How to run competitions on social media – the transcript

Rhea Freeman : (00:10)
Now we know that competitions are a great way to get interaction, engagement, increase your followings and much more besides on social media, but they’re not always that straightforward to administer. So in this episode of the small & supercharged podcast with yours truly, I’m going to have a little chat to you about competitions on social media, what you need to make sure you are really clear on before you do them, different ways to administer them and the results that you’re going to hopefully attract too. And I’ve had this podcast, um, a lot of people have asked for this podcast. I’ve had it as, it’s probably one of the most requested, so I’m hoping this is going to help. What I would say though is go to the show notes and I’m going to put links there to the Facebook and Instagram policies concerning competitions and promotions because I’m going to tell you what I interpret and how I interpret this.

Rhea Freeman : (01:06)
What I want you to do though, if you are going to run a competition on your Facebook page or your Instagram profile, you need to be confident that you’re doing the right thing. Because the thing is that Facebook and Instagram, they’re the same. They’re the bit of the big machines owned by Facebook. And, and I keep saying this, I know, but we get the absolute privilege to use these platforms for free to promote our products and services for free. And from my point of view, I think the least we can do is work with the terms and conditions we’re given. And actually I don’t find the terms and conditions all that, all that. Um, they’re not ridiculous at all. They make complete sense. I understand why they do what they do. They’re different between the platforms, which again is, it’s a kind of, it’s because they’re working in different ways because the mechanisms that are used do work differently on the different platforms and they display in a different way.

Rhea Freeman : (02:03)
And I get that completely. And I think it’s important that we understand the issues before we go off and do our own thing. And even if other people aren’t doing it correctly, it’s on you whether you do it correctly or not. So I, for example, if I’m advising clients, I always say, look at the terms and conditions. Here are the terms and conditions. This is what I think we should do based on these and following these because why not try and do it correctly. One of your arguments might be that you are expecting it to get less reach. If you, if you don’t, for example, on Facebook tell people they have to share as an entry criteria. Honestly, I’m not even sure if that is true by which I mean you can, if people want to share, they can and often you’ll find that they will share because they want to spread what you’re doing.

Rhea Freeman : (02:59)
Because they think their friends might benefit, which is amazing, which is really lovely. So you’re going to get that anyway, but you’re getting it in a way that just feels a lot more organic and correct. And also it doesn’t breach Facebook terms and conditions, which is really, really important to me. So let’s go back to why competitions are good now. You’ll probably see at the moment that I run competitions on my Instagram particularly quite frequently. This is because I usually do it connected to a podcast. So I did one a few weeks ago with the game fair and I interviewed Gemma payne. If you haven’t listened to it, go and listen to it all about the 2019 game fair and things that she’s expecting to see what she loves about it, the preparation, the marketing, new things. Really great podcast. I was really thrilled with it cause I, I liked the game fair and Gemma is absolutely lovely and they very kindly said that they would give two gold passes for Sunday and the prize was really great and it’s a great way because I can then help to promote the podcast a lot more because I’m saying actually the game fair is amazing.

Rhea Freeman : (04:04)
We did a podcast about it. And more than that, the game fair have given two tickets to give away. So from my point of view, it’s helping to promote the podcast more and it’s also giving something back to my followers on Instagram who bless them, stick with me, follow me, comment, engage. Do you ever think that I really, really appreciate and I want to be able to give them things and give the opportunity to do things. And the podcast is a really great way to do that because it’s nice that we can promote it and we can talk about it. And it’s not like me saying you should listen to the podcast, listen to the podcast. I do think of different ways to promote the podcast, but one of one really good way is to do a competition. Another thing I’ve done is I did a competition with Hiho silver and Mackenzie and George, which was around Cheltenham time, I think.

Rhea Freeman : (04:50)
So that was connected to an event. And I wanted to talk about the fact that they were at an event and that did really, really, really well. And by the time you’ve listened to this, I will have also done another competition, which is to celebrate a podcast I did with the incredible Carrie green who is founder of the female entrepreneur association. And for this I purchased, so I bought these, I bought the books. Um, you don’t always have to buy the product, sometimes people are happy to collaborate with you. So I bought a copy or two copies actually of her. She means business book. Which side note, if you haven’t read it, it’s really, really good. I have it on book and audio book. Um, and I also then teamed up with Mackenzie and george and Hiho silver because I know they are both big Carrie green fans, you know the founder, sorry, the cofounder of Mackenzie and George.

