Promoting your Contest To Get Better Results
May 22, 2019
When you use Contests for Pages, we give you the tools to share a contest with your friends and fans on Facebook. But sometimes you need to target a larger or more specific audience to get right results. In this blog post, we will show you how to use Facebook advertising tools to give your contest an extra boost and turn it into a success.
Promoted Post
A promoted post is displayed just like a regular post on the Newsfeed but you pay a fee to Facebook to reach more people. You can target your actual fan base, their friends or even a specific audience based on different criteria.
The first thing you need to do is build the contest itself. Once it’s ready to launch, go to the Share section and customize the post image, title and text.
Next you need to copy your Share URL and paste it in a new status update on your Page timeline. Here is an example:
Once the post is published on your Facebook Page, click the “Boost Post” button below the publication. Follow the instructions to choose your audience, set a budget and a duration for this boosted post.
Facebook Ad
If you need more customization features for your ad, you might want to look into Facebook ads. If you're unsure about the type of promotion you should run, read this Facebook article about the difference between boosted posts and Facebook ads.
To create a Facebook ad, follow these simple steps:
- Go to the Facebook Ads Manager.
- Choose “Traffic” as the marketing objective.
- Select "Website" as the traffic destination.
- Follow the instructions to define an audience and set a budget.
- In the "Links" section of the ad, enter your Share URL in the Website URL field.
A few advice for success
A paid promoted post or Facebook ad alone is not a guarantee for success. That’s why we recommend that you start with a small budget and monitor how your campaign performs. Here are a few tips that might help you reach your goals:
- Be careful how much text you put in your post image. Facebook might restrict your ad if there is more than 20% of text in your post image. Use their tool to help you stay within the limits.
- Draw a prize among respondents. This will motivate them to participate and give you their contact infos.
- Add a clear call-to-action in your post. Tell your fans how their feedback can make a difference. If you are drawing a prize, let your fans know about it.
- Encourage participants to share the contest with their friends. Your fans are your best ambassadors!
- Keep your questionnaire short and make open-ended questions optional. Remember that most participants will answer your contest from their mobile phones. Their attention span is short!
- Set the Facebook Pixel to track conversions and retarget users.