Photo from Woman's Day
Hosting a giveaway on your Facebook Page is an amazing way to increase your Fan count. Recently, we witnessed a ShortStack Facebook Page go from 4,000 Page Likes to 45,000 in three hours– we’re not joking. With such an incredibly fast rise in popularity, it’s safe to say the aftermath of it all wasn’t all positive. Can you image having to supply 41,000 free products when you were only prepared to giveaway a hundred? Nightmare. Here’s some simple tips and tricks to gaining at least a fraction of that success for your Facebook giveaway while keeping your out-of-control-o-meter in a safe positon.
Get Something in Return
In planning your Facebook giveaway, think hard about what the purpose of your giveaway is. And don’t just think the primary goal is to increase your Page Like count. It’s inevitable that if free stuff is for the taking, Page Likes will rise. How else can your business benefit from hosting a giveaway? Strategize your giveaway plan of action.
First step: Create a short entry form. Make sure you get emails and other information from your users that will compliment your greater goal, whether that’s to understand your target customer better or to gain brand insight from an outsider perspective.
Second step: Do what you say. Break a promise and expect scorned new Fans to flock to your Facebook wall with questions and comments asking about their winnings.
Third step: Follow through. By now you should have a bigger RSS subscriber list and a lot more Facebook fans, the focus now is on how keep those users interested in your brand. Use a good form of follow through like a “Thanks” email or try another incentive like a coupon code to continue the connection with your new fans and to prove your worth and value as business to them. But please, don’t get all spammy with it.
Make it Easy
Successful giveaways are ones that are made easy to participate in. The worst mistake in hosting any kind of giveaway is to make the process of getting what’s free really complicated as this will discourage most users from involving themselves. If it takes more than 60 seconds for a user to figure out what the giveaway is about and how to enter, your giveaway has the potential to fail. Being straightforward, even when things seem obvious or simple, is the best way to go.
Get off Facebook
Your non-fan reach will be much stronger if you actively pursue users who are fans or followers of other social media platforms or websites that go beyond Facebook. For example, creating relationships with influential bloggers who have interests that parallel those of your business can be largely beneficial as their fans, with some work, can too become your fans! Also, for giveaways in particular, targeting popular coupon bloggers and websites is your best route to advertising your giveaway and seeing large jumps in traffic to your Facebook Page.
Set a Limit
Although it’s amazing to go from 4,000 Fans to 45,000 Fans in a very short span of time, there are definite complications that can quickly arise if you’ve used a giveaway method to do so. To avoid the damaging side effects of not being able to supply the giveaway prize to your applicants, set a limit. For example, “the first 200 users to Like our Facebook Page gets a sticker.” This creates both an incentive and a sense of urgency for users to Like your Page.
No comments yet.