Rhea Freeman : (05:37)
Melanie is a Carrie green fan and Hiho’s MD Emma Warren is also a Carrie green fan and they were really keen to get involved. So they gave me a really beautiful key ring, which is in coral leather. It’s, it’s beautiful. If you haven’t seen it. Go back to my Instagram and have a look. Honestly, it’s amazing. And I had the pink CZ bead on the new Fox plait leather bracelet from Hiho. So completely in keeping they tone beautifully with the book. I was able to use them for pictures and that makes me happy. And the entry mechanism for that was to again, to promote the two brands and what they’re doing because obviously I work with Hiho silver and Mackenzie and George and any opportunities to promote them I’m willing for. But it also allowed me to talk about the podcast, which is really important to me.

Rhea Freeman : (06:22)
And I was delighted to speak to Carrie and she was incredible. So I use them for that. A lot of other people I’ve seen use them to promote new products, to promote sponsored riders, you know. So win a lesson with such and such in a competition format or maybe win a lesson and win some branded product, um, new products, obviously they can have launches, events, give away tickets and give away experiences and there’s lots of different ways you can do it. The point is you are getting extra visibility for whatever you’re talking about through the competition, which is kind of how all competitions work. The idea is people see it, they like it, they enter and there’s usually some kind of payback for the brand that’s doing it. So when it used to be more conventional ways, you know, more conventional competition and magazine where you would write off, do you remember that when you’d have to like cut out, fill in a form, put it in an envelope, post it, and that was honestly one way to do it.

Rhea Freeman : (07:21)
Then we moved into the more digital era and people entered through websites and then that data could then be marketed to and as people opted out, and obviously with GDPR that’s changing a little bit and people need to physically opt in. But again, if you make sure you comply with the rules, that can still be really popular and a really good way to help find people who are genuinely interested in what you are doing. Another way is through social media and the objectives are a bit different here because if you are running a competition through your website and people enter through your website and they have the opportunity to sign up to get, you know, the latest promotions or deals or firstly new products, you’re actually building your mailing list through that. So as part of an ongoing strategy, that’s a really valuable thing to do.

Rhea Freeman : (08:08)
Building your mailing list is a good call. So don’t think you only can run them on Facebook. You could only run them on Instagram. I would urge you to think about how you’re going to do different elements of this to all feed in to doing different things. So if you run a competition on your website, the chances are you’re probably trying to grow your mailing list. So make sure your form and your entry mechanism is GDPR compliant. And it’s correct in that way. But that can be a great way to grow your mailing list on Facebook. If you’re looking to run a competition on Facebook, you are probably looking to get more engagement and reach on your posts. So more people get to find out about what you’re doing that way, but you’re also probably looking to grow your page’s following. Again, this is a really valuable because even if the algorithm is limiting the percentage of people that are seeing the content, the more people you have that are following and that are engaged with you, the more people are going to see your content.

Rhea Freeman : (09:05)
Just from a math point of view, I’m not being clever, don’t really get maths on that level but that is going to work so you’re going to grow your following and if you are a brand that’s brilliant because you are potentially getting to more people if you’re an influencer or a blogger. It’s also really good because a lot of brands do assess you on your following. It’s one of the criteria, and I know I am very pro engagement and all that side of things and I still am and I really believe in it, but the number under your name people, that’s the first thing they look at. But also if you have a bigger number under your name, you would hope that you would also have better engagement moving down because your content is being shown to more people. So it can be a really valuable way to grow your following on Facebook for example.

Rhea Freeman : (09:53)
But also if you are collaborating with somebody else, it can be a good way to grow their following through your page. So if you have 10,000 fans on Facebook and the person you’re collaborating with, let’s say it’s a rider who has donated the lesson, has got 2000 but the entry criteria is that they have to, for example, like different things or even they’re just getting more visibility because they’re on your page with a greater following. That can be really valuable. So then on Instagram the criteria might be slightly different, and we will go into that. But the objective is the same really, it’s to grow your following and probably that of the person you’re collaborating with because you can do slightly different things on Instagram as well. You can’t, you can’t share, you can share to stories and that can be a really a really good thing to do to help get you more presence and more reach.

