whatever you do, remember to listen more than you speak. Your followers will be glad to tell you what they want.

A lottery

Use caution when running a lottery: If you are running any sort of lottery, you must make sure that it is not deemed illegal. If your contest contains a prize, random winner selection and money involved in the contest, it is considered a lottery. If you remove any of the three elements that were just mentioned, your contest won’t be considered a lottery. The one that you probably will not want to eliminate is the prize. After all, why else would anyone want to enter the contest if not to win a prize of some kind?

Creating a buzz for your contest

Contests can be very valuable and effective for your business. However, it is very important to realize that if people are not aware of your promotion they can’t get involved with it and they can’t tell other people about it. Promoting the promotion is critical to your success. The more people share the information, the more buzz will be created and the greater the potential your promotion has of going viral. Of course, you must also be careful not to cross the line from popularity to spam. Make sure that you don’t offer a reward to those willing to share information about your promotion (at least, not directly). Thanking them, of course, is perfectly appropriate.

Promote your contest on a regular basis

You should make sure to talk about your contest to your audience members on a regular basis (although not too much). You want to give people as much information as you feel is necessary but, at the same time, you don’t want to cram it down their throats. Sharing contest milestones is an excellent idea and one that will definitely interest your audience. If appropriate, you can also share content.

Enhance the promotion of your contest

Whenever possible, get some of your online associates to speak about your contest too. The more people who talk about it, the more attention the contest will receive. You can invite some of your online associates (who also happen to be influencers) to be judges in the contest. Using their names will encourage other people to want to participate in the contest.

Conclusion

Contests and other promotions are very effective in increasing the number of followers that you have for your business. You should consider it as one of many effective tools in your social media marketing strategy armamentarium. Besides that, contests are fun and everyone likes to have fun, at least once in a while. Make sure that you plan your promotion very well before you execute anything. Your hard work and strategic planning will definitely pay off.

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