Featured Work
Case Study: Facebook Contests
by Ryan Joy — September 11, 2014
Jensen’s Make Some Magic Sweepstakes
For several years we have managed the social media marketing for Jensen’s Foods in the Palm Springs area, and have run photo contests, instant win contests, and a sweepstakes for “All-American Grilling.” But Jensen’s most successful online contest to date came together in a few days after they were given some tickets to Disneyland. Using this contest, we increased page likes by 20% in one week (from 695 to 848), without using any paid advertising (including Facebook ads). Here’s how we did it:
1. Choose a prize that resonates with the audience. This may be trial and error—we didn’t know this prize would resonate as much as it did until we saw the response.
2. Set up a fan-gate, so that only those who like your page can enter. We use Woobox for this and general contest management.
3. Make it appealing with a fun name and interesting imagery. I don’t think this contest would have been half as successful without the great copywriting and design of our team. It’s always tricky promoting a heavily guarded brand like Disneyland (or sports teams and leagues) but we were able to capture the “magic” of the brand without any overtly related imagery.
4. Send an email supporting it. 39% of the visits came the day of the email, and most were either clickthroughs or shares prompted by a clickthrough.
5. Give some urgency to the contest by having a short timeframe. We want the contest to last long enough to spread and allow maximum entries, but short enough that people feel compelled to respond immediately. We ran the contest for just under a week, which seemed to strike the right balance and motivate immediate response to the emails and shares.
Filed Under: Featured Work
