Facebook competitions are a great way of attracting new fans and creating a buzz around your brand, below are a few tips to ensure you make the most out of your competition.

1. Be aware of Facebook Guidelines – Facebook Guidelines state that competitions must be administered within a Facebook app. However, this is rarely followed, especially if you have a smaller page. I’ve seen many a page run a successful competition without using an app but just be aware of it!

2. Start by creating a graphic, banner or flyer with all the details of your competition on and share this prior to the competition. Encourage “likers” to share this on their wall and include it on your Welcome Page if you have one. Sugarcup Media can make this graphic for you from just £5, just click here to see our portfolio of designs.

3. How should users enter? – If you want to effectively educate users on a particular product or service, then ask them to enter your competition by liking your page and answering a question related to the product (that ideally involves them searching your website to answer). Another great tip is to ask users to “reshare” the competition picture or status on their page – this will encourage all their Facebook friends to enter and so on. You can also ask users to “tag” themselves in a picture – however, there is a limit on this and you would need to add multiple copies of the picture so everyone can be tagged.

4. How should I share the competition? Apart from the obvious place (your Facebook Page), you should advertise the competition on your Blog / Website, Newsletter and if you believe it is relevant then contact other Facebook pages asking them to share it with their fans. There are also specialist competition websites and pages that are setup purely to advertise 3rd party competitions (e.g. Loquax).

5. Be aware of fake accounts and profiles – The problem with advertising your competition on places like Loquax, is that there are many users with Facebook Accounts set up purely to enter competitions. The problem with this is that when they “reshare” your competition, they are not sharing this with any friends and are generally not interested in your business, just winning a prize. Some of them are easy to spot though, look out for “MSE” in their name (stands for Money Saving Expert) and many will just write “liked and shared” rather than answering the competition question.

6. Choosing and announcing the Winner – If you want to randomly choose a winner, you can use Random.org to pick a winner for you from the entries – but be sure to check the chosen winner has followed all the entry requirements. Announce the winner on your Facebook Page and message them through your profile for their details.

7. Finish with something enticing – So you’ve announced the winner, now how do you get others engaged? If you offered a product you sell as a prize, why not offer a 10% discount on the product to everyone who entered?