In today’s hyper-competitive media landscape, capturing and retaining audience attention is no small feat. The secret? Interactive contests and sweepstakes that not only entertain but also deeply engage your viewers. Whether you’re looking to boost participation, create buzz, or solidify brand loyalty, these four innovative ideas are tailor-made for media companies ready to take their engagement game to the next level.

🚀 1. Ignite the Excitement with Real-Time Voting

Turn your live events into interactive experiences.

Imagine this: Your viewers aren’t just watching—they’re participating in real-time. Whether it’s a talent show, an awards ceremony, or any live broadcast, real-time voting transforms passive viewers into active participants.

Case in Point: One of our major media clients in Singapore pulls off an annual awards contest with real-time voting. Think “American Idol” level excitement, where viewers vote live for their favorite acts or nominees, and the results are displayed instantly, ramping up the thrill. If you’re wondering how to run a sweepstakes like this, Votigo can help you manage the entire process seamlessly.

Why It Works: It’s all about immediacy. The more involved your audience feels, the more likely they are to stick around, share, and talk about your event long after it’s over.

🎨 2. Unleash Creativity with Fan Art, Photo, & Video Contests

Your audience is more creative than you think—let them prove it.

Give your fans a platform to express their passion for your content. Fan art, photo, and video contests are not just fun—they’re a goldmine for user-generated content that resonates deeply with your audience.

Case in Point: We’ve seen incredible results when fans are invited to create artwork or short videos inspired by their favorite shows or characters. The best entries? They’re showcased on your platform, with winners receiving exclusive prizes like signed memorabilia or VIP event passes. By incorporating sweepstakes administration and offering a streamlined entry process, you can encourage even more participation.

Why It Works: People love showing off their skills, especially when they’re passionate about the subject. Plus, it’s a win-win—you get to showcase amazing content while your audience feels recognized and rewarded.

🎉 3. Keep Them Hooked with Instant-Win Sweepstakes

Who says commercial breaks have to be boring?

Imagine turning those dreaded content breaks into mini-excitement bursts. Instant-win sweepstakes during these breaks keep your audience glued to their screens, eagerly awaiting the next chance to win.

Case in Point: During a live-streamed event, sprinkle in some instant-win opportunities by flashing entry codes on screen. Winners could snag everything from cash to exclusive content access. It’s the perfect way to keep viewers engaged, even when their favorite show is on pause. Incorporating social media giveaways into these promotions can amplify reach, especially with an Instagram giveaway element.

Why It Works: The thrill of winning—especially instantly—is a powerful motivator. Plus, it adds an element of unpredictability that keeps viewers tuned in.

💎 4. Reward Loyalty with a VIP Experience

Turn your most loyal fans into brand ambassadors.

Loyalty deserves to be rewarded, and what better way than by turning your biggest fans into VIPs? Incorporate a loyalty program that’s more than just points—it’s a gateway to exclusive experiences.

Case in Point: Offer your most engaged viewers the chance to earn points that can be redeemed for entries into exclusive sweepstakes. The prizes? Think behind-the-scenes tours, meet-and-greets with creators, or even VIP passes to your biggest events. And don’t forget, integrating sweepstakes administration into your loyalty platform ensures everything runs smoothly.

Why It Works: Loyalty programs foster deeper connections, making your most devoted fans feel like they’re part of something special. And when they’re rewarded, they’re more likely to keep coming back—and bring others with them.

Ready to Revolutionize Your Audience Engagement with a Rewards Program?

These four contest ideas aren’t just about running promotions—they’re about creating unforgettable experiences that resonate with your audience and amplify your brand. Whether it’s a photo contest, video contest, loyalty program, rewards program, or social media giveaway, Votigo specializes in crafting and managing these types of interactive campaigns, ensuring every contest not only runs smoothly but also hits all the right notes with your audience.

Let’s make your next campaign one to remember. Contact us today and let’s get started!

Looking to run a giveaway on Instagram? We’ve got you covered!

Let Votigo be your one-stop show for your next Instagram Sweepstakes or Contest.

1. Define Your Goals: Determine what you want to achieve with your Instagram Giveaway, such as increasing followers, engagement, or brand awareness.

