Competitions good way to increase facebook followers?

**Mogga** · 24-03-11

Are competitions a good way to get more people following you on facebook? or do they just attract the compers?

What other ideas have people used?

**loquax** · 25-03-11

Pretty much answered your own question - competitions/compers are pretty active on Facebook and you will get a proportion of people joining simply as you're giving something away. Remember they'll be "fans" of a lot of pages and any other messages you put out (offers etc) may well be swamped on their feeds.

Some brands like this (good for spreading their message), some don't (Rocket Dog for example - not impressed with their attitude).

Also worth mentioning is that FB do have some guidelines for competitions (e.g. just liking to enter a draw is not allowed)... however there doesn't seem to be much enforcement.

Jason

**Joey-Magic** · 26-03-11

I enter competitions myself, many of them are through facebook, mainly because they are fast and quick to enter. More or less I only enter competitions and like sites etc which are based on my interests, as I don't really want a load of random likes coming up on my newsfeed.

But I think if you have an active page, and people are entering then they will now and again look at your news feeds

**atmedia** · 26-03-11

Try twitter!

**boydie** · 05-04-11

It doesn't really work in the long term, if someone joins a fanpage because of a free ipad comp then they only want the ipad not what your company is offering, so over time they leave your page.

**nim-b** · 05-04-11

I think it depends on the company and what you're giving away.

We had some success with Firebox giving away the latest iphone/ipad as soon as it came out. I was surprised by how many fans who joined this way continued to be fans (it helped that competitions were run regularly) and the increase in activity on the page (a general increase in likes and comments, so fans were active participants).

But I think that worked because of the fit between the prize and the company. People entering the competition were likely to be people who liked new tech and gadgets ie a good customer for Firebox.

So fit the prize with the company and you're more likely to get people becoming fans who will stick around and get involved.

**heartinternet** · 07-04-11

We used this tactic in the past and it worked for us. The first wave was aimed at our customer base as an incentive to get them to sign up and then start interacting with us via Facebook. The second wave was aimed at our target audience and we chose a format and prize we knew they would be interested in. We have had some fall away since, but not that many.

The important thing once you have them is to keep coming up with reasons for them to continue interacting with you. We find discussions, links to resources, pictures, and exclusive deals all help.

**Mogga** · 02-09-11

I didn't do it - I was looking into it for a friend who wanted to get some more advice before setting up comps.
I will check back with them and see what they did in the end.

**Josh-A** · 27-09-11

In order to increase the Facebook followers, it is necessary to post the appropriate content and increase the network slowly. Competition also matters however it is not a major factor for increasing the followers.

**rachelk** · 11-04-12

Our facebook page benefited from an increased number of followers as well as an increase our site traffic. We found that the competition provided short term benefits but would be interested to know if anyone has found them to be an effective when used on a more frequent basis?