How to run competitions on social media

Facebook is proving to be the best platform for competitions I have used in years. Entry is easy as is picking a winner and letting everyone know who won.

Social media is especially useful for attracting new shoppers. I know of plenty of new shoppers now visiting as a result of a competition I ran on Facebook.

Don't be overt about the competition

Write about a cool new product you have in store, and at the end of the post, say you will give two away to anyone who tags a friend in a comment to this post.

In one case recently I attracted over 500 comments and entries for a $10 spend via a 'boosted' highly targeted post. A secondary benefit was many additional likes of the business page.

While competitions in store have their place, running out-of-store competitions in a style that's appropriate to the target consumer is the best way to attach your business to lovers of the brand or product.

New traffic is the aim

It is vital we market our businesses outside our four walls as new traffic is mission critical to us with several key traditional product categories flat or in decline.

Here is a video I produced for retailer members of my store in Australia newsXpress that will take you through the process of creating a Facebook advert. My tip is to keep your target audience specific to your customer base and what you are promoting. Also as you will see in the video you only have to invest a small amount of money to get seen.