2. Choose a Relevant Prize: Select a prize that resonates with your audience and is relevant to your brand.

3. Set the Rules:

  – Eligibility: Specify who can enter (e.g., age, location). Make sure to comply with local laws and Instagram’s promotion guidelines.

   – Entry Requirements:

     – Follow: Participants must follow your Instagram account.

     – Like: Ask participants to like the giveaway post.

     – Comment: Require participants to comment on the Instagram post, such as by answering a question or tagging friends. Specify how many friends they should tag.

     – Tagging Friends: Encourage participants to tag friends in the comments to increase reach. Clarify if there are limits to the number of tags.

Find our about running a Sweepstakes on Instagram

     – Hashtag: Create a unique and memorable hashtag for the Instagram giveaway. Participants must use this hashtag in their posts or stories.

     – Share: Optionally, ask participants to share the Instagram post to their stories for additional entries.

   – UGC Content Submission: If applicable, participants may need to submit original content, such as photos or videos, using the giveaway hashtag.

   – Privacy: Inform participants that their profiles need to be public for the duration of the giveaway for their entries to be visible.

   – Duration: Clearly state the start and end dates and times for the giveaway.

4. Create a Post: Design an eye-catching giveaway post that clearly outlines the prize, entry rules, and duration of the giveaway.

5. Promote the Intagram Giveaway: Share the sweepstakes on your Instagram feed, stories, and other social media channels. Consider collaborating with influencers or partners to reach a wider audience.

6. Monitor Entries: Keep track of the entries using the chosen hashtag, comments, or any other method specified in the rules.

7. Select and Announce the Winner: Let Votigo handle the winner selection to ensure you choose the winner fairly. Announce the winner on your Instagram account and contact them directly.

8. Follow Up: Thank all participants and encourage them to stay engaged with your brand. Share the winner’s post if appropriate.

9. Analyze the Results: Evaluate the success of the giveaway by analyzing metrics like follower growth, engagement rate, and any new leads or sales generated.

10. Learn and Improve: Use the insights gained to refine your strategy for future giveaways.

Votigo Instagram Giveaways

Due to its rising popularity, social media has already become a powerful tool for the business of any industry to connect and interact with its audience. According to recent research, social media accounts for over 34% of the time people spend on the Internet, which stimulates more and more stores and brands to go online for the audience to widen and increase their awareness. That is why social media strategy is now a crucial part of digital marketing.

In this article, we will analyze the key points of applying the social media marketing strategy to the business and provide you with some useful tips on how to create an efficient social strategy for your business development plan. 

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Social Media Strategy: Why It Matters?

First of all, it is greatly important to find out the main reasons and benefits of creating the social media strategy, and the first one we would like to point out is that billions of people use it. Having created the correct plan for your social account or business development can significantly boost your business promotion. 

Secondly, planning all the steps in advance is easier to stay competitive in any industry. Also, it is a great method for interacting with your audience, improving website traffic, and sales revenue. Last but not least, it supplements your website by supplying a stable number of visitors and increasing the audience as well. 

Now, let’s talk in numbers: over 90% of the Instagram audience say that they start following the brand, going to its website, or make a purchase there. Over 90 million small businesses use Facebook for their e-commerce. And up to 69% of users watch a video about the product on YouTube to think over purchasing. 

Impressive, isn’t it?

Key Tips for Creating a Strong Social Strategy

1) Create S.M.A.R.T. Objectives

To make your strategy efficient, it should meet the criteria of being:

• S is for specific – targeted to a certain audience;
• M is for measurable – aimed at income increasing;
• A is for attainable – close to reality, those that can be actually achieved;
• R is for relevant – based on real information and statistics;
• T is for time-bound – measured with the deadlines so as to track the progress. 

If used properly, these S.M.A.R.T. goals can significantly help you to create a powerful strategy for your business. 

2) Know Your Audience

By knowing your audience it is much easier to understand the core idea of your strategy, as it is oriented at the final consumer of your business. That means that you can interact with your audience via social media accounts in the exact way they want you to do. In addition, it is an important point for turning your followers into customers for your business. 

For this purpose, the most common metrics analyzed are location, age, interests, occupation, and even average income. After pointing out the needs and wants of your audience, it would be much easier to get their attention on the Internet and boost your interaction. 

