Business Monitor


page and the ability to communicate with your fans if you were found out? Anyone might think, hey, Facebook has got lots more important things to concern itself with than me getting some promotional detail wrong. True. Also true is the fact that a disgruntled competitor (or someone who just doesnt like you) could, having read the rules, report you out of spite and the manure will hit the air conditioning unit.


Law of the land


Also, you should be aware that a UK-based business running a promotion on Facebook is required to operate within the law of the land. Some of that is pretty weird. Whats more, if you go on the web and follow the guidance you see there, you may well still end up breaking the law, because that guidance – given in all good faith – will probably not be based on British law.


But be of good faith because this seeming minefield can be negotiated and the benefits of doing so are significant. Nor does that negotiation necessarily require sophisticated or expensive mine detectors. Better still, if you do want to run a promotion or competition via Facebook, theres another way that wont be costly, wont require you to jump through hoops, is easy to set up and can be just as effective. Host the promotion on your own website and you have complete control. The best approach is to create an optimised landing page (also known as a Squeeze Page) and then let people know about it by adding a post on your Facebook page, plus other social media sites where you are active.


As long as you dont ask people to actually do anything on Facebook, the act of advertising your promotion and including a link to your website will not contravene any rules. For added peace of mind, you could add a disclaimer to your post, stating clearly that your promotion isnt sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook in any way. It makes you


The basic reason for running a Facebook competition is to engage with your customers and even more so with potential customers. While plenty of promotional activity rewards existing customers – and there’s nothing wrong with that – what you really want to achieve is taking business from your competitors or bringing new users to the market.


look thoroughly professional, too. And of course, the good news is that you are actively driving traffic to your website which should be designed to move your visitors gently towards your conversion goals — always a positive outcome.


Competition time


So what do you actually do in terms of that Facebook competition youd like to run? The basic principles are exactly the same as if you were running such a promotion offline. Keep it simple, aim it directly at your market, go for gold in terms of the return you want.


The start point in all that is to have a sexy prize. Sexy usually means expensive, but it doesnt have to. One of the best examples of a Facebook competition Ive seen – and utterly relevant – is by Qwertee a Canadian garment decorator. Win 30 T shirts and do no laundry for a month. Ladies, you might shrink away from that idea, but not us blokes. Thats low-cost, instantly understandable, related to your business and having a touch of humour. You could hardly add anything better to a piece of marketing. As far as you can, copy that principle. The basic reason for running a Facebook competition is to engage with your customers and even more so with potential customers. While plenty of promotional activity rewards existing customers – and theres nothing wrong with that – what you


really want to achieve is taking business from your competitors or bringing new users to the market.


Therefore, your competition will benefit you more if it attracts entrants because they are interested in what you do and like what you do (thats like in the traditional sense rather than the Facebook sense). Therefore this impacts on that sexy prize.


Offering, say, an Apple watch is probably a mistake because you will attract hordes of people who want the latest Apple kit or who love owning the latest must-have watch, rather than people who are interested in buying printwear. Entry qualifications are also important to get right. Thanks to email being instantly available this is far easier than it used to be back in the days of stamps and envelopes. I have seen plenty of recommendations on websites (mostly from America) that entry should be easy and inclusive of all and sundry. Superficially, this sounds right, so its just name, email and a like of your Facebook page. Im not convinced, for several reasons. First, all and sundry means just that – 99% of entrants are highly unlikely ever to be customers. Second, how many people do you want to attract? 10,000 entrants from all over the world would make an excellent social media post, a nice update on your website and a good press release to UK media. But how much commercial benefit will you gain? Third, if you are giving someone a reward – in this case a prize – I suggest they should do at least a little work for it.


I recommend using a photo competition requiring the subject(s) to be in their corporate printwear or a piece of social printwear such as a tour shirt. That requires you to set down rules and judging criteria. A simple one would be most people wearing the same shirt in a pic and smiling. You could apply the same principle to sports teams/clubs. Consider the individual sports. Any golfer who has had a hole in one probably wont have a pic of the event to work with but I guarantee they will have a pic of them with the ball. The same applies to any fisherman who has caught a biggie.


Hopefully this article has given you enough food for thought to enable you to hold your own Facebook competition and reap the results.


www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk July 2016 | 21 |


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