Do Something Different on Facebook

How can you make your Facebook page stand out from the rest? We are continually researching, trialling and reviewing new methods of making veterinary Facebook pages more engaging and better business tools for vet practices.

We have monthly review sessions as a team where we look at results and here we’re sharing our latest finding:

Facebook Competitions

What are they?

Facebook competitions can vary in complexity. Ultimately you will manage a competition and there will be a way for your fans to enter and there will be a prize up for grabs. Let’s say for (a very simplified) example, you post to your Facebook wall “Upload a photo to our pet gallery and we’ll choose a winning photo to turn into our page cover photo next month.”

How do they work as a business tool?

Increased Engagement

Competitions encourage engagement on your page by giving people a clear call to action and an incentive to perform that action.

Increased Loyalty

A well executed competition will take very little time for your fans but bonds them to your page. Winning the competitions will bond them even further.

Gain Valuable Data

Running competitions gives you the opportunity to gain data such as email addresses which you can then use in other marketing opportunities.

How to run a Successful Facebook Competition

How Frequently

We recommend running one every other month (you don’t want your fans to get bored of them by running them too frequently).

Get Engagement from Fans

Posting frequently about the comp is a must. We also recommend boosting some of the posts or running an advert campaign especially for it. Boosted posts must use images with less than 20% text so be mindful in your image selection here.

The Prize

Get creative and keep this varied – don’t give away the same thing every time. This can vary between a free prize (eg making the winning photo upload your cover photo), a low value prize (eg dog toy/food), a promo prize (eg vouchers to use for a consultation/treatment – particularly good for converting fans into clients), a high value prize (eg luxury tea for two at a local tea rooms).

You can see how these prizes would appeal to different people and the more valuable the prize, the more you can ask from your call to action. Similarly a quick and easy comp will likely get more engagement.

Running the Competition

Don’t underestimate how much time a well executed competition will take on Facebook. Your posts must be visually exciting, your instructions must be clear, the call to action must be simple and the prize must be relevant.

Run the competition over a week or so and post about it every day at different times of the day (different people will be on Facebook at different times of the day).

Stay on top of comments the posts get, messages you receive about it and of course, announce the winners in a fair and timely manner.

Rules

You’ll need Ts&Cs in place and visible somewhere on your website or Facebook (you can do these just once and use for every competition). You need a cut off date for the competition and you must define how you choose your winner/s and how you inform them. If you say the winner is selected ‘randomly’ you must be able to prove it’s a random process. Other rules may apply depending on changes to Facebook – check with Facebook before running a competition.

How we can manage a competition for you

Want great results without spending the time organising a competition yourself? We’ve been running successful competitions for our clients for years, we’re experts and we can achieve those great results for you. Contact us for a quote, we can either organise a competition as a one off or as a good value ongoing service.