3) Analyze the Competitors

Sometimes when your mind is blank on what are the lack points of your social media strategy, it is quite useful to feel yourself in consumers’ shoes by going to your competitors’ pages. Point out the features you like and dislike about their account, which you would like to redo, and which one would be better to apply to your own account? Then make a short comparison of what are the strong and the lack sides of both your and competitors’, after what we strongly recommend to take a sheet of paper and write all these ideas, even the most unusual ones. 

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This list may become a huge booster for your improving strategy, so do not miss it!

4) Create Unique Content

One of the key points of the social strategy is to make enthralling and memorized content that will be catching the audience’s attention and help you to develop their interest in your product. Of course, it shouldn’t be too large and boring, so we recommend you to stick to the KISS principle (Keep It Short and Simple). Also, it is a great option to use some help from the Essay Writer Pro, so as to increase your content efficiency. 

According to Forbes, well-planned content is one of the keys to building successful strategies in social media, as in such a way you are more likely to meet all the requirements of your audience and establish a close connection with it. 

5) Promote Your Idea

However, it is now enough to make the points mentioned above, as it is also essential to make an effective promotion plan to make everything work out. That means you also have to mind the ads that can be applied to your business and how to operate it. For example, by knowing the preferences of your audience you can easily make a targeted ad on Facebook or Instagram because it is more likely to meet your consumer via advertising on social media. 

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For instance, make a short video of your product, its benefits, or cases where it can be helpful so to present it to the potential consumer. It is discovered that over 30% of people would like to watch the videos of the product before thinking over its purchase. Thus, applying the video content to your social media ads can be also a good point to include in your strategy.

Conclusion

All in all, the social media strategy nowadays is an irregular tool which can greatly boost your business and stay competitive in any industry. Here we have presented the main reasons for creating your own strategy and added 5 efficient ways for you to include while making it. These methods can be applied to any social network so there is no need for worrying.

Without any doubt, we recommend you to create your social media development plan immediately and check its efficiency on your own. 

Our team wishes you good luck with it!

How do you keep your audience engaged on social media? Running social media contests is a great way to boost your brand online and increase engagement. In fact, social media contests have the potential to generate thousands of entries and reach millions of people. We’ve gathered six social media contest ideas to help you keep your audience interested and engaged.

#1 Create an exciting hook
Your hook must be exciting and intriguing enough to get your audience on board. However, before you rush to choose your hook, it’s crucial to choose the prize first. The award can consist of a pre-paid vacation, a gift card, your product, or another brand-related product.
Now, as you’ve figured out the prize, let’s determine the hook for your contest. Some prizes will sell themselves. Who doesn’t want to go on a fully paid vacation to the Bahamas? In this case, the prize itself can be the hook.
If you can’t afford to send the lucky winners to the Bahamas, there are other ways to hook your audience. For example, you can hype up the exclusivity of the prizes. Award the winners with the best-selling products or with the items in their wishlist.

#2 Encourage user-generated content
Encouraging entrants to create branded content is one of the best ways to engage your audience. User-generated content (UGC) is any content (e.g. pictures, reviews, posts, videos, etc.) that has been created and posted by users on social media. For many brands, UGC is the primary method of engaging their audience. Not only does UGC engage your audience, but it also has an impact on purchase decisions. Additionally, UGC contributes to building trust and credibility as customers display your products in their online “testimonials.”

How to encourage UGC in social media contests? You can require entrants to post a picture of your product on their Instagram or Facebook story with a particular hashtag to participate in the contest. For example, the world-famous brand Heinz launched a competition with prizes. According to the rules, users must take a photo of their holiday tables, leave a request on the website or hashtag under the publication on Twitter or Instagram. Among the participants, there will be a drawing of certificates for $ 100 or a trip to visit relatives. In this way, Heinz has stimulated the generation and distribution of user-generated content.

Important note: Always request permission before sharing UGC and credit the original content creator in the description.

#3 Put on a vote contest
Running a vote contest is another great way to boost user engagement on social media. Regardless of the size of your company and your budget, vote contests are easy to put on and can be used by all. Also, vote contests are a great way to show your followers that their opinion matters.
Provide your customers with more interactive opportunities as you post vote contests regularly. To increase engagement, make sure that the topic of the vote resonates with your audience. Vote contests that are fun and relate to audiences’ lifestyles are the best engagement boosters. For example, Mediacorp managed to put on a voting contest using Votigo customize contest platform.

