Five Tips for Successful Contests on Twitter

Campaigns on Twitter can be unique to the platform or part of a much larger campaign that is integrated with other sites and social networks. I have found the following five tips essential when planning a contest that will be promoted on Twitter.

• Avoid Contest Spam
  • Less is more for the community, especially when requesting that consumers enter your contest via Twitter. Asking for a daily tweet or @reply can frustrate the Twitter community. While finding your campaign or brand as a top trending topic is mouth watering it is not worth the backlash. The Twitter community will see an obscene amount of tweets as noise and spam.
• Make it Easy to Track Contest Entries
  • It is best to ask consumers to include an @reply or hashtag in their updates. To state it simply, it can become overwhelming trying to track every entry. By leveraging the @reply feature or a hashtag you can easily search and filter contest entries from other conversations.
• Avoid Generating Automatic Replies
  • It is not necessary to thank everyone who has entered your contest through an @reply or automatically generated post. Twitter may consider it spam and it doesn’t create a ton of value for the consumer.
• Make it Exclusive
  • If Twitter is just one of many networks that you have included in your campaign then I would encourage some exclusivity. Allow consumers to generate multiple entries into a contest by entering via each network. In doing so consumers find value in one more opportunity to win as well as discovering new ways to interact with your brand.
• Don’t Spam Your Audience
  • Avoid repeatedly spamming your Twitter followers begging for contest entries. Doing so may endanger your promotion as well as your community. I would encourage you to develop a content calendar that appeals to both your new followers as well as your existing community. This should be seen as an opportunity to create even more conversation about your brand, not just the contest.

You do have a content calendar, right? If not, you should consider developing a list of content topics and suggested tweets. I suggest starting with a two week window. This will make you less reactive and free-up your time to focus on conversations you find valuable in the social space.

I hope these five contest tips will help you find campaign success on Twitter. In fact, I think the basic rules apply to almost any social network. Keep it simple, avoid spam and engage your audience. Good luck!

Dennis Jenders

With nearly 15 years in the field, Dennis Jenders is a digital marketing strategist with significant experience in analytics, design, development, information architecture and market research. Dennis is a founding board member of the Milwaukee Interactive Marketing Association, currently works at Laughlin Constable and is an adjunct professor at Marquette University.

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