Harp Interactive

Top 5 Facebook Promotion Types

If you have a Facebook Page for your business, you should strongly consider running a social, interactive promotion on your Page. According to Jupiter Research: 80% of all internet users have entered at least one sweepstakes or contest within the past year, and 50% enter them at least once a month. And,  companies that run contests or sweepstakes have twice as many fans on their sponsored social network pages as those who don’t.   Pretty powerful metrics for any type of business. Running a social promotion on Facebook is easier than you might think.

The Benefits of Running an Interactive, Social Promotion

Thanks to their inherent viral features (such as activity feeds, friend invites, notifications etc), social networks provide the ideal platform for spreading the word about your campaign and your brand. When someone enters a campaign within a social network they can invite their social network friends with a few clicks of their mouse. Newsfeeds are generated when a user enters the campaign or votes for an entry in a contest, allowing users to share a campaign (e.g. an e-coupon or a contest entry) with all of their social network friends. Also, notifications can be sent to encourage users to return to the campaign daily.  — original source: Wildfire

Playing by the Rules

Facebook has made it difficult (see their guidelines here)   if not a bit treacherous for you to run your own promotion directly on Facebook. Fortunately, there are third party resources that have already received Facebook’s approval and provide all of the resources needed.

Common Promotion Types and When to use Them

The type of campaign you use depends upon your goals.

Courtesy of Wildfire, following are a few different types of campaigns you can run and the considerations for each:

Sweepstakes
Run a sweepstakes when you wish to give away prizes based on a random draw.

User Generated Contests
Run a contest when you wish winners to be decided by public voting, a company-selected jury or both.

Coupons
Distribute Coupons to drive traffic to your site, encourage purchases, launch a new product or generate buzz.

Group Deal
Create flash deals to engage your users in special discount sales, encourage purchases, launch a new product and create incentives to share.   (Think Groupon for your Page)

Product Giveaways
Give away free products or product samples as a way to generate buzz, introduce a new product, build brand awareness or gather customer feedback.

Here are some reasons that you might choose to run a sweepstakes, contest or coupon give-away:

Sweepstakes are a powerful way to:

  • build your email or mailing list
  • increase your fan base on your company Facebook page
  • drive traffic to your Facebook page or website
  • gather survey data (e.g. entrant must complete a brief
  • survey before entering the sweeps)
  • educate customers (e.g. entrants must watch a brief movie before entering the sweeps)
  • build brand awareness

Contests are a powerful way to:

  • increase brand awareness
  • build a sense of community around your brand
  • gather customer stories and identify ardent fans
  • increase your fan base on your company Facebook page
  • drive traffic to your Facebook page or website

Distributing eCoupons is a powerful way to:

  • build brand awareness
  • encourage purchases of a newly launched product
  • encourage sales of excess inventory
  • drive traffic to the company’s website

Looking for ideas and inspiration? View live promotions here and here. Read about current promotions and their successes here!

What promotion(s) have you had success/failure with? Share your experiences here!