What are the essential tools to best manage contests on social networks? How do Community Managers organize them on Facebook and Twitter?

Today, brands use contests to animate their presence on social networks. They integrate challenges in the social networks and put game mechanisms in place that are adapted to their target, most of the time accompanied by motivating rewards and often well thought out publicity to maximize their chances of success.

 

• Why do brands organize contests on the web?

Their first objective is to collect information on potential customers and therefore solidify their base of contacts. A contest allows the reactivation of old clients to retain them or to convert players into customers and find new ones.
The second objective: to promote a site, a product, an offer, or a service and to drive traffic to the site or to a page of the website. A contest generates visits, for example for the launch of a new product, and increases the sales generated on the site.

• Why do brands organize contests on social networks?

The main goal stays the same, but what is interesting is that the social networks are the spaces that best lend themselves to the organization of contests, partially because of their already ‘social’ function: share, comment, like, tweet and retweet, etc…
What’s more, the contests allow brands and their Community Managers to vary the content posted on the networks while engaging the community.
In most countries, brands have the ability (and right) to organize various types of competitions on social networks, on their Facebook page, their Twitter account or even other social sites.
However, pay attention because not all types of contests are adapted to all platforms. Some are better adapted to more visual mechanisms like Facebook or Pinterest for example. On Twitter, it is in the brand’s best interest to use simpler mechanisms like instant-wins or quizzes. The important thing is to fully understand that all of these contest mechanisms have codes and a visual aspect to adhere to.

 

• The various essential types of contests

Here are some of the most popular types of contests used by brands in recent years.

The instant wins: the participants immediately know if they’ve won. They allow a lot of interaction to occur simply and at a given moment.
Engagement level: 2/10

The quizzes: the participants must answer questions posed by the brand. It allows easy and fast engagement with your community.
Engagement level: 3/10

The draw: the participants give their contact information and are contacted later if they’ve won. It is mainly used to recruit new subscribers.
Engagement level: 4/10

Photo and video contests: the participants send their photos/videos and become more involved. It allows them to engage and bring content to life in an original way by generating visual content.
Engagement level: 6/10 – 7/10

Obviously there are a lot of different types of contests and many variations for your brand…For example, scratch games, reflex games, treasure hunts, skill based games, word puzzles, blind tests and other knowledge tests.

 

 

• Our selection of 5 tools to organize your contests

Kontest (all types of games on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram). Leader in the creation of promotional games, the solution founded by Sylvain Weber and Jacinthe Busson, offers 33 applications and more than 150 features… The starting price for the ‘Standard’ offer is 49 euros for one game.
Try the ‘favorite’ app and add some fun to your community hosting: the personality test.

SocialShaker (all types of games on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram). Antoine Spadoni’s solution has over 35 applications…The starting price for the ‘Start’ offer is 39 euros a month.
Try the ‘favorite’ app to create a unique experience: le Gift Rain.

Adictiz Box (all types of games on Facebook): Addictiz’ solution created by Charles Christory has 30 applications. A free offer allows to you organize a “draw”, the starting price for a paid subscription, “Starter” is 99 euros per month.
Try the ‘favorite’ app when launching a new product : le Circle Puzzle.

140c (contests for Twitter’s basic functions) Nicolas Blondel and Pierre Berghof created a solution with 12 apps for Twitter. Cost: 99 euros per month for this solution.
Try 140c’s ‘favorite’ app when offering exclusive content: le Flock to Unlock.

LikeABirdApps (contests for Twitter’s basic functions) 8 applications for Pierrick Filippi’s solution, starting at 90 euros.
Try the LikeABirdApps ‘favorite’ app when offering exclusive content: the Strip­Tweet.

Bonus: they are French and are all our friends!

 

• How to use Over-Graph to boost your contests?

1. Thanks to their tool PUBLISH, Over-Graph allows you to present your contest in 3 clicks, at the same time on all of the networks (an unlimited number of Facebook pages, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts)!
2. However, if you don’t need to publish on all of the networks at the same time, you can choose to let Over-Graph publish your posts individually on Facebook, or your tweets, at times when they receive the most visibility! (page by page and account by account)
3. Afterwards you can monitor all of the comments and answers related to your game left by your community on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
4. Finally, using our ANALYZE tool, you can discover, for example, which publications used when launching your contest generated the most engagement, or the social media networks that have the most success!
Bonus 2: For our more clever users, you may even organize multi-platform contests directly with our RESPOND tool, but this is a topic for another article!

To conclude, remember these tips when organizing your next contest: choose the right timing, use an attractive design, offer rewards related to your business and lastly, think about ads to boost the reach of the game.
Going to organize contests soon? The next occasion: Easter!