One of the major benefits of running a contest on Twitter is that it’s a quick and easy way to distribute links, which, of course, drives considerable traffic to your site. This also grows your message dissemination exponentially if you’ve also required interested people to join your roster of followers and / or retweet your contest tweet, since doing either only takes about a single click of the Follow or Retweet. This, of course, depends on how attractive the prize is or how well you’ve executed the game.
In previous posts, we determined some of the key elements when planning a contest and helped you with your first contest-related tweet to initiate the contest proper. Here are a few more suggestions to keep in mind as you move along your contest.
Set a Deadline
It is very important to set expectations whenever running anything online that asks for participation from your followers. In the case of contests, aside from specifying the objectives and highlighting what your followers can possibly get for their efforts, never forget to set a deadline. This gives your contest an impact and a sense of urgency while providing a stable structure your readers can work by.
But how long of a deadline should you set? Ideally, this should depend on the original objective that drives the contest, the mechanics and the prize.
A week should be enough if you’re simply asking them to follow you or retweet your contest tweet; maybe a lot longer if you’re giving away something expensive or something not readily available like a limited edition copy of a book available only overseas. Two weeks should be amenable if you’re asking for time-intensive outputs like Photoshopped submissions or a short essay. Maybe a month or two if it’s a car you have up for grabs which should also substantially improve your site’s statistics.
More on Broadcasting
Sure, your contest may be running on Twitter but you should not limit it there. Instead, spread it around your social networks and microblogs. Facebook, of course, should also be part of the equation as with any service you happen to have subscribed to. To make your multi-site broadcasting easier, we recommend using a multi-platform publishing service like Ping.fm which cross-posts to over 40 social networks, microblogs and video and music sharing sites. In addition to this, you can even have your tweet as your status on Skype, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger or AIM; this should catch the eye of your messenger buddies who are not necessarily following you on Twitter.
Don’t stop with that single tweet. If you can, tweet out frequent updates, perhaps modifications to the mechanics, the addition of more prizes or links to entrees you’ve already received. This not only keeps the public informed and make sure the Twitterverse doesn’t forget about your contest, it also can also keep other potential contestants on their toes by showing them what they have to beat to win.
Tags: Contests, Facebook, Gaming, Microblogs, Ping.fm, Social Media, social networks, Twitter, Yahoo Widgets
