Photo by Andrij B.
It’s GO TIME! April Showers have brought May Flowers and May has officially turned into June. Now that the days have grown longer, it’s time to turn our attention away from America’s Mothers and onto its Fathers. Father’s Day is less than 2 weeks away (Sunday, June 15, 2014) and it would be a shame for your business to miss out on the social buzz surrounding one of the major gift-giving holidays of the year. Whether you’re tweaking your disclaimer or beginning your first brainstorming session, I’m here to make sure your Facebook Contest generates extra revenue and captures new social media followers.
With Facebook visibility levels at an all time low, it’s pertinent to create social campaigns that drum up engagement and encourage social sharing. The easiest way to do this is by using a 3rd party application vendor, such as Woobox or ShortStack. Cost effective and easy to use, 3rd party app vendors allow brands to create high-end, custom Facebook promotions in mere hours. Design experience is unnecessary and when using Woobox or ShortStack you can rest assured that all Facebook Applications will be desktop, mobile, and tablet friendly.
Once you have settled on which 3rd party vendor you will be using, go ahead and select your Facebook Promotion. Make sure to Fangate whatever application you choose; this will demand all entrants to “Like” your brand’s Facebook page before they can enter the contest, and enable social sharing functionalities. If you are still in need of inspiration, here are my top five Father’s Day Facebook promotions:
1.) Who’s Your Daddy Photo Contest
There is no time like the present to run a photo contest. Photos receive roughly 50% more engagement on Facebook than their text-based counterparts. Capitalize on this information and encourage customers to upload pictures of themselves with their fathers. Enable “Caption Support” and allow entrants to attach captions to their photos! Winners can be selected at random or by fan voting.
Just make sure to manually approve all entries in order to prevent a potential PR nightmare!
2.) To My Dad With Love
Celebrate the bond between a father and a child by creating a promotion that tugs at the heart strings. Utilizing ShortStack or another 3rd party vendor, create a mobile, desktop, and tablet friendly Facebook Application that allows fans to write a letter to dad. Once a letter has been written, the author will have the option to send the message to dad via email or by posting it to his Facebook Wall. In return for their efforts, all authors will be rewarded with a discount, offer, or coupon to your store. The goal of the coupon is to entice the author to purchase his/her Father’s Day gift from your business, converting social media followers into customers and allowing your business to capture part of the Father’s Day market share.
It would also be wise to allow the written letters to be read by the general Facebook public. The letters can be showcased in a Facebook gallery that boasts social sharing and commenting capabilities. If an author wishes for his/her letter to remain private, that’s “A- OKAY”! Authors will have the option to not share their letters as well.
3.) Father of the Day Giveaway
Run a pure play Sweepstakes that gives away a new prize each day to one deserving Father. Sweepstakes are the easiest promotions to run and typically yield the highest amount of new likes, due to its low barrier of entry. All entrants have to do is “Like” your Facebook page, fill out the required form, and hit enter! If your brand is feeling particularly generous, reward each entrant with a small discount to your store. Just make sure to enable “Bonus Entries” to score some free PR for your promotion – “Bonus Entries” reward sharing with friends by giving entrants extra entries into the promotion when they get their Facebook friends to enter and become a fan.
4.) Stuff My Dad Says
Share the craziest, most embarrassing thing your dad has ever said and win! Just make sure to stress the importance of keeping it clean and brand the contest with a unique hashtag. This contest can also be run on Twitter and Instagram as both platforms are hashtag friendly.
5.) #DadKnowsBest
Run a story contest where entrants can share a tale, or tweet the best advice they have ever received from their father. Make sure to designate a branded hashtag to the promotion, #DadKnowsBest, and feel free to run this campaign on both Facebook and Twitter. Winners can be randomly selected daily or all entrants can be rewarded with a discount code.
Facebook promotions help businesses grow their fan base, generate email marketing lists, and capture the attention of new customers. When paired with Facebook Advertising, the results generated from Facebook promotions are greatly magnified. There is no magic number to allocate to ads, but based on my own calculations, $1.00 typically yields one or more new “Likes.” Businesses will also want to cross-promote the Facebook promotion across all other social media properties. Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter boast large Cover Images that serve as free advertising space for your brand. Customize this area and watch your LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+ fans flock to Facebook. While all four platforms are powerful in their own right, your brand will generate even more revenue and engagement when the four are paired together. Whatever you do, please don’t rope “Dads and Grads” together. The leading men in your life deserve their own day!
Comment below and let us know which Father’s Day promotion you will be running this year!
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