The Social Lights have crafted a couple of Facebook Sweepstakes for clients this month. Check them out, enter to win, and use the tips provided below for crafting your own Facebook Sweepstakes!
River’s Edge Music Festival Ticket Giveaway
Want to win a pair of tickets to see Dave Matthews Band LIVE in St. Paul?
How about a pair of tickets to see Motion City Soundtrack, Scissor Sisters, Quietdrive, Brand New, Tool, and more in St. Paul on Saturday, June 23, 2012?
Editor’s Note: Sweepstakes closed. Winner was chosen on June 21st.
Pizza & Beer for a Year
It’s the summer of #GetMilled at Green Mill Restaurants! Each month of summer (June, July and August), a winner will be chosen to receive free pizza + beer (or soda) for a year!
NFL Hall of Fame Medallion Set
Gridiron Support got into the ‘game’ as well.
They are giving away a Hall of Fame medallion set which includes:
- Low matching serial numbers on all 3 Medallions
- Hand painted color epoxy “fill” representing the team colors of each player
- A Certificate of Authenticity individually autographed by Dan Hampton, Steve Largent and Joe Greene.
Now that you’ve entered to win these glorious prizes…
Learn how to create a Facebook Sweepstakes:
The Tools
We highly recommend using sweepstakes software/apps that integrate with Facebook Timeline. Apps such as Shortstack, NorthSocial and Wildfire make it super simple to get a Facebook Sweepstakes up and running. Additionally, they have features such as fan-gating, email capture, social sharing and legal considerations built right in.
Custom Artwork
Next, we need to make the campaign attractive and appealing – communicating the offer in a fun (and sometimes flashy) manner. We like to create custom artwork that fits the exact dimensions of each application and shows off the prize! Most applications require 3 graphics per sweepstakes: “Like Us” graphic (if it’s a fan-gated sweepstakes), a “Register or Win This” graphic and a “Thank You for Entering” final image.
Here are the 3 we created for Gridiron Support (notice they all use the same template, but the messaging changes each time):
Like Us
Register/Win This
Thank You!
Legal Considerations
And now for the most important part – making sure all of your legal ducks are in a row. This means disclaimers, prize value, sweepstakes duration, when and how the winner will be notified, etc. In all, it becomes quite lengthy. Some apps, such as Shortack, feature all of this information below the image on the “Enter” page. Other apps, such as NorthSocial, allow you to link to a different URL where the legal considerations can be found. We chose to link to a Facebook ‘Note’ to house this information.
Luckily, we saved the legal information that was created for the last sweepstakes created for the same client, so copying and updating this information was not too difficult. Additionally, many Facebook Sweepstakes Apps make it easy for you to view sample disclaimers that can be used as a template for creating your own. When in doubt, check with your legal counsel.
One important thing to note – there is a major difference between running Facebook Contests and Sweepstakes. This post talks solely about Sweepstakes. If you would like more information about contests, check out these Facebook Contests resources as the legal considerations vary greatly between Facebook Contests and Facebook Sweepstakes.
Social Strategy – Promotion
Next comes the fun part! Promoting your contests to your fans, followers and friends. Your promotion strategy largely depends on the prize, value, timeline and interested audience. For our contests, we typically create a promotions calendar that begins with Sweepstakes Announcement (Email announcement, Facebook announcement, series of tweets…and potentially blog post, LinkedIn updates, in-store signage, etc.). Next, we spread out reminders over the course of the campaign to obtain more entries. Reaching new people on twitter, encouraging social sharing, and using immediacy (only 24 hours left to enter!) can accomplish this goal.
To really boost engagement and entries, we like to get really creative…but we’re keeping those social media secrets under lock and key at The Social Lights!
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