3 Questions to Ask When Planning a Small Business Facebook Promotion

effective facebook promotionsSo, you want to host a Facebook promotion. You’ve heard they’re great for getting more likes. You’ve heard they can increase interaction on your page. You’ve heard they can, well, promote your business. And they can do all of those things. But, only if you do them right.

An effective Facebook promotion starts with a plan. (It also starts with knowing the rules for Facebook promotions, which are available here. Hint: Those contests that say “share” this post aren’t really allowed.)

Here are three questions to ask yourself before starting a small business Facebook promotion:

1. Do I want to run a contest or a sweepstakes?

Do you want entrants to submit content of some sort (like a photo, or a story), or just be able to enter your promotion with one click (like a sweepstakes with a random drawing)? A contest where entrants must submit something will have much lower entries (because they have to “work” for it) than a “like this post to be entered” contest. But there are reasons to do both. A higher number of entries will usually result in Facebook showing your post to more users, but some of those entries will be people just wanting to enter your contest who aren’t interested in your business. A promotion where you are asking users to submit content can get you “higher quality” entries, and you may have some content you can use and share online.

2.  Is my promotion worth entering?

Now that you have decided whether you want to have entrants submit content to you or just like a post to enter, take a step back and take an objective look at your prize and what you are requiring. Are you asking entrants to jump through three hoops for a $10 prize? Would it be worth it to you? Would you enter? Beef up your prize or simplify your promotion plan if you need to.

3. How will I choose a winner?

If you get a bunch of entries, choosing a winner can quickly become a daunting task. You can use a random number generator like the one at random.org to pick and “draw” an entry number. If you have hundreds or thousands of entries, though (and we hope you do!), it will become very difficult to sort through the entries and find the correct one, because there’s no way to number the likes or comments. A great tool to use is ContestCapture, which allows you to quickly export a spreadsheet of likes or comments on a Facebook post so that you can easily number the entries to choose the winner.

About Leigh Caldwell

Leigh M. Caldwell is Director of Social Media and Digital Marketing at Harness TechED. She is a content creator and marketing strategist with two decades of experience in social, online, print and broadcast media. Leigh is a native of West Frankfort, Illinois, and a Southern Illinois University alum.

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