Promote Your Giveaway: Facebook

Chances are you have a Facebook page. While other social networks exist, having a Facebook page means you probably have some kind of online following. If you don’t have a Facebook page for your business already, creating one is simple. Promoting your giveaway to your Facebook fans is a must; below you’ll learn about how you can best promote your giveaway on Facebook.

Status updates

A status update is a message that you create and post on your Facebook timeline. Hopefully, the message is relevant about your business as not just your fans on Facebook will see, but really anyone who wants to see what you’re talking about. While your status update will be seen on your Facebook page, the hope is that it will be displayed on your fans’ Facebook news feeds as well.

Promoting your giveaway on Facebook through a status update is the most common way to share your promotion with your fans. You can link anyone from a Facebook page to your blog, website, or wherever you’re running your giveaway. You can make the associated message as short or as long as you’d like.

Here are some other tips you can use to help your giveaway receive more traffic through status updates on Facebook:

• Pin a status update. Anytime you write a status update, it will be placed in your Facebook page’s timeline chronologically. If you want one particular status update to gain more visibility, you can pin the post to the top of your timeline. Anyone browsing your timeline will see this post first. Remember, you’re only allowed to pin one status update at any given time and the pinned post has to be a post created by your page (learn more).

• Boost your status update. For a price (starting at $5), Facebook will allow you to boost your status update so it will reach more of your fans in their news feeds. This is an option you can employ to get your status updates about giveaways in front of more fans (learn more about boosted posts here). If you decide to boost your post, you’re recommend to read both Facebook’s advertising guidelines and page terms. If you’re interested in other ways to advertise on Facebook, check out Facebook’s advertising guide to discover ways you can go about advertising on Facebook and boost your promotion.

• Focus on simple status updates with CTAs. As shown in the examples above, create clear, concise copy in your status updates. Use call-to-action (CTA) messaging, asking users to "enter here", “enter to win”, and “check it out”. Include your prize and its ARV. Keep your messaging short and straightforward.

• Include video, images w/ links in your status updates. Here’s your change to include your prize image in a status update or a graphic that you’ve created describing the promotion. However, keep in mind that a post that includes a video performs best from an organic reach perspective. If you're going to include an image, use the image generated in the image preview that auto-generates when you add a URL to your status update.

Status updates using the Rafflecopter Facebook app

If you’re posting a status update that links to your giveaway located off of Facebook on another site, such as your blog or a landing page that you’ve created, linking directly to the page works great. If you’re using the Rafflecopter Facebook app and directing traffic there, remember to use the mobile-friendly URL that’s provided so both your fans on desktop and mobile devices can access your giveaway.

For more information on how to use the provided mobile-friendly URL, check out the Rafflecopter knowledge base article here.

Cover photos

Cover photos are prime real estate on your Facebook page and can be arranged and designed any way you’d like. The only rule is that ‘covers can't be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else's copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines.’

Consider updating your cover photo to help promote your giveaway as it launches or as it’s ending. Your cover photo isn’t limited to the amount of text it contains.

Run a Facebook flash giveaway

A ‘flash giveaway’ generally refers to a promotion that lasts less than 24 hours. As described earlier, running a flash giveaway on your Facebook page is a great way to engage your fanbase (it can be a fun way to give back to your fans as well!).

But it can also be a way to help bring attention to the bigger giveaway you’re currently running. Consider giving away a bite-sized prize in a flash giveaway on your Facebook page that brings attention to your main promotion in place of advertising on Facebook.

When launching your flash giveaway, bring attention to your main giveaway. When announcing the winners to the flash giveaway, remind your fans that if they didn’t win, they can still enter to win the main giveaway’s prize.

Check out Rafflecopter’s Facebook flash giveaway app that makes it easy to manage a flash giveaway on your Facebook timeline. If you're running a giveaway on your Facebook timeline, here's an article that describes 5 best practices for your Facebook timeline giveaway.

Have a great Facebook page

While the tips above should help your giveaway, running a great / healthy Facebook page will only help your promotions be more successful. Here’s a curated list of other compelling blog posts and materials about Facebook marketing that you’ll find helpful:

• 18 Ways to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Performance

• 13 Sloppy Mistakes You're Making With Your Calls-to-Action

• 12 Best Practices For Media Companies Using Facebook Pages

• How to Do A/B Testing with Facebook Status Updates How to Do A/B Testing with Facebook Status Updates

• How Facebook Pages Succeed Using 13 Simple Best Practices

• How to Craft Perfect Posts for Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter [SlideShare]

• The Big List of 189 Words That Convert: Write Copy That Gets Your Customer's Attention Every Time

• 5 Data-Driven Ways To Get Your Facebook Post Seen by Your Audience

• 9 Do's and Don'ts for Creating Outstanding Facebook Cover Photos

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Next: Learn best practices surrounding promoting your giveaway on Twitter