Rhea Freeman : (10:52)
But it is hard to track when people share to stories because a story is only life 24 hours unless it’s safe to a highlight. So if you were having that as a criteria, I personally wouldn’t because the tracking of it’s really hard and what you’ve got to do with any competition you’re doing is you have to make sure it’s fair because nothing winds people up more than that. So let’s move through to competitions and how you run them. Say whatever platform you’re using actually whether you’re doing it on your website, Facebook or Instagram, you need to make sure you’ve got really good imagery that shows what you’re winning because it doesn’t matter if you’re offering what, I can’t think of anything. If you’re offering something, a brand new car, if the image is rubbish and not reflective, it’s not going to do as well. So you need to make sure you’ve got a quality image and that can be something that you’ve taken at home on your iPhone.

Rhea Freeman : (11:43)
You don’t have to get it done professionally if that’s not in your budget. But you do need to put the effort into making sure that the image is a quality image. So quality images, again, you can use something like Canva to create a graphic of the right size or different sizes for different platforms. Um, or if you’ve got something on your website, you might want to promote it on your social so that you can, you know, come up with a suite of images to help you do that. So high quality imagery, clear as clear can be about what the prize is, clear as clear can be about the terms and conditions, which we will look at shortly and clear as clear can be about things like closing dates. So you need to make sure that no one is in any doubt of what they can win and how they can enter to win it.

Rhea Freeman : (12:29)
So obviously on your website you will probably have terms and conditions anyway and they need to make sure, you need to make sure that they are relevant. And I’m not telling you what you should include in competition terms and conditions actually on any of the platforms because that’s completely down to you and that’s something you need to make sure you’re comfortable with that you know legally it’s correct, everything like that. But do put some time into having a look at this because it will help you if there’s any query about why such and such hasn’t won or anything like that, you can be as clear as possible. It does help even if your terms and conditions are quite long. It’s worth putting the time in. So moving through to Facebook and here I’ve got the policies document up in front of me. So that’s facebook.com/policies/pages_groups_events/ I’m going to put that in the notes for you.

Rhea Freeman : (13:22)
So this here is a policy in connection to various different things and it’s, it’s actually written nicely. It’s written in plain English I think. So I’m going to have a little look at here, which is 0.3 which is promotions on pages, groups and events. So first of all it’s talking about how you communicate that promotion. I’m not going to read it word for word because I would really urge you to read this before you do a competition. But it’s basically talking about what we talked about. So making sure it’s really, really clear about how you are telling people about that competition. So the rules, how people can enter if they’re legible to enter, how they enter correctly. Um, any rules and regulations that you need to be connected, you know, you need to show depending on what your competition is. Then it also says that you must include a complete release of Facebook in your content and that the content, the promotion isn’t at all connected to Facebook.

Rhea Freeman : (14:20)
And again, if you look at this, um, at their page link in the show notes or if not just Google it, but I have told you the URL to it so you know, that it needs to be no way sponsored, endorsed or administered. And it’s got a list of things there. Now the next thing is the administration and the promotion. And this is the thing you need to be aware of. And that’s saying that because before, actually not that long ago, you couldn’t run a competition directly through Facebook. People did, but you were meant to use a third party app. Then they allowed you to run competitions on Facebook. So it’s basically saying you can’t use personal timelines and friend connections shouldn’t be used. And that’s things like sharing on your timeline or tagging a friend or sharing on your friend’s timeline. Those things are not actually permitted.

Rhea Freeman : (15:04)
So that is against Facebook’s rules. Now I know people do do this a lot. I have seen so many examples of people completely doing what they want and breaking all the rules to be honest. But it’s on you because if, for example, you were found to be breaking the rules, what could Facebook do to your page? If that was the case, could they remove your page? Could your page vanish? Could you have some kind of sanction applied on your page? You know, what, what is the consequence of you not following the rules and are you happy with that consequence? So you know when, I can think of an example now, but if you, there’s cause and effect to everything isn’t there or there’s potential cause and effect to everything and I’m not really a risk taker. I will assess the situation and I will decide if I’m, if I’m okay with a worst case scenario and if I’m okay with a worst case scenario then I’ll crack on if I’m not okay with a worst case scenario, I don’t if I think that could happen.

Rhea Freeman : (16:10)
So, for example, with Facebook, if I ran a competition for a client that ignored all their terms and conditions or Facebook’s terms and conditions and rules and that caused my client an issue. Am I good with that? Well, I’m not, I’m not happy at all. I’m there to help my clients and make their lives easier. I’m not there to run them into issues, especially when I know the comp, the information is really easily accessible. There’s no reason why anyone looking to run a competition can’t look at these rules. But there’s also other information about collection of data. Um, calls to action, have a look. It is, it’s not actually a massively long thing to read. It’s really well written, but it’s definitely worth having a read of. If you are looking to do anything like this with your page, please do look, honestly, it doesn’t take long.

