Recommendations on how to create effective promotions and sweepstakes on Facebook with Easypromos

In my opinion, an effective promotion is able to attract a large number of entries from Facebook users at a minimum production cost. The number of entries will depend on:

• Promotion content: what the user is competing for by registering and how the promotion is described.
• Graphic design of promotion.
• Promotion of the promotion.
• Promotion follow-up.

Below you can a few recommendations on how to create an effective promotion with Easypromos.

[Easypromos is a Facebook application to add and manage, promotions and sweepstakes to your Facebook page. ]

1.- Promotion content: clear, short and simple

Title: it has to be short and summarize in a few words what the user is competing for by participating. Recommendation: no longer than one line.

Description: short descriptions. We recommend a maximum of 8 lines. An effective structure is:

• Paragraph 1: What is the prize? If needed, provide more details of the prize the user will be competing for by registering.
• Paragraph 2: What does the user have to do to participate? The user appreciates it if you explicitly indicate that they need to click on the “Register” button.

Conditions of use: write the rules of the promotion or sweepstakes in the space provided by Easypromos which is reserved for conditions of use. If the rules are lengthy, a link may be added in the field which Easypromos has reserved for conditions of use. Avoid putting links to the conditions of use in the title or in the description of the promotion. Use simple and clear language to write the conditions and avoid complex legal expressions.

Focus the user’s attention on the action of “Registering”: the only action visible to the user should be the “Register” button. This way, the user knows exactly what they have to do to participate. Avoid including links to external websites in the description of the promotion.

Minimise the conditions for valid entries: all users who register for a promotion through Easypromos are valid users. If the objective of the promotion is to obtain a lot of entries, do not obligate the user to take more actions, such as: register and post a picture on our wall to participate, become a fan of another page, register on our website, etc.

Additional user information: if the user has to provide additional information to participate in the promotion, use the free “comments” field to ask for the user’s personal information such as address, telephone, etc.

Read the Facebook promotions guidelines: Facebook has published guidelines for creating and administering promotions on Facebook. Easypromos is an application that offers tools to create valid promotions. However, Facebook guidelines also provide instructions on promotion content. Before activating a promotion, carefully read the promotion guide on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php

2.- Graphic image of the promotion: creativity and optimisation

Promotions on Easypromos are more attractive for users if they have an image. A good promotion should contain a graphic image.

Recommendations for adding an effective image to your promotion:

• Image width: Easypromos scales images to a width of 480 px. Do not upload images with a width smaller than this. Upload images with a width of 480px or greater.
• Image height: we have noticed that the most effective images on Easypromos are the ones that, once they are scaled, have a height of between 320 and 500 px. Smaller images are not displayed correctly when a user shares the promotion, and images that are too large place the title, the description and the register button too low for the user.
• Image that is posted on walls in Facebook: the same image of the promotion will be displayed on users’ walls and on the fan page when being shared or posted on walls. Facebook automatically rescales images within a 90 x 90 px. frame.
• Image content: we recommend using an image that attracts the user and that is related to the prize. For example, an image of the prize.
• Text in the image: minimise text in the image. We recommend using some key words so as not to leave the image looking empty but do not describe the whole promotion in the image.
• Original and creative: we recommend editing and doing design work and postproduction on the promotion image. A well-designed image enhances the promotion and conveys trustworthiness to the user.

3.- Promote your own promotion

When users participate in an Easypromos promotion, they have the option of recommending the promotion to their friends and posting it on their wall at the end of the process. These optional actions available to the user contribute to the organic virality of the promotion. However, in order to increase the number of entries, more actions need to be taken such as the ones we list below:

Post the promotion on the wall of your page by using the Easypromos “Promote” button: with this button you can post on the wall of your Facebook page the promotion optimised for Facebook walls, with a rescaled image, a title with a direct link to the promotions tab, a brief description and a direct button to “Register”. This is the quickest and most effective way to notify the promotion to all fans. The “Promote” button is accessible from the active promotions tab in the Easypromos administration area.

Each time you post your promotion on your wall, the number of user entries goes up: one single posting of the promotion on the wall of the page is not enough to get the information out to many fans for various reasons. If the promotion lasts a long time, remind them every once in a while that there is an active promotion in the promotions tab. You can remind them about the promotion by using the “Promote” button in the Easypromos administration area.

Set the “Promotions” tab of your Facebook page as the default tab for users who are not fans: the administrator of a Facebook page can select the tab that is displayed by default to all users who access the page and are not fans. If you have an active promotion you want to promote, set the Easypromos Promotions tab as the default tab. This way, the promotion will be the first content new users to your page will see.

Use other channels to publicise your promotion: the most successful promotions are the ones that create an entire strategy around the promotion. Facebook should not be the only access point to the promotion: you should announce the promotion on your website, on Twitter, in newsletters, banners, Facebook ads and other channels since these resources generate more incoming traffic for the promotion. If, in addition, you set your promotion as the default tab, you will have a good combination for attracting new fans to your Facebook page.

4.- Promotion follow-up

Check the list of registered users: from the active promotions tab in the Easypromos administration are, it is possible to access the current list of users who have registered for the promotion as well as information for each user such as photo, name on Facebook, entry information and the date and time of registration. Use this information to draw conclusions on the user’s answers to your promotion actions from the promotion itself.

Reward users who share the promotion on their wall or who recommend it to their friends: these actions help the organic virality of the promotion since they attract new fans to your page. From the list of registered users, you can see if a user has posted the promotion on their wall or if they have recommended the application to their friends.

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More info about Easypromos:

• Create and manage competitions on your Facebook page with Easypromos
• What is Easypromos (Spanish version): aplicación para gestionar promociones para fans de una página de Facebook
• Easypromos in Facebook
• Easypromos in AppBistro.com
• Easypromos in GetApp.com
• Easypromos in EasypromosApp.com