You can’t look at your News Feed on Facebook now-a-days without running into someone giving away a free iPad or a $100 gift card. Contests and promotions are everywhere. Third-party contesting applications are making it easy to run promotions on your Facebook Pages. Be careful, though, because even though setting up a Facebook contest may be simple, not all promotions are going to be effective. You can increase your chances of success by following some simple Facebook contest creation guidelines.

Facebook Contest Basics:

It’s not a guarantee, but if you’re rushing your contest design (as with any piece of marketing), you’re going to run into problems. Before you get started, ask yourself a few basic questions before you begin configuring your promotion:

What is your overall goal for your Facebook contest?

What are you trying to achieve with a contest? Typical contests are trying to either increase brand awareness and the number of “Likes” on a Page, or attempting to engage user through gathering feedback and developing brand advocates. Tailor your contest to your overall goals, and be careful not to run contests “just because”. Make sure you’re getting something valuable for your efforts.

Who is your audience?

Generally, there are only four types of contests that people run on Facebook: sweepstakes, essay, photo and video. Each type of contest speaks to an entirely different audience, so make sure you identify who you want your entrants to be. While video, photo, and essay contests are a GREAT way to collect content for your Page, they’re designed for highly engaged users, so expect to see a low entry rate if your typical wall post has many “Likes” but few comments.

How much can you spend?

Breaking the bank isn’t something you need to (or should) do, but you still need to keep your budget in mind. Setting a budget dictates both the quality of prize you’re able to give away, and the type of contest you should run. It’s okay to make users “work” to enter the contest, but the quality of the prize has to be worth the effort. Don’t ask participants to submit a video if the prize is just a sticker.

Make it Social

Social media is word-of-mouth marketing on steroids. If your contest isn’t inherently social, you’re missing the whole point of hosting it on a social media platform. The contest itself should engage users using the tools at hand. Let entrants share their entries or their voting choices, and make sure these votes get shared to their walls too! Give users the chance to spread your promotion by inviting them to share the contest on their walls after they enter.

Keep your contest simple

While innovative contest concepts may get big brands some awesome PR, keep in mind that these are just the success stories – there are just as many promotions that have majorly flopped due, in part, to their complexity. Better your odds of running a successful promotion by keeping things simple. Do you REALLY need to know job titles, marital statuses, or numbers of children? Every field a user has to submit directly affects the number of entries you receive, and fewer entries mean less exposure.

Your contest tab should be easy to find, easy to answer, and easy to share. Nobody wants spend time searching your contest (and they won’t). Link directly to your contest tab by regularly posting about it on the Page’s wall. Buying Facebook Ads can also be an effective strategy.

The contest tab itself shouldn’t let users miss the “Enter Now” button, and the same thing goes for the “Share” link. Don’t let potential uber-fans miss out on the chance to enter and brag about your contest by making things too complicated.

Consistent Facebook Engagement

Make a big deal out of the fact you’re giving something away! You should be talking about your contest on your Page’s wall, your newsletter, Twitter, and every other way you speak to your visitors! Be careful not to overdo it, though – there are essentially five points at which you should be posting about your contest in order to increase engagement without being annoying.

Let them know it’s coming

Before launching a promotion, let your fans know about it! Let your Facebook followers be the first to know what’s happening – they followed your Page for a reason. Give them a sneak peak of the contest’s details, drop some hints on the prize, or just tell them the day you’ll be launching the giveaway.

Launch with a bang!

Don’t just post it on your Facebook Page – Tweet about it, send out an e-newsletter, and use every tool in your arsenal to engage with your audience. Use your announcement as an opportunity to increase connections – a user who only receives a newsletter might suddenly become someone who likes your Facebook Page.
Remind them the contest is still taking place
Has it been a couple of days since you’ve launched? Remind your Facebook fans that it’s still taking place. They may not have seen the initial hype, so get in there and remind everyone that they still have time to enter, just be careful not to don’t overdo it. Message fatigue can become a real problem if all you talk about is the contest – use the contest to promote your business, not the other way around.

Warn them about the amount of time remaining

Is there only a week left to enter the contest, or is voting ending this Friday? Let your fans know! Reminding them that they only have limited time to get involved will help spur those users who haven’t yet participated but want to.
Announce the winner
This is obvious, right? You might surprise yourself – it’s not unusual to find a Facebook contest that never announced a winner. Don’t let your efforts become anticlimactic – create a win-win for your business and the entrants by making a big deal of the winner. It sets the tone for future contests and indirectly sends a message to other fans, reminding them of the incentives for participating. What’s more, it’ll encourage future participation and help strengthen your relationships with your Page’s active fans.

Try Facebook Ads

If your budget allows, utilizing Facebook Ads is a great and affordable way to dramatically increase the reach of your promotion. A well designed ad is the single most important element of a successful Facebook Ad campaign.
Keep the design aesthetically simple and be as concise as possible while still conveying your promotion’s necessary information. Be effective with your ad-spend by targeting users who share the interests and demographics of those who already like your Page. Use Facebook Ads as an opportunity to engage and grow your fan base, as well as promote your contest.

After Your Contest Has Ended

So your promotion just ended – you’re done, right? Well, sort of, but you’ll be missing out if you leave it at that.

You ran the promotion for a reason, and gathered useful information along the way. It’s time to put that data to use! Throw that information into a spreadsheet and use it as a learning opportunity. What did you learn about your visitors? Did you learn anything about your business, or where you should be heading next? Analyzing your data can be an excellent opportunity to fine-tune your business if developed correctly.

Did you remember to ask users for their opinions and suggestions about your business, product, or service? This kind of data can be invaluable, but most users won’t give you this information without something in return, so your promotion is a great place to ask for it. Were any of your visitors’ suggestions interesting or valuable? If so, show your users you’ve been listening and take action with their recommendations. Tell them you’re listening to engage with your users and further motivate them to participate on your Page, share your content, and become even bigger fans of your business.

When all is said and done, you’ll have a much better chance of running a successful promotion if you’ve followed the above suggestions – use the “social” nature of social media to your advantage, and take advantage of third-party tools to help you set up and run your promotion. Facebook, and social media in general, can be extremely powerful in brand-building and business-promotion if used correctly.

Whether money’s no object or you’re on a shoestring budget, there are tools out there that will help you develop your own custom iframe promotions and applications on your Facebook tabs, allowing you to harness the power of interactive media by integrating many features into a single, professional Facebook tab.