Facebook has over 2.91 billion people with different interests, likes, dislikes, and more. If there’s anything common in all of them, it’s their love for free stuff. Did you know that Facebook giveaways bring about 34% of new fans? They have become a thing of the present time, and if you want to grow your reach to a wider audience with minimal effort, then this is the best way to do it.
Giveaways are used to promote a product or service or simply as a way to thank your existing customers. In this blog post, we’ll be walking you through the steps you need to take to set up and run a Facebook giveaway, including how to choose a prize, create the rules, and promote your giveaway to reach the widest audience possible. So, whether you’re a business owner, a marketer, or just looking for a fun way to increase engagement on your personal Facebook page, read on to learn how to do a Facebook giveaway.
Why Should You Run a Facebook Giveaway?
Facebook giveaways are not only done to get more reach, but different businesses run them for a variety of reasons. For instance, a candle-making business might conduct a Facebook giveaway to promote the launch of a new fragrance or simply to acquire new followers.
In short, there are plenty of reasons why businesses do it, and here are some of them:
- Increase Engagement: Giveaways are a great way to increase engagement on your Facebook page by encouraging people to like, share, and comment on your posts.
- Attract New Followers: A giveaway attracts hundreds of followers to your page, especially if the prize is incredible.
- Promoting a Product or Service: If you’re a business, giveaways are an ideal way to tell your audience about your products or services.
- Build an Email List: Acquiring an email list is essential for a business and so doing a Facebook giveaway can help them in getting emails from followers.
- Creating Buzz: In a world where social media is the key to a business’s success, stakeholders must create buzz around the brand to increase awareness.
- Expressing Gratitude: You can use Facebook giveaways to thank your loyal and existing customer base with a prize.
Rules for Facebook Giveaway
Facebook has set rules to let businesses do giveaways on the platform. If you’re planning to do it, then here’s a list of rules that you must follow before posting a giveaway.
- Do the giveaway from a professional account and not a personal account.
- Define the eligibility of the contest clearly, such as information about age, location, and other specific restrictions.
- Be clear about the requirements to enter the giveaway, such as liking a page, commenting on a post, or sharing it.
- Highlight the prize that the entrees will get if they will the contest. Also, talk about any restrictions or limitations related to the prize.
- Specify the date when the contest will start and the date when the winner will be announced.
- Talk about how you will choose the winner. For instance, to sound fair, you can use online tools such as Comment Picker to randomly choose a winner.
- Clearly mention in the post how you will notify the winner to avoid any problems in the future.
- Last but not the least, make sure that the contest follows all rules and regulations and specify that the giveaway has no connection or sponsorship from Facebook.
6 Easy Steps to Do a Facebook Giveaway Effectively
Now that you are aware of the rules of Facebook giveaways let’s dive into the steps to post your first Facebook giveaway.
1. Create Goals for the Facebook
Just like any marketing campaign, the Facebook giveaway is also done for a purpose or to be clear – a specific goal. Before deciding to post a Facebook giveaway, list down the social media goals that you would like to accomplish with it.
Here’s a list of goals for which you can do a Facebook contest.
- Promote a Product or Service: Businesses can use a Facebook contest to promote new products and services among customers. For instance, they can give the new product/service as a prize for winning the giveaway.
- Drive more Followers and Customers: Facebook giveaway is the oldest method to acquire more followers in the long term. Businesses use giveaways to get more follow requests or likes on the page. Similarly, it’s an ideal way to capture new customers by offering a promotion. You can also include a rule for entrants to tag their friends or family members in the comment section to participate in the contest.
- Grow the Email List: You can set up a goal to acquire customers’ emails that can later be used to send out newsletters. Emails are quite necessary for a successful lead generation strategy, and there’s no better way of acquiring them than a Facebook contest.
2. Rules for Audience to Enter the Giveaway
In the second step, you need to decide the rules of the giveaway to achieve your goals. For instance, if you’re doing the contest for likes, then the rule of your giveaway should be to like the post or promote it. In short, you need to set appropriate rules that are perfectly relevant to the goals you’re planning to achieve with the giveaway.
Here are some rules that are often found in Facebook giveaways, and you can use them too as entry requirements for the contest.
- Like the post
- Comment on the post
- Follow the tagged influencers or pages
- Message the page
- Tag your friends
Now that you’re clear about the rules of entry requirements, let’s move to set the prize for the giveaway to lure your customers.
3. What ‘Free Stuff’ Will Participants Get?
You must have certain goals for the giveaway, but the audience is only after the prize. You must choose an enticing prize for the giveaway, so it’s hard for customers to avoid taking part in the contest. Here are some tips to help you choose the best Facebook giveaway prize.
The prize must be Relevant
The prize should always be relevant to your business. For instance, if you’re a makeup brand, then give away a collection of your products to customers as a promotion. You cannot offer an expensive product in the hopes that customers will keep coming back to you. The whole contest will go to waste, and nobody will be interested in your business. The whole point of doing the giveaway is to promote your products/services among your potential audience, so it can benefit your business in the long run.
Choose a Prize from Existing Offerings
Remember that you are doing the contest for your target audience and so the prize of the giveaway should speak to them. In case you have any existing offers in place, you can use them as a prize or gift to attract your audience.
