12,000 Likes Can’t Be Wrong

Facebook Competitions and Promotions from Codastar

Competition

Running a competition on Facebook can be an amazingly effective way to build a loyal audience on Facebook.

We have conceived and developed a range of bespoke Facebook competitions to suit our clients’ ambitions and goals, offering various ways for visitors to engage with companies on their Pages.

It really doesn’t matter if you offer a small prize or a large prize – competitions always prove effective. Sometimes a competition can be purely about building community and engagement, and it’s the chance to participate that attracts visitors, rather than a prize.

Offering competitions or promotions is a great way to build your community on Facebook and increase your following. Encouraging people to ‘like’ your page and receive your news and updates helps ensure that your products, services and content are reaching a receptive audience.

The Results

Briefs: Three of our recent clients

St Mary’s University

St Mary’s came to us because they wanted students to get involved online. Their intention was to make their Facebook Page a community hub for staff and students, and so a competition was an ideal way to increase participation on social media across campus.

We developed a photo competition for St Mary’s, where students were encouraged to submit photos of their ‘Best Fresher’s Face’ to win a prize. Alongside making the entry and upload process easy for students, we made sure St Mary’s had all the elements they needed – the ability to approve the submitted images before they appeared online, and terms and conditions that students had to click to confirm they’d read them. To help promote the competition the best photos could also be posted to St Mary’s Facebook timeline.

The competition saw very high student participation on Fresher’s Week, and the Facebook Page now has nearly 12,000 likes and healthy number of comments and shares greeting the posts to the timeline.

Korec Group

Korec were very interested in getting their existing clients to use and explore their social media channels. They could offer a very good prize, and we decided on a photo competition to attract clients to their Facebook Page. As the firm provide surveying equipment, we knew that clients would be all over the country, taking their photos in townscapes and countryside.

We developed a complex competition with various categories for entrants’ different locations, providing a route to entry forms specific to each category. We also made sure that high resolution images could be accepted – something Facebook does not normally cater for.

The competition proved so successful that it has run for three years in a row, with slight tweaks to the rules each year.

ABTA Love Travel

Travel company ABTA wanted to attract new clients. They had created a promotional video, and so we developed a competition that would focus on getting it seen and shared by visitors.

The competition offered visitors the chance to win festival tickets – they had to watch the video and answer a multiple choice question about its content. It was an ingenious way of getting a promotional video seen and shared!

ABTA were delighted with the competition. The views and viral sharing of the video were well beyond their expectations. It really proved how a fairly simple competition can spread the word about a company. ABTA’s Facebook likes and activity on their Page increased and so any content they now post is far more effective.

Examples

Solutions: 3 of Our Recent Clients

St Marys Facebook Page

St Mary’s University Photo Competition ‘The Best Fresher’s Face’

St Mary’s are attracting a young audience on Twitter – their students. They needed something that would encourage students to get involved and build the page’s community.

Guaranteed to raise a smile was the Best Freshers’ Face competition. The prize of £100 in restaurant vouchers and a St Mary’s hoody also helped!

Korec Group Photo Competition – Photograph their Product on Location

It makes so much sense it’s beautiful – Korec supply Trimble surveying equipment, so they had… a photography competition!

Obviously, anyone using the equipment would be out and about, so they were in the perfect place(s) to photograph the landscape or townscape and submit their entry.

Korec's Facebook Page

Abta's Facebook Page

ABTA Love Travel Competition – Watch the Promo Video to find the Answer

Competitions are always about rewarding visitors for doing something for you, but this concept was perfectly realized with the ABTA Love Travel competition. Visitors had to watch ABTA’s promotional video to get the answer to the competition question.

Facebook Icon

Conclusion

Facebook competitions are a simple and effective way for any business to generate new clients, increase likes and traffic to their social media channels, and build a community around their products and services. More generally, if firms are looking to spread word about themselves then a competition will go viral and get them seen.