8 Social Media Contest Ideas to Boost Your Engagement

Social media contests work incredibly well if they are properly organized. The right social media contests can engage the audiences, draw people’s attention, create brand loyalty, and more. In this article we collected the best ideas for contests on your social media. Read on to find out how to make users of your community more engaged and generate leads.

Social Media Contest Idea 1 - Comment To Win A Prize

It’s a classical but still effective method for conducting a contest. Comments under the post serve as identifications of users. By leaving responses the followers increase the activity on the account and let you pick a winner.

Write a short and catchy text with a description of the rules, add the picture of the prize, and set up a time frame. Don’t forget to pick a reliable service for the random selection of the winner.

This type of contest is right for expressing gratitude to your existing followers. To attract new followers you can ask the participants to tag a few friends under the post or use targeted ads.

Social Media Contest Idea 2 - Photo Caption

The idea here is the followers have to provide a caption for a photo you have posted.

The number one advice here is you have to choose something funny and at the same time related to your brand.

People like to show off their creativity and be appreciated.

Such contests usually achieve up to thousands of comments depending on the initial amount of followers.

What are the benefits of photo caption contests?

They significantly increase engagement, are entertaining for the audience, and are suitable for any social media platform. Also, they are OK with any subject. Is your account about the interracial couples or organic cosmetics, photo caption contests would work. The prize for such a contest doesn’t have to be expensive. Just featuring the winner in Stories may be enough if you have an engaged community.

Social Media Contest Idea 3 -Vote To Win

This idea is built on people’s love to share opinions.

The simplest way to run this contest is to suggest several products and ask members of the community to choose the best one.

And the prize might be the discount for the winning product or service. The duration of a discount can range from a week to months. “Vote to win” idea helps to kill two birds with one stone. It increases the engagement, collects feedback from the active users, and converts them into customers.

Social Media Contest Idea 4 - Follow And Share

If you are the owner of the store and want to get new followers, organize a “follow and share” contest.

Users have to follow your account and share the post if they want to win.

The first thing you need is a bright pic of a prize which might be one of the popular and useful products you sell.

Then create a short meaningful capture with terms of the raffle.

This idea is particularly good for contests on Facebook and Instagram. If you ask people to share a post in stories, don’t forget the time frame would be limited to 24 hours. Also, such contests usually need the support of targeted advertisements.

Social Media Contest Idea 5 - Hashtag Contests

Are you tired of design templates? Do you want to take your account look really alive and fresh? Throw a hashtag contest. Ask followers to make a pic with your product and post it on social media using a special hashtag.

A reward for such action can be a discount or valuable gifts. The advantages of this type of contest are you get user-generated content, increase the brand recognition, and boost sales. It’s also a good way to get more success stories for dating sites.

As you can see, it fits both for goods and services.

Social Media Contest Idea 6 - Chat To Win

Contests organized with the help of chat bots become more popular.

In order to participate users have to answer a few questions and click the messenger button. It should be mentioned that using chat bots is a paid feature. Is it worth it? If you need not only engagement but also new leads, the answer is yes. Also, this kind of approach to social media contests shows your company as innovative and relatable.

Social Media Contest Idea 7 - Enter To Win

One of the suitable platforms for “enter to win” contests is Twitter.

The reason is this platform offers an option for auto-following and auto-tweeting. Every person who enters your contest automatically becomes your follower on Twitter and tweets about the post. As a consequence, you get more fans and spread a word about your campaign through the social network.

Social Media Contest Idea 8 - Sweepstake Or Giveaway

This type of contest usually offers users the possibility to win a valuable prize and requires little effort.

The terms may ask the participants to follow the sponsor’s pages, leave a comment under the post or specify email address. Such contests are good for building followers base and getting email leads. A well-organized giveaway can provide you not only with new fans but also social information about them, and even user-generated content.

Conclusion

Social media contests help modern companies to stand out from the crowd and attract more clients. But to create a successful contest “social media competition” you need a strategy. First of all, don’t forget that a lot depends on the type of audience and targets you want to reach through organizing contests. Secondly, choose the social media platform right. For example, Facebook has the highest reach of the platforms based purely on the number of active users. Twitter is the easiest to share the contest. And Instagram offers a lot of opportunities for visual engagement. Make sure that your type of contest fits your audience, engagement level, and knowledge of your brand. Call to action and the bright picture of the prize are key ingredients to a successful contest on any social media platform.

Bio

Lilian O'Brien is a passionate journalist who enjoys writing about psychology and human relationships. Over the course of her career, she was a regular contributor to major media publications, and currently, she serves as an editor for onlinechatdatingsites.com.