By Mia Palantzas & Emma McNally
Exploring a multi-faceted approach to getting the most out of your social media contest in 2024; a case study with ADP Canada
Winner! Gagnant!
As professional communicators, understanding the emotion and persuasion that words can hold is a powerful tactic in and of itself. While ‘winner’ or ‘gagnant’ may not necessarily depict any deep significance, it sure does the job of grasping our attention – and as such, the same goes for social media contests.
Social media contests allow current and new followers to become active contributors, increase engagement and grow brand awareness – while also providing brands an opportunity to give back and say thanks to loyal followers. Recently, our team engaged with ADP Canada, a leading provider in payroll and HR solutions, to promote their third annual Employee Recognition Contest, powered by ADP Canada (ERC) campaign. Held exclusively on Instagram, the contest offered users the opportunity to tag a coworker in the comments, share a note of appreciation and be entered for a chance to win one-of-ten $400 Amazon Canada gift cards. Generating more than 2,000 entries by the end of the week-long contest and identifying measurable growth across ADP Canada’s following and engagement, the contest was a success!
Here are some of our key learnings and tips for creating a successful social media contest:
Resonate with your audience
The first order of business is to define and identify a target audience. This will help determine the type of content that is produced and what platform makes the most sense for the contest as a whole.
The ERC campaign, held annually in celebration of Employee Appreciation Day, is rooted in developing a greater culture of appreciation outside of the workplace. As an HR and payroll provider, the contest appeals to those in the industry and employees as the primary audience, creating a greater community feel on ADP Canada’s Instagram.
Engage with influencers
One of the most significant advantages of influencers is their ability to establish genuine connections with their followers. Unlike traditional advertising, which can feel scripted and impersonal, influencers infuse authenticity into their content. By sharing personal experiences, honest reviews, and behind-the-scenes glimpses, they foster trust with their audience. When influencers endorse a product or service, their followers perceive it as a personal recommendation rather than a sales pitch, leading to higher levels of engagement and conversion.
Since this was the third annual ERC campaign, we devised a strategy year-over-year to engage both recurring and new influencers to help boost campaign awareness. This approach helped us build familiarity with our existing audience and expand our reach by connecting with new audiences through new influencer partnerships.
Create identifiable thumbnails
First impressions are everything on social media. With attention spans shrinking, providing a seamless entry process can be crucial if you’re looking to maximize entries and engagement – and it all starts with a thumbnail.
With the ERC campaign, posting during the week-long contest included three in-feed posts (teaser, contest post and reminder) and regular story promotions on Instagram. With entries only valid via the contest post, creating identifiable thumbnails was crucial. As such, following ADP Canada brand guidelines, we opted for a text-forward thumbnail identifying the name of the contest and where to enter.
Consider paid boosting
Organic engagement is a crucial element of a well-rounded social media plan. However, to retain current followers with the hopes of expanding to their social networks, boosting social media posts can also help reach new target audiences.
- Firstly, the user-friendly set-up process provides guidelines to define your target audience, allocate a budget, and set the duration of the boost.
- Secondly, it can be a cost-effective way to generate warm leads of active new users, rather than solely relying on traditional organic efforts such as hashtags.
- Lastly, paid posts offer measurable analytics, providing greater insight into return on investment and key learnings, which is especially important for annual campaigns.
To generate engagement for the ERC campaign, we chose to boost the entry post on both Instagram and LinkedIn. Leveraging multiple channels offers visibility to a greater number of social communities and diversifies your engagement to build relationships with a wider range of users.
The takeaway
Beyond the ‘likes’, social media contests continue to be a tried-and-true tactic that not only helps to grow your following but also provides an opportunity to reward users that have shown loyalty in engagement.
Generate content that resonates with your audience, get creative, try new things and your next social media contest might just be a Winner! Gagnant!