You can also set up a simple guessing game to engage your audience and award the contestant whose answer is correct. For example, you can post a picture featuring a bunch of your products and ask how many of a particular product your followers see. Don’t be afraid to get creative on this one. Try to create a guessing game that will grab your followers’ attention.
Additionally, you can ask for the email of your voters as they submit their responses. This will help you build up your mailing list and reach a wider audience with your email marketing campaign.

#4 Run a sweepstake
Sweepstakes is an easy and fast way to engage your Facebook followers. A sweepstake is a lottery that rewards a prize to a randomly selected winner. Your followers enter their personal info, including their email, and click ‘Enter Sweepstakes.’ Once they’ve entered the competition, your followers can share the post and invite others to participate.
Alternatively, you can ask your participants to come out with a creative comment, follow your Facebook account, or like the post. Professionals from Ivory Research, an essay writing services company, suggest that running sweepstakes are a great way to boost engagement rates and generate more leads as participants must interact with your page and share their email to enter the competition.
This AccuWeather sweepstakes campaign created by Votigo is a great example.

#5 Run a daily prize contest
Running a daily prize contest is another effective way to keep your followers engaged and interested in your campaign. The main idea behind daily prize contests is that you have a series of prizes designated specifically for each day of the campaign. For example, you can give out your products to the winners of the sweepstake each day of the week.
Besides improved engagement rates, you’ll get a valuable insight on which products motivate contestants to participate more.

#6 Use contests to support a cause
Did you know that the majority of Americans are supporting socially responsible organizations? In fact, running a charity contest is an amazing way to keep your customers engaged. Use your social media contest to support a cause that aligns with your company’s values and social mission. For example, you can run a vote contest asking your participants to choose a non-profit for you to make a donation.

How to select a prize?
Now, let’s figure out how to select a prize worth participating in a contest. It’s best to have a prize that is somehow related to your industry or your product. For example, you can give out an exclusive gift card or some of your most popular products.
Many service providers fail to create social media contests as they can’t offer a tangible prize to the winner. If you’re a service provider struggling to come up with a prize, consider giving out your services.
Here is another great example by Votigo of how you can offer products and coupons as a prize. Notice how they include multiple prizes.

Conclusion
There are many ways you can employ contests to boost user engagement. Hopefully, this article has given you a better idea of the different types of social media contests.

Stockings hung with care on the fireplace mantel…

Gingerbread towels added to your kitchen decor….

Holiday trimmings added right down to Christmas pillows…

The holiday season has a lot of unforeseen expenses. That’s why so many people during this time of year are open to opportunities to offset some costs or, at the very least, for a few free goodies. There is a definite reason why Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are so popular. It’s also the reason why so many companies choose to run sweepstakes (otherwise known as giveaways) this time of year.

As a sweepstakes management company, we like to consider ourselves optimists. If you’re thinking about conducting a sweepstakes this season, we urge you to go for it. However, it is really important that you take the time to carefully consider all of the possible pitfalls to conduct a smart giveaway that will have a positive, lasting impact on your business.

Here are 8 tips to keep in mind if your company is considering running a holiday sweepstakes:

#1. It’s important to establish your goals.
Holiday Sweepstakes can be great for your business, particularly in a year that has been challenging for many businesses to stay afloat. If you do it right, sweepstakes can help to: a) increase social media following and website traffic, b) raise brand awareness, c) deepen your relationship with existing customers and d) build the hype for new products. However, in order to accomplish any of these goals, it is critical that you outline the results that you want to see out of your giveaway before you begin.

Remember, since this giveaway will be happening in a limited time frame during the holidays, you need to be extra smart about setting your goals so you can achieve them by the end of the season. A great way to set smart goals? Use the S.M.A.R.T. acronym and set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. For more information on this tool, refer to this article.

#2. Have a plan to stand out from the competition.
This means investing in stellar graphics, engaging videos and solid copywriting. Also, have a plan to garner engagement, both paid and organic, right off the bat. If there is one tip we can offer in standing out, it’s this: be authentic. People relate to authenticity. Whether you’re funny or more sentimental, always make sure it is in line with your brand, both as it is now and where you would like it to be post-sweepstakes.

