Marketing with contests and sweepstakes through Facebook is a great way to increase your brand name recognition, drive traffic to your website, and get noticed by the search engines.

Many first-time online marketers often forget that Facebook is a form of social media, the keyword being “social”. Experienced marketers know that the key to success on Facebook is through community engagement, and what better way to do this than through managing online contests of comical, endearing, or even controversial photographs. It is not enough to simply flood the Facebook feeds with advertisement after advertisement about your products and services. Users of Facebook expect interaction with their own postings and online conversation threads as well. Because this is a “social” site, most people on Facebook are using this platform as a sort of pleasant diversion to get away from their daily chores and stress. They are not usually on Facebook looking to buy something. So, as marketers, we need to be creative, and marketing with contests and sweepstakes gets your brand noticed rather quickly.

1. Exposure

Just like you, your friends and followers on Facebook are trying to remain relevant to their friends and followers. By managing online contests that attract instant attention, your marketing campaign is more likely to go viral, being shared over and over within the community. Everyone on Facebook is trying to draw attention to themselves, competing with one another for the most “likes”, “shares”, and comments. It’s a lot like high school in that way. If you create an intriguing photo contest that gets a lot of buzz, your friends and followers are more likely to jump on your coattails and share virally as well.

2. “Likes”

While most people that share your contest post will automatically “like” it, if only to hear who eventually wins, there is an interesting marketing ploy that can get you even more bang for your buck. Rather than just creating a Facebook post for marketing with contests and sweepstakes, sending it out several times a day, and then sitting back and crossing your fingers, why not make it mandatory for participants to like your contests before they can even participate? This is a fine line to walk, however. It will depend on the types and numbers of followers that you are ultimately wanting to attract.

3. Free Advertising

Ask your friends to take a “selfie” holding your product. The photo with the most votes wins. Make sure to always include the deadline for the content, and post occasion updates and status reports. Keep the conversation going. Through successfully and creatively managing online contests, you will have hundreds or perhaps thousands of odd and interesting photos that can be used in future online marketing campaigns, all completely free of charge.

4. Email Databases

Sometimes marketing with contests and sweepstakes can help you to increase your email database. You can make it mandatory for contestants to provide this information as part of the contest entry process. In most cases, the prize is going to have to be pretty significant for people to give up this information, but Facebook Photo Contests have been known to show rather substantial results.

5. Fun!

Let’s be honest. As an online marketer, some of your day-to-day activities can get rather dull and boring. There’s only so many articles that you can write, so many blog posts that you can post, and so many videos that you can upload and send out on twitter. Managing online contests of silly photographs through Facebook is not only fun for your followers, but for you as well. It is a great way to break up the monotony. If nothing else, it’s fun to check in from time to time to see how many new photos have appeared throughout the day.   photo credit: maubrowncow via photopin cc