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Social media contests are extremely popular on social platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Ecommerce brands use social media contests to attract new customers, increase brand awareness, and boost sales.
To help you start planning an effective social media contest for your Shopify store or ecommerce brand, here are the benefits and a few things to consider before requesting a quote for contest management.
Ready to dive in? Let’s go!
Article Contents
IN THIS ARTICLE:
- How do social media contests benefit brands?
- Why should an ecommerce brand use a contest company?
- What ecommerce brands should do after a social contest ends
Get a contest management quote
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What Is a Social Media Contest?
Social media contests allow participants to interact with brands on social media.
The most popular social media contests are held by brands on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
Top brands use contest and sweepstakes platforms to manage their promotions.
Participants submit user-generated content as their contest entries in exchange for a chance to win a prize for free. On the other hand, with the proper liability/releases, brands gain user-generated content that they can repurpose later for marketing.
Social media contests drive engagement, followers, and leads for companies because they allow consumers to interact with ecommerce brands outside of a transactional shopping experience.
The benefits of social media contests for ecommerce companies are numerous when they are properly planned and executed.
This is why we always recommend that companies work with a contest company or marketing agency specializing in social media contests when running a promotion.
Contest apps and platforms for ecommerce are designed to work with all top ecommerce platforms including Magento Commerce, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Squarespace, Wix eCommerce, PrestaShop, Shopify and others.
5 Benefits of Ecommerce Social Media Contests and Sweepstakes
Social media contests for ecommerce and Shopify stores are beneficial because:
1. Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty is extremely important for ecommerce brands due to the competition from marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.
As a result, a social media contest can be highly effective at building a community around your brand so that you can personalize your products or services to what customers wants.
By catering to your customers’ needs and wants, you’ll find that these customers will be happy to support and share your brand with their friends.
2. Contests Incentivize Potential Customers to Learn More
A social media contest is a great way to get a new audience to follow you on social media.
By offering the chance to win a free prize, you can get them to enter your contest and then use follow up messages to invite them to visit your website or Shopify store.
3. Product Launches
Ecommerce brands that offer subscription boxes are using social media contests to gain new subscribers.
With social media sweepstakes and contests, the chance to win a prize for free is a strong incentive to get people to subscribe.
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You can even sweeten the deal by offering a discount or free-trial period so that people can engage with your service during the contest and provide you with valuable feedback.
4. Increased Sales
Above all, social media contests are highly effective at increasing sales. Social media sweepstakes and contests drive free traffic to your ecommerce store which in turn can incentivize customers to make a purchase.
5. Engaged Social Media Followers
A social media contest is a great way to increase engagement among your brand’s social media fans. When a page attracts the right audience, it helps to increase comments, likes, pins, shares, and retweets.
And because the page is seeing a higher level of activity as a result of the contest, your fans will also stick around for more updates.
The key to a successful social media contest is to be able to continue to drive that same momentum after your promotion ends.
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So be sure to let your fans know what to expect in the coming weeks and when your next promotion might go live if they didn’t win this time.
Social Media Contest Ideas That Convert
Here are some innovative social media contest ideas that are effective for ecommerce. Tweak your social media contest so that it matches your brand resonates with your demographic.
- Photo Contest
- Video Submission Contest
- Write a Caption Contest
- Leave the Best Comment to Win Contest
- Essay Contest
- Scavenger Hunt Contest
- Hashtag Challenge Contest
- Vote Contest
- Holiday Social Media Contest
- Best Of Contest
Regardless of which social media contest idea you decide on, make sure that you give away an awesome prize. Good social media prizes need to:
- Deliver value. While your contest prize doesn’t have to be expensive, it should still be useful, unique, or simply existing.
- Relevant to your brand. Your social media contest prize should appeal specifically to your demographic and should be something that winners can show off to other participants. Your prize needs to inspire participants to create highly shareable user-generated content for the best results.
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What Are the Rules for Social Media Contests?
If you want to know the full rules regarding running sweepstakes and contest promotions for each platform, go to the official Terms of Service pages below:
Rules for Twitter Contests
Our guidelines for running promotions | Twitter Help
Rules for Pinterest Contests
Community guidelines | Pinterest Policy
Advertising guidelines | Pinterest Policy
Rules for LinkedIn Contests
Professional Community Policies | LinkedIn
Rules for Facebook Contests
Pages, Groups and Events Policies – Facebook
Rules for Instagram Contests
Promotion Guidelines | Instagram Help Center
Rules for TikTok Contests
Rules for YouTube Contests
YouTube’s contest policies and guidelines – Google Help
These pages were last updated on February 6, 2022.
Follow These Key Social Media Contest Rules for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Others
If you want to run a promotion on a platform like TikTok that doesn’t have specific guidelines for promotions, just make sure that you follow the rules set forth in the Terms of Service.
Best Practices for Social Media Contests
Do you want to know how to run a social media giveaway without it getting shut down by Facebook or Instagram?
In general, whenever you run a social media contest or sweepstakes on any social platform, be sure to do the following:
- Make sure that it’s clear that your contest is not affiliated with Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn
- Provide links to the contest official rules on every post
- Make it clear that the social media platform is not sponsoring your contest
- Understand what types of social media contests are allowed on the platform
- Don’t incentive prohibited actions to enter or win (e.g. liking, tagging or sharing a page excessively to earn entries)
- Get permission from all social media contests participants to use their user-generated content
- Make sure that the contest is administered on a business page and not a personal profile.
You should also know that the social media platform will not assist you in any way with your promotion.
As a result, if there are technical problems with your social media giveaway, it’s a good idea to work with a contest company so that they can fix any issues on your behalf and handle any customer support.
Get a draft contest rules quote
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Comply With the Law Including All Applicable Contest and Sweepstakes Laws
You must comply with all applicable sweepstakes and contest laws, including privacy laws, IP laws, anti-spam laws, and regulatory requirements that apply to sweepstakes and contests, such as registration and bonding if your sweepstakes is open to residents of certain states.
Make it clear in the social media contest official rules that all participants are expected to abide by the platform’s Terms of Service in order to be considered as eligible to win a prize.
You should also add that the contest sponsor (your company) reserves the right to investigate any potential contest fraud or misuse of the social media platform during the contest before awarding the prize to the contest winner.
A contest prize may be revoked and awarded to another winner if it’s determined that the user violated the User Agreement for the social site.
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Get Contest Company Quotes
Let’s talk! Hopefully, this article has given you a better idea of how to run an effective social media contest that benefits your brand. The next step is to work with a contest company to ensure that your contest is legally compliant.
Follow the rules to protect your social accounts and you’ll start reaping the benefits of a brand-boosting social media contest for ecommerce in no time!
Looking for a contest company to help you with your next promotion? Sweepsify helps you find top social media sweepstakes and contest administration companies in seconds. Create your free Premium account now to get started.
