It’s hard to resist a sweet prize or a free gift. Whenever a contest is announced, starts rushing to try their luck. If it doesn’t cost anything to enter besides a minute of your time, what do you have to lose? It feels good to emerge a winner, especially when the prize involved is lucrative. By that same measure, a lot of people will take a free gift even if it’s something that they might not have otherwise wanted. It’s free, so why not? Do you know that running contests on social media can boost your web traffic? Apart from multiplying your traffic, contests have the power of boosting the engagement rate. We are going to look at the surest ways of getting the best out of social media challenges.

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This is probably one of the simplest methods, simply find some working coupons and collect them on a page on your website. For example we found promo codes on CouponJournal.org. Then you can post the link on various social media channels advertising ‘free coupons’. A lot of people will check it out from curiosity if nothing else, and then they might see what else you have on your website.

Gaining Traffic from social media contests

A message about a planned or ongoing contest on social media will attract different kinds of people. Even those who are not necessarily interested in your products (yet!) will come with the hopes of emerging winners. Your existing followers will be thrilled to participate. Both the new faces and the existing customers won’t mind sharing a message on their social media handles. Running the contest for a long period means that you will be able to reach a wide audience. More people will become aware of your brand.

State your goal

In this case, the main reason for the contest is to improve your web traffic. Ensure that the participants go beyond your social media page. They should proceed all the way to your website. Put a link on your social media page. It will redirect them to your website.

The main activity that they are supposed to do to stand a chance of winning should be on your site. Social media page should just give information on the task they should complete or the prizes that they can win. It could be signing up for a mailing list, filling out a questionnaire (do some market research perhaps?), or clicking a button to share that page on their social media channels. Say if they choose to share on more than one social media channel then they get more than one entry.

Timing Matters

There are days that you stand to attract higher traffic than others. Try to schedule the contests to be on those days. Most consumers are on high alert for competitions during holiday seasons such as Christmas and Easter. You are likely to enjoy higher traffic during those days than any other season. Special days in your business calendar such as an anniversary are also ideal for running contests.

Use cool prizes

Just because it is a contest doesn’t mean that you will enjoy a massive traffic. You need to be thoughtful with the prizes that you use. Your target audience can be choosy and will easily ignore prizes that don’t appeal to them. Use desirable prizes that have a high chance of drawing massive attention.

Promote the contest

You need to reach as many people as possible. The surest way of achieving this goal is by promoting the contest through the social media. You can decide to pay for ads in whichever social media channel that you are using. You can also use the services of social media influencers to promote your challenge. At this point in time, running targeted ads on social media is the cheapest advertising that can be found.

Be clear and transparent

Before you set the ball rolling, state all the rules around the contest. You should also be transparent about the contest. Any shadowy behaviour from your side will end up ruining your reputation. Whether the contest is based on random luck or skills of the players, don’t be shady about the criteria of choosing your winners.

The tips in this article can help you to start and run a successful contest through social media. Your web traffic will improve during and even after the challenge!