Rhea Freeman : (17:05)
And I think it lays out really clearly what you can and can’t do and what is okay and what isn’t. Okay. Um, and to me it’s, it’s worth that extra minute of reading. So moving on to Instagram, although they’re actually owned by the same people. They are, they are, the rules are different. And I think it’s because when you tag somebody on Facebook, the way it all works, you share onto someone’s timeline, it is using their personal timeline to, to administer the promotion. When you look at their timeline, if it’s their Instagram, not so much. So their promotion guidelines, um, which is HTTPS or it’s help.instagram.com forward slash then there’s a load of numbers, but I just Googled, um, let me tell you what I Googled. I Googled Instagram competition rules. There we go. Cause there’s a load of numbers which you’re not gonna remember and I’m probably gonna get wrong, but I will put it in the show notes for you.

Rhea Freeman : (18:01)
So theirs is much shorter. Theirs is just a little five point thing. So like Facebook, it says you can use, if you use Instagram to communicate or administer promotion, you are responsible for operation including, and that’s the same as very, very similar to Facebook. Yes. There must not inaccurately tag content or encourage users to inaccurately tag content. Example, don’t encourage people to tag themselves in photos if they’re not in them. So that’s different. Then we have got the release, which is what Facebook have done. They won’t administer, they won’t help you with it. And um, you do so at your own risk. So the rules are different, but please read them. I mean it is probably a 30 second read. I reckon I could read that in about 30 seconds to a minute. It’s really not long, but at least if you have read the guidelines, they’re very, very clear.

Rhea Freeman : (18:58)
You will feel so much more confident when you actually do administer the promotion that you’re doing the right thing. And to me that’s, that’s really, really important to me. I want to make sure I’m trying to do the right things. I try and play by the rules so much. I mean, I’m really boring for this kind of thing. And I have said to a lot of people that, no, we can’t do that. Or if you know, if my clients’ have been approached. I’ve said on more than one occasion we can’t do that. We need to do something different because that was breaking the rules and they want to break the rules that’s on them. That’s not on me, but I really feel like, Oh, this is a bit with my clients. I feel very protective over them and I want to do all I can to not run them into trouble to make sure that they don’t get anywhere near trouble and to make sure they can really focus on their businesses and the growth and development and the expansion and all the exciting things they want to do. And not get bogged down in this kind of detail.

Rhea Freeman : (19:56)
And to me, if I had done something like that and I had said, Oh no, yeah, you can share. Yeah, you can get tell people to share on Facebook when I know you couldn’t. That wouldn’t sit well with me even if the competition was more successful because you were saying that, the possible downside is much, much, much greater because you’re not playing by the rules. And as I said, I’m not even sure if it would be much different because unless you want them side by side you wouldn’t know. But you’ve got to be really careful. I think you have anyway, I think we’ve got such a such a great opportunity that we can use the platforms for free. I think the least that we can do is to do it properly. So when it comes to how to promote your promotion, so let’s say we’ve got the competition online, however we’re going to do it, it’s all correct in the line with terms and conditions.

Rhea Freeman : (20:49)
Um, so that’s great. Well done you and then how are we going to spread the word? So the great thing is with a lot of these is that they are just by people engaging on them, it can up their visibility in the algorithm and help get more visibility. So that’s a big thing. But I would also be encouraging if you are collaborating with somebody, if you’re working with another brand or you’re working with a writer, I’d be asking them to also share the content so they are helping to get people to how you enter the competition and to drive that traffic in that direction as well. I’d be looking to speak to brand ambassadors about the competition. I will be looking at brands that I like to work with who worked with me and we have a, you know, nice collaboration and reciprocal relationship about whether or not they might be happy to share.

Rhea Freeman : (21:36)
I would be looking to promote it in newsletters. I’d be looking to promote it on my website. If I could change the banner easily. Um, I would be looking to, you could even put it in the signatures of emails if you wanted to. So there’s huge, huge scope to promote the competition here. You could even, if you made sure the dates aligned, lined up nicely and you had a great relationship with the magazine, if it was a big competition, you could always have something in a magazine. Maybe there’s a magazine element to it so people could enter through the magazine’s website for example, but maybe for two chances to win. They can also go to your facebook, Instagram and um, enter there as well. There are lots of different ways that you can help promote your competition as well. Even if some of those ways are outside social media.

