Organizing a contest on Facebook is a great way to grow your audience and generate traffic to your page. If you're thinking about it, but not sure how to do it, read the 9 steps below and you're done!

THE STEPSUnderstanding the rules (and complying with them)

The giant Facebook allows pages to organize contests, as long as they respect the general rules of their guide to competitions

As the rules change frequently, it is important to review current policies before continuing.

According to the last update of the usage policies in April 2018:

• You can't ask people to identify a friend to participate in the contest.
• You can't ask people to share the contest on their personal Facebook page to participate in the contest.
• You can't ask people to like your page to participate in the contest.
• You can't ask people to put the contest photo on the cover photo to participate.

Note that the Act Respecting Advertising Contests established by La Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux du Québec is also to be considered when you are administering a Facebook contest.Choosing the best time to organize your contest

Although there is no hard and fast rule about when to best organize a contest on your page, we recommend waiting until you have a certain audience size to have an impact.

We consider that from 200-300 “likes” on your page, your contest can have a viral effect.

If you are not there yet, know that the key to growing your audience is to be active on the network, constantly. You can also promote your Facebook page on your website, in your newsletter and on your other social platforms.

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Take advantage of an event

Facebook contests are more successful when they are combined with an event.

For example, for our customer Cycles Performance, a bike shop, we organized a competition on the occasion of the Tour de France.
There are all sorts of times to organize a Facebook contest. Here are a few of them:

• When you reach a significant milestone in the number of likes on your page: 1000, 5000, 10,000 subscribers.
• During seasonal events: beginning of summer, back to school, arrival of spring, arrival of spring, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, end of year holidays, etc.
• During events linked specifically to your field of activity: Cycles Performance with the Tour de France.

Set clear goals

Before setting up your competition, determine the objective (s) you are aiming for with this activity. The way to participate and the prize will be chosen according to this objective.

Let's say your goal is to increase traffic in your physical store. You could ask your fans to post a photo of them at a specific location in your store to participate.

Your objective may change from competition to competition, depending on the needs of your business.

To determine what your objective will be, take inspiration from the benefits listed below:

• Increase your number of subscribers
• Promote your business
• Increase the engagement and interaction rate of your Facebook subscribers
• Increase the number of subscribers to your newsletter
• Increase your online sales
• Retain your current customers

Choose the type of competitionNow, what type of competition are you going to organize? As long as you respect the terms of Facebook's user policies, you can do any contest you can imagine! The most famous types of contests are:

• Draws among the comments or likes of a post
• Survey “comment on your favorite item to win” followed by a draw
• Creative competition where you choose the winner (best photo, image creation, text writing, create a look...)

Clearly write how to participate in the competition. Overly complicated rules may repel potential participants. Under Facebook's current terms of use, you can ask fans to take the following actions to participate:

• Like the post
• Leave a comment
• Like and leave a comment on the post
• Create a description for this image (better known as “caption this”)
• Fill in the missing words in a sentence
• Post a photo

Again, these are just examples. Feel free to use your imagination to create contests that your fans will love.Choose a prize that has meaning and valueChoose a prize that is in sync with the moment, the type of competition, your organization, your message, or your objective. But above all, choose a price that will appeal to your target customer (rather than something that appeals to the general public). An example of a poor choice of prizes would be giving a GoPro camera or an iPad to the winner (s) of your contest. It is a safe bet that you will get a lot of registrations. However, it may well be that these people were attracted to your price and not to your brand. So your competition will not attract real potential customers.

Do you have a restaurant? Offer a meal for two.

Do you have a beauty salon? Offer a treatment.

You understand the principle!

Be transparent

After you've said how to participate in your post, be sure to include how to participate.

In the terms of participation, you must include: the deadline to participate in the competition, the eligibility conditions to participate (age, geolocation...), the methods of designating the winners and the methods of awarding the prizes.

When the prize is important (a trip, an expensive object...), we recommend organizing your competition over a longer period of time.

As for geolocation, for a local business, it is probably more advantageous to win a fan in the region.

Be attractive

You will absolutely need a nice picture of your prize for the competition. You want to draw attention so that the current or potential customer stops by your post among the many publications in their news feed.

You may need to use a graphic design service for the competition to represent you. Add your logo, colors, and an overall design that fits into your brand image.

Do you decide to create your image yourself? Fantastic. If you don't have Photoshop, use free image creation software like Canva

In case you plan to monetize your publication to reach a greater reach, your image should not contain more than 20% text. You can import your image into the hyperlink in the previous sentence to test if the amount of text is too large to advertise.

Also, make sure that your image is “mobile friendly”. Writing that is too small could be illegible on a cell phone. The image format should also be considered (will the entire image be visible from a mobile device?).

Be direct

You are almost there!

All you have to do is create your contest post! Use a tone that matches your business image.

Keep it simple and concise. Users like it when how to participate is clearly shown in a numbered list.

Publish

All you have to do is publish your contest, wouhou!

Ask your employees to share the post on their personal page to start the viral effect, do the same.

Do not hesitate to promote your publication to attract potential customers.

Facebook contests only have benefits! Do not hesitate to get started and organize your first competition. Above all, be creative and think outside the box! Be inspired by your customers when choosing the type of contest and the prizes.

Have a good contest!