IT is a New Year and many organizations will be planning their social media strategy for the quarter or the year. For the social media manager, one important feature of the strategy that is most likely to be ignored is a contest. This is because your brand may not be interested in budgeting for the rewards for winners. This said contests shouldn’t be relegated in your social media strategy and the gifts can be as simple as movie tickets for lovers. You don’t need to break the bank. Hence, here are five reasons contest should feature prominently in your social media campaign.
Free advertising
Brands today spend millions on advertising offline and online. This is good. But another smart way to advert especially if you are working on a budget is via a contest. This is because the mere idea of winning something will encourage them to participate. In fact, they will involve their friends especially when they have to vote.
Grow engagement
If you notice your social media engagement decline the just ended year, one way to recover from this is by running a social media contests. By so doing, your number of likes, comments and shares will definitely increase. It is also an opportunity to know and interact with your followers.
Increase your sales
Oftentimes, the focus of any social media contest is to increase the online presence of your brand. In other words, to allow people know about what you do. At the same time, you also want your followers to become customers. Therefore, it is important to provide a link to your website where prospective customers can patronize your business. If you are consistent
with your contest, sales from social media will steadily rise.
It is a reason to follow your brand
The contest is the easiest way to attract people to your brand on social media. It is a way to build loyal followers because they have something to look forward especially if winners are rewarded promptly. Before you know if you have 100 followers on twitter, it will be running into its thousands.
Get more visibility
A very cost-effective social media contest can get you the much-needed visibility you want. This due to the fact that brand will be seen by different people and it can even be featured on blogs and online media. In this case, you don’t need to pay influencers for tweets and retweets.
*This piece was sent in by Adeniyi Ogunfowoke, a PR Associate at Jumia Travel