Rhea Freeman : (22:27)
If you have a product that you deliver through the post, maybe you include a flyer in there about don’t forget to enter our competition or this is how you can enter our competition or be in with a chance to win. Make sure you follow us or like us on Facebook, Instagram, whatever. So there’s lots of ways you can promote what you’re doing as well. The thing is that competitions can have massive, massive value. I have seen brands run competitions and they’ve had a huge spike in their followings because if your criteria is that somebody follows you on Instagram for example, and you’re working with brands who have got a much bigger influence and you have, the chances are that it’s being physically seen by more people so you’re going to have a big spike in following. And I ran a competition not that long ago with myself and two other brands and we all had a really good spike in followers because although the brands were very much aligned and connected, the beauty is with social is you don’t have to pick one over there that you can follow all three.

Rhea Freeman : (23:31)
You will often get a little bit of a drop off after competition. So if the criteria is that people must follow you or like your page to be in with a chance to enter, you might find that when that competition is over you will get some drop off. Don’t worry about this, this is life and it really is just life. But you are still getting on up there and you’re still showing yourself to more people. And that’s, that’s really important. If, when it used to be in the olden days where people could enter competition and that would then part of the, the rules would be that they would be added to a mailing list and they could opt out at any time. It’s not like that. Now don’t do that now. That’s not correct. So you might have a number of competition entries, but the first email you send you would get a number of people unsubscribe from your mailing list because actually they wanted to win the prize, but they’re not interested in all the follow up emails and messages coming through.

Rhea Freeman : (24:34)
So don’t worry about the drop off. It is still worth it. But the best thing to do is to try, even if you offered something small, I’ve seen competitions where the, the price is actually under 10 pounds with do really, really well. So don’t think, Oh God, I need to make sure I’ve got a thousand pounds worth of stuff to give away. You absolutely do not need to do that. And I would actually advise you start with something much, much smaller because you are you, when you start in competitions, you’re really cutting your teeth, you’re seeing what works, what doesn’t work. You can test different kinds of imagery. You can test on different platforms. You can see where you get the best response and if you’ve put a massive amount of product up for one prize, you’re probably going to be less likely to do that again and I would be looking to test across the different platforms.

Rhea Freeman : (25:25)
I’m always a tester testing, testing, testing, looking to test what I was doing across a different platform to see what worked. I’d be looking to use different imagery. I might, let’s do a video. I might have to do a still image. I might do a flat lay. I might do a model shot and I could do that as I was testing. I’d also make sure that whatever you’re doing, don’t just do it once, so don’t put a post up saying win a bottle of shampoo and that’s it. Use your stories, add video about it, add reminders about it. Keep pushing people to from a different directions until the competition is over. Because we know the algorithm doesn’t show all of our content to all the people all the time. And it’s your job to keep in mind, so don’t think, Oh, I’ve told them once I’m going to be a pain.

Rhea Freeman : (26:11)
You’re not – keep pushing. So testing, pushing rules, follow the rules. Please follow the rules. Did I mention the rules? Um, and I think that’s probably a pretty good foundation for you to get cracking with competitions on social media or actually on your website, team. They can be really good. You will, if you will. Maybe find that some people who start following you don’t become what I’m going to call a quality follower who actually engages with your content and wants to speak to you in that way. But when we talked about the power of one not that long ago, that still works because you’re still getting exposed to more people. And statistically that’s gonna be better for you because if somebody’s entering to win a competition to win a bottle of horse shampoo, you blooming well hope they’ve got a horse or they know someone who has got a horse so they are going to be interested in what you’re doing, whether it’s at the same level that you want them to be at this time…

Rhea Freeman : (27:10)
That’s a different discussion, but you are still getting your name out there in front of them even if they unfollow you afterwards. So don’t overthink each element of it. Make sure you’re playing by the rules. And then I would honestly get cracking even with just a small or low value item and just see what works and what doesn’t work. So many of the things I talk about here, you’re going to learn so, so much through the process and that’s really, really important. Well, I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode. Don’t forget you can come along and join in the small and supercharged Facebook group. That’s the free group or if you fancy a little bit more help and support and workshops and regular lives. Then there’s also the mastermind group, which is a subscription service. All the information is on my website, so I will catch up with you next week. I hope you have a brilliant week, and if you have listened to this to the end, first of all, well done you, secondly, please do screenshot and tag me when you share it on social media. It’s really great to get the podcast out there and get more people learning about it. And I receive so many lovely messages that say, ‘Oh, this episode helped me’. So if you could help spread the word, I’d be eternally grateful. Thank you so, so much.