Social Media Contests How to Keep Your Channels Active

Maintaining an active social media channel is one of the hardest things for many brands

One of the fastest and simplest ways to keep a social media channel active is through social media contests.

But even global giants like Apple struggle to pull off this seemingly easy feat. How many times have you posted something on X or Instagram only to get a few likes and maybe a comment or two, and then silence?

While it’s easy to blame social media algorithms, the problem often lies with brands posting stuff that doesn’t resonate with the audience. People won’t connect with your brand if it sounds too corporate, scripted, or robotic.

One of the quickest and easiest ways to fix this is through social media contests. If done right, contests can prompt meaningful interaction and help in keeping social channels alive. However, you need a clear plan before handing out prizes left and right. Otherwise, you’ll attract contest hunters who don’t care about your brand beyond the price.

Why Social Media Giveaways Work

Social media contests are a win-win. Your core customers get a chance to get a product or service for free, and you get higher engagement. But it’s not just the increased engagement. Your contest can also bring in new followers and give you visibility in a congested market. 

The one thing you need to do is structure your contest so that it benefits your brand beyond the short-term spike in activity. 

How to Keep Your Social Channels Active through contests

Setting up successful social media promotion will require you to combine marketing strategies and human psychology, two important factors in keeping social channels alive.

Choose the Right Prize

The first thing you need to do is pick a prize that will attract potential customers. While a generic Amazon gift card may get you participants, it doesn’t guarantee long-term engagement with your brand.

Offer something that aligns with your brand, like a product bundle, an exclusive experience, or even early access to something new.

Make Entry Simple but Strategic

If people have to follow five accounts or tag three friends, many will skip your campaign. While you’ll need to encourage engagement, overdoing it can easily backfire and put off many potential customers.

Find a balance between engagement and reducing the entry barriers, but make sure you also get value from every participant.

 Some effective entry methods you can use include:

• Following your account
• Liking and commenting on a post
• Tagging friends
• Sharing to Stories or timelines
• Submitting user-generated content.

Whatever method you choose, make sure it aligns with your goals—whether that’s increasing reach, engagement, or conversions. The engagement will go a long way in keeping your social channels alive.

Collaborate with Influencers

Social media contests have a natural ability to draw attention, as everyone likes free stuff. However, using your brand alone to promote it may not be enough. Partner with influencers, as these people have a lot of audience, and people tend to respond more to suggestions from people they value.

As influencers talk about you in their Instagram and Facebook Stories, their followers will likely follow you, too. This will hugely benefit your social media marketing efforts. However, you should also ensure you select influencers who are relevant to your niche. This will ensure that you reach the right people and your content remains relevant to the influencer’s audience long after the campaign. This will help increase traffic, search engine rankings, and customer engagement. 

Promote Your contest Across Platforms

A contest doesn’t work even if people don’t know about it. Influencers will help market it and give it some authenticity, but you need to use different social media channels. This is because audiences vary from one channel to another, and you need as big a reach as possible. For example, the audience or X (formerly Twitter) is more often than not different from the audience on Instagram. 

Ensure you promote your campaign across all major channels. Consider the channels where your influencers have numbers to ensure all platforms are covered, and you can also run paid promotions to target specific demographics on different platforms. This will ensure that your social media contest have a wide reach and stay relevant to more people.