For instance, if you own a spa business and one of your deals is selling like crazy, then use it to lure customers. Similarly, other businesses can use their star deals (that already have raving fans) to attract more customers to the business. You can also give your product or service for free to gain a free testimonial or a review from customers.
Invest in a Good Prize
Investing in an expensive prize is quite necessary to make the contest more exciting and interesting. Think of the benefits that you will reap from the contest and don’t think twice before taking the step forward. Offer something that is hard for your customers to ignore.
4. Create a Giveaway Post
It’s time to set up a giveaway post that’s hard to miss your target audience’s eyes. From choosing the theme to the occasion, everything matters when you’re posting a Facebook giveaway. You don’t have to wait up for an occasion to do a giveaway, but most people are looking for gifts and free stuff during the holiday season, which can encourage them to participate in the contest. Despite it, there’s no hard and fast rule as to when you can do a giveaway and when not.
When you’re posting the contest, it should be designed appropriately to match the vibe of your business. For example, if you’re a fashion brand, then posting a giveaway in dull tones and a less trendy theme can hurt its reach.
Here are some tips that can help you post the giveaway in a way it will attract more customers and will create a buzz around it.
Design the Post
You can use Canva or other tools to design an attractive post for the audience. Each detail matters so don’t miss out on any one of them.
Write a Great Caption
Another thing that makes your post attractive is a good caption. Skip on the traditional methods and use your creativity to the best to craft a perfectly optimized post with specific details.
Pin it on Your Timeline
Once you have posted the giveaway, pin it on your timeline so it’s the first thing your customer sees every time they visit your profile. The more it’s visible to your audience, the more entries you will get for the giveaway.
5. Promote the Contest in Advance & After!
Promotions of the giveaway on different platforms are quite essential if you want to attract more customers. Many brands start creating hype even before posting the giveaway, which intrigues the audience to find out more about it. If you’re planning a giveaway, then start talking about it even before it happens, so your audience is all set to participate.
After posting the giveaway, promote it on all your social media profiles, blog, website, email list, videos, etc., to maintain the hype. The more people are you able to attract to the contest, the better the chances of making the contest a success.
6. Pick a Winner & Reach out to Them
Lastly, you need to pick a winner either randomly or by going through each comment yourself. Mind it, manually picking a winner can take enormous time and effort, so it’s best to pick a winner through a tool so there’s no burden on your shoulders.
Once you have selected a winner, ask them to give the required details so you can send them the prize. You can also elaborate on why you choose a winner and how you chose them, so there’s less foul talk around it. Either way, best of luck with the contest!
5 Facebook Giveaway Ideas for Your Brand’s Benefit
Hosting a Facebook giveaway might seem daunting, but there are some unique ways in which you can beat everyone at it. Use these Facebook giveaway ideas to bring more audience to your page and take your business to the top.
- Host a Photo or Video Contest
Try to make your contest a little fun and appealing to the audience by hosting a photo or video contest. Such contests help strengthen your community, building awareness, promoting new products/services, and creating hype.
Take the example of dance videos that go viral on Instagram and TikTok. Recently, the whole internet was buzzing with the dance videos of Calm Down by Selena Gomez and Rema. This one challenge made the song win hundreds and thousands of hearts in such a less time.
You can use the same trick to promote your products or services. Depending on your business, you can come up with a relevant giveaway that encourages your audience to take part in it. In case you’re a makeup brand, ask your audience to post a makeup video or photo using your products to participate in the giveaway.
One thing to remember here is such contests are very fun, but requires some extra effort on the audience’s end. So, make sure you’re offering an irresistible prize for it.
- Create a Game or Challenge Related To Your Brand
Another famous Facebook giveaway idea is to create a game or challenge to make the audience participate in it. Instead of simply asking for likes and comments, you can create an intriguing game to make the entry process challenging.
Just don’t make the game too hard for customers to enter it. Make sure you get a lot of entries; otherwise, the game will lose its charm. It should only take a few minutes for the audience to guess the right answer, so be sure of it. Also, the game or challenge must be related to your brand. For instance, you can ask your audience to spot the difference between two pictures if you own a photography business.
- Offer a Discount or Special Promotion
You can also offer a discount to participants who post the giveaway on their Facebook page. You don’t have to come up with major discounts, even something as little as 10% or 20% can work like a charm. This trick can bring you more customers than you can imagine, so don’t sleep on it.
- Partner With another Brand or Influencer
Collaborating with other brands of influencers (if you have a big budget) can be a highly effective way to get more entries. Influencers and brands often have a lot of following, so you will get to promote your brand directly to theirs. However, the success of the collaboration depends upon which brands you plan your contest with. They should be from the same niche as you, so their audience might be interested in your product too.
To take an example, if you’re a tech giant, then your collaboration with a makeup brand will go to complete waste unless you’re offering something that can benefit their audience. Make sure to take the right decision when it comes to your collaborations!
- Host a Facebook Live Event
Last but not the least, you can host a Facebook Live event where participants can enter the giveaway during the broadcast. Not only is it fun, but you get to connect with your audience directly. You can talk and have fun with them to ensure the success of the contest.
It’s Time to Run Your Own Facebook Giveaway!
Hosting a Facebook giveaway is a wonderful idea to get going, especially if you’re in the early stages of your brand development. You might have to put a separate budget for it, but it’ll be completely worth it. This trick can put you at the centre of it all, so you have enough room to connect with your audience and win their hearts. Good luck with your giveaway!
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