#3. Establish your audience.
If you’re a business that is just starting out or you’re a business on the verge of pivoting due to this pandemic, politics or any 2020-related shenanigans, ensure that you take the time to map out your ideal audience for this giveaway. Keep in mind that while you can have multiple target audiences for your company, that doesn’t mean that you need to have multiple targeted audiences for your giveaway. For example, while your product may appeal to both young moms looking for gifts for their 4-6 year olds and 80+ grandparents looking for gifts for their teenage grandchildren, you will have wildly different advertising approaches for both. You may not have the resources to develop campaigns appealing to both, so it’s critical that you tailor your marketing to one or the other. Once you’ve set your audience(s), make sure you figure out their pain points and talk directly to them through your marketing outreach.

#4. Consider if a sweepstakes is right for you or if a contest is a better option.
It’s important to know the difference between sweepstakes and contests. As a refresher, in contests, winners are not chosen at random but are chosen based on skill. Entry can be free or require purchase (in most states). This can be a great way to deepen a relationship with an already existing audience that uses your products or services to further a skill. For example, if you are a company that sells high-end art supplies, your audience may be more drawn to an opportunity to share their work and compete for potential prizes and public recognition.

In sweepstakes, winners are random and purchase cannot be required for entry (purchase can be monetary or non-monetary). A caveat to this is that you can have an option for purchase for entry if, and only if, you also provide a free Alternative Means of Entry (AMOE). Sweepstakes are great for promoting a brand or products unrelated to skill. It is also a great option for the holidays considering that people may be limited on their free time for competitions and some entrants might be attempting to transfer a potential prize as a gift.

#5. Choose the right marketing platform for your business.
Do research to find out where your audience hangs out. 18-22 year old college students? You better be on TikTok. 40 year olds with a mortgage and 2 kids? Facebook might be a better route for you. Wherever they are is where you should be. Also, since this is a holiday promotion, make sure you are sensitive to the holidays that they celebrate.

#6. Your prize really matters.
A few factors to consider when determining your prize: target audience, budget, shipping costs, desirability and whether you want to highlight new products or reinvigorate interest in older products. One more thing: consider that this year is different from any other year due to COVID-19. In previous years, you may have offered a prize related to experiences involving contact with other people such as travel. In 2020, however, you have to be absolutely sure that you are aware of current restrictions, limitations and risks that could impact a recipient claiming their prize.

#7. Consider that this year is different from any other year.
Not only does this impact the prizes, it impacts everything from what your audience wants right now to what platform you use to host your sweepstakes. Make sure you are viewing your sweepstakes through the lens of 2020. For example, consider that TikTok is more popular than ever and, particularly if you are appealing to a younger tech-savvy crowd, you may want to consider advertising your sweepstakes on this platform.

#8. Make sure you are following the rules.
From income taxes to restrictions on alcohol giveaways to prizes above a certain value needing to be registered and bonded, there are a lot of sweepstakes guidelines that are commonly overlooked and can lead to damaging legal consequences. For an example of some of these restrictions, read our recent article here. Due to the potential liability, we always recommend that you consult a sweepstakes management company before running any giveaway.

Planning on running a sweepstakes this holiday season?

We hope these tips have helped. If you need more guidance, we’re currently offering a free, 30 minute holiday sweepstakes consultation at Votigo. Contact us to schedule yours today.

Did you know that running a social media contest is an amazing way to increase engagement and boost your brand online? In fact, over 70% of companies use some sort of gamification or contest in their engagement strategy. Social media contests are so popular because of their potential to reach millions of users and generate thousands of entries.

We’ve gathered a list of the most common reasons why social media contests fail. In addition, you’ll find advice and step-by-step instruction on how to prevent your contest from failing.

Why do social media contests fail?

Reason #1 Prize isn’t worth participating
Bad choice of a prize is the first and most common reason why social media contests fail. Irrelevant prizes have no value to the potential participants. Many users decide not to enter because they simply lack motivation.

