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5 Reasons Social Media Contests Fail & How To Prevent Them

By Stacey Wonder on March 1, 2021 No Comments

Running a social media contest is always challenging since you have to set up, plan and track your campaign all the time. And, sometimes, though it seems you did everything right, the real results of your social media contest fell far short of expectations. 

That’s because any good strategy still requires understanding various pitfalls to make the most of the social media contest, since it is not enough to make it right – you have to perform it better than your competitors to get on the top in this industry.  

In this article, we will analyze the major reasons why a social media contest might fail and how to prevent that while running your own campaign. 

Here are 5 tips you should really keep in mind for your contests. 

Taken from: https://unsplash.com/

1) Your Promotions Are Lackluster

Putting a few posts about your contest is not enough to run a campaign on social, as the audience needs much more than just a plain call to participation. People used to see the various marketing promotions, that is why it becomes much more difficult to encourage them to get interested in your contest. 

How to prevent it: Run the advertising campaign to reach more users. 

In fact, you can perform it in different ways:

  • sharing the information about your contest in ads, 
  • writing the content for blog posts, 
  • posting photo and video reminders, 
  • go on informing your clients directly about the social media contest, etc.

By using as many channels as you can, you are more likely to reach the right audience and involve much more people in your contest. 

2) Your Participation Conditions Are Complicated

Most social media contests target to get additional information about their audience. However, if asked too much, the people just leave the form as soon as they find out it takes a lot of time to fill it. As a result, you might get a lot of people to know about the contest, but only a few who completed the tasks. 

How to prevent it: Collect only the critical for your contest information.

One of the core ideas of any social media contest is to meet a new audience and get them interested in your content. That’s just like saying hi to your new users and remembering their names & preferences. So, the advanced marketers from Hubspot recommend asking for the information you really need and make the participation form with 2-5 fields only. 

3) You Offer A Useless Prize

The prize might be a great motivator for the audience to participate in your social media contest. But, if it doesn’t have any value, no one actually wants to take part in your competition. So, your social media contest will fail without offering any value, no matter how much effort, time, and money you have put into it. 

How to prevent it: Make sure your prize is appreciated. 

We are not solely talking about getting something super expensive as a prize for the contest, but it is critical to offer something, which definitely worth giving a try to get it. That might be some products or discounts, special deals, or other valuable items which convince your audience it is worth participating in. Or else, you can also ask your followers which prize they would certainly want to get before presenting your social media contest, which will be another source of useful ideas. 

4) You Give Up After the Contest Start

When it comes to the contest running, you can’t just forget about it after its setting. So, to meet the expectations of your audience and attract more people to take a part in it, it is quite critical to carry the things you start through to their logical end. Otherwise, your audience will feel being cheated and won’t believe you anymore, no matter which prize you are going to present next. 

As a result, the contest is not something you can give up on as soon as you have no more interest in it. If done carelessly, it will certainly fail. 

How to prevent it: Plan ahead of all the steps of your social media contest and track them on a regular basis. 

During the contest, all the eyes are drawn to your social account, that is why it is important to make the benefit of this. By interacting with your audience, getting more information about their preferences and expectations you will be able to gain more popularity and stay competitive in your niche.  

5) You Use Only One Social Media Platform

Every platform has its unique audience types, which are interested in certain topics. Nevertheless, using only one platform without having any references to the website might not work for creating an effective social media contest. The reason for this is that your target audience can use different services for getting the content they need, and they can easily miss your contest if it doesn’t appear on their screen.

How to prevent it: Post the contest on different social media channels with the reference to your official website.

Professionals recommend posting the information about your contest using various popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. This easy trick will greatly increase the number of participants who are interested in your contents and want to give it a shot. Furthermore, by redirecting them to your official website with all the information needed, you can also generate lots of organic traffic for your website, which is another great idea of enhancing your contests on social media. Having proper email automation in place, you could eventually convert all those leads into loyal customers.

Wrap Up

To conclude, making a great social media contest is really challenging. But, if you are aware of the critical things you can easily use for creating a powerful social media project strategy, you can not only increase the number of your audience but also generate more leads as well. 

Additionally, the social media contest is a brilliant option to learn your audience better and gain their trust. This means that every new contest will encourage more and more new participants to join. 

Ready for making your next contest right now? Let’s do it! 

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About Stacey Wonder

Stacey Wonder is a content marketer who enjoys sharing best practices for self-development and careers with others. In her free time, Stacey is fond of contemporary dance and classic French movies.

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