Reason #2 Lack of instruction on how to enter the contest
Confusing instructions in another common reason why a contest can be ruined. If you don’t see any contest participants, it’s likely because they don’t know how to enter. Sometimes, the contest rules are poorly described. Other times, they are so complicated and confusing that no one wants to enter. Either way, lack of instruction is a major reason why your social media contest can fail.

Reason #3 No follow-up
Leaving your contest deprived of your attention after posting it is another reason why it may fail. Keep in mind that participants’ interest in the contest dies out eventually after they’ve entered. Many contest creators fail to follow up with the participants to keep them interested and encourage sharing.

Reason #4 Lack of visuals
Another common reason why a contest may fail is the lack of visuals. Did you know that human brains process visual information 60,000 times faster than text? That’s why it’s so important to present the rules and the contest itself in a visually appealing way. Otherwise, your contest can get lost in the feed and left unnoticed.

Reason #5 Poor marketing
Last but not least, poor marketing can keep your contest away from going viral. When you’re hosting a social media contest, you can’t just put out a couple of posts and expect them to do the advertising. A significant number of potential participants will pass your contest if it’s poorly marketed.

How do you prevent your social media contest from failing?

Now, as you’ve discovered the most common mistakes and reasons why your contest can fail, let’s dive deep and learn how to prevent them from happening.

1. Evaluate your purpose and resources
Evaluating your resources is the first step that’ll prevent your social media contest from failing. It’s important to identify the purpose of your contest during this stage. Do you want to increase social media engagement? Do you want to grow your email list? Or are you interested in encouraging user-generated content? Answering these questions will help you identify the contest entry structure and rules.

Also, you’ll need to set up the budget for your social media contest. Make sure to consider the cost of your prize, promotion, and any other services you’ll need.

2. Choose a prize
For your contest to be successful, the prize should be worth participating in. Offer something unique and exclusive. It’s important to choose a prize that is valuable and relevant to your audience. Speaking of value and relevance, you don’t want to give out free pizza if you own a yoga studio.

Not particularly sure how to choose your prize? Here are some ideas for contest prizes:

• Your brand’s gift card
• Your product or industry-related product
• A unique experience, like a pre-paid vacation
• Money

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If you consider a fairly expensive prize, determine whether the return of investment for growing a customer base or increasing an engagement rate is worth the investment.

3. Determine the contest entry structure
Once you’ve set your purpose, evaluated your resources, and chosen a prize, the next step is identifying your contest entry structure. This step includes determining which type of contest and which social media platform to use.

When it comes to choosing a medium, it’s better to pick a social media platform with the highest engagement rates. Even though it’s easier to use one social media platform, using multiple mediums can be more effective. This will help you increase user engagement throughout several platforms and reach a wider audience.

After choosing a medium for your contest, you’ll need to identify the type of contest and entry requirements. There are different types of contests, including a photo or video contest, vote contest, sweepstakes, and like & share. Each type of contest comes with its own requirements. You will need to consider the rules, length, and age appropriateness.

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Consider asking for an email as an entry requirement. This will help you build up your email list. However, don’t ask for too much personal information, it may divert your followers from participating.

4. Clearly communicate the contest rules
Once you’ve developed the contest requirements, it’s important to clearly communicate them to the audience. It’s useful to present the rules in steps, so they’re easier to follow. Also, you can present them in the form of visuals. Unlike plain text, visuals are better attention grabbers. The start and end dates of the contest should be clearly stated in the instruction.

Have someone proofread your contest rules before posting. Make sure the wording is easy to follow. The rules should be clear, understandable, and simple.

5. Promote your contest
You can’t just put out your contest on social media and expect crazy engagement. Contest promotion starts with the wording. For example, you can hype up the exclusivity of the prizes. If you’re struggling with writing your contest copy, use the help of professional grammar checking services, like Grammarly or Essay Tigers.

Send follow-up emails to keep the participants engaged and interested in your contest. Include a word of encouragement to facilitate reposts and sharing with family and friends.

6. Evaluate, analyze, and reflect
Evaluation is the final step that will help you avoid the failure of your social media contest. When your contest is finished, you announce the winner, award them, and thank everyone for participating. It might seem like the contest is over for the participants, but you still have got one last thing to do.

Running analytics on your social media contest is crucial because it helps you measure success and adjust future contest campaigns. Here are some questions to consider when measuring the return on social media contests:

• How many users entered your contest? How many voted? How many actively participated?
• How much time did users spend engaging?
• How much sharing took place?
• How many new followers on each platform?
• How many users opted into your email list?

Answering these questions will help you evaluate your success. Use the data to measure and improve your efforts.

Final thoughts
Before posting your contest, make sure to read the contest rules of the social media platforms you’re targeting. From Instagram to Facebook, each platform has its own rules and regulations. If you fail to comply with the rules, your contest and your social media page can be shut down.

Using social media for your business can help to elevate your audience and customer base. With more than two billion people using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms, you can achieve some serious exposure and therefore increase the chance to succeed.

Beginners in social media marketing often find the task of converting the audience daunting. Of course, there are numerous factors that influence the outcome of a social media strategy, such as experience. Lack of previous experience with social media audiences can result in some challenges.

This article is here to ensure that these challenges are eliminated even if you have little or zero experience with social media. It brings you ten laws that all effective social media strategies follow to provide the best possible outcomes.

Abiding by these laws will help you to build your brand on social media and create a foundation that will serve you well in the future. Let’s begin.

1. The Law of Accessibility

Social media users encounter hundreds of posts every day. For example, 55 percent of them watch video posts every day, according to BrandWatch. Along with other posts, this translates into gigabytes of information.

With so much content out there, you need to do your best to stand out. Don’t disappear after publishing some posts. Always be available. This involves a constant effort to publish and participate in conversations with other users.

2. The Law of Patience

The exact statistics are unknown but it’s safe to assume that the competition in social media is fierce. For brands, this means that immediate success is just impossible. There is no way you can become well-known and profitable overnight.

This law states that you have to commit to the long-term strategy instead of hoping for a quick success. You don’t want to get your heart broken, do you?

3. The Law of Focus

Surveys show that people trust the brands that concentrate on something specific instead of being an expert in everything. It’s just better to avoid positioning yourself as jack-of-all-trades because you will turn into a master of none.

The law of focus is important for your social media strategy because it teaches you to focus on building a strong brand that specializes in something specific.

4. The Law of Influence

Social media users now turn to influencers for information and entertainment more than ever. According to Influencer Orchestration Network, 86 percent of women use the experience of social influencers before making a purchase. The same source also suggests that 51 percent of social media marketers say that videos produce the best return on investment.

You’ve probably guessed what this law is all about. Use social media influencers to increase conversion.

5. The Law of Listening

The idea of this law is pretty simple: instead of always talking, listen to what your online audience is saying. A customer-centered social media strategy is more beneficial because it helps to identify the most attractive content for potential customers. By listening, we mean reading the content of social media users and joining discussions to add some value to them. As the result of meaningful discussions, a brand can gain a positive reputation and image.

6. The Law of Quality

People who are involved in discussions with the brand on a constant basis are quality followers who need to be kept close. They are the ones that keep the conversation going and build the image of the brand, so their importance should not be underestimated.

Even one quality follower is worth much more than a thousand people who don’t interact with the brand after the initial contact. Quality reigns supreme in this case.

7. The Law of Value

As mentioned above, social media is a highly competitive environment. Brands that don’t value the conversations of social media users will inevitably fail. Those that try their best to create quality useful content for their target audience survive.

This is the law of value: your social media strategy must include only helpful content for your target audience. No value = no interest.

8. The Law of Reciprocity

Converting social strategies involve taking interest in the content of social media users. Why? It would be unreasonable to expect them to take interest in your content if you don’t comment on and share their posts as well.

In simple words, a good relationship starts with a favor. The outcome is beneficial for both the brand and its followers.

9. The Law of Acknowledgment

Making as many connections as possible is one of the primary objectives of brands on social media. No person should be ignored if he or she tries to contact you. Acknowledge them and try to establish positive relationships from the day one.

Otherwise, contacting you again won’t be an option for an ignored person. That’s the law.

10. The Law of Compounding

This law is connected to the law of value reciprocity. If a brand produces interesting and helpful content for its followers, there is a good chance they will find it good enough to be shared on other social media platforms.

As the result, your content will provide more exposure, therefore better online presence for the brand.

This piece was originally written by Tom Jager for the Heyo Blog.