By now everyone knows that Social Media is a great networking tool and it’s important for businesses to take advantage of it. I wonder how many small businesses are still confused over how to use social media as a marketing tool, especially after being told that social media is NOT for advertising, it’s for starting conversations and building relationships.
One way that you can gain a lot of new exposure through social media without directly promoting yourself, is to hold a contest. Everyone likes to win something so it’s natural for people to share your link with all their friends in hopes of upping their chance of winning. There are many other ways of using social media effectively, but today I’d like to share a personal experience with you…
Recently I entered another photo contest and WON this time! It was put on by April Martin Photography – Forever in a Moment.
Here is the photo I entered in the contest:
We were SO excited to win! Not only that but we had SO much fun! April is a friendly and playful photographer. She really put us at ease and made us feel comfortable in front of the camera. We LOVE the photos she took of us and we will definitely be recommending her to our friends.
Here are the ways that hosting a photo contest has benefited April’s business:
- more exposure
- so far she has gone from 400 likes to >1600!*
- we will definitely recommend her to all our friends
- one of our friends already hired her for a photo session
- it’s extremely likely we’ll hire her in the future
- she was able to add to her portfolio
Here are a few of the photos she took of us:
Thank you April!
On a further note, not only did we win a black and white photo session from April, but I also won a $25 gift certificate from 99.9 Sun FM. Susan Knight was asking people to upload photos of themselves dancing at work and I submitted the following collage of photos that April took at my art studio!
By submitting this photo I won the Subway gift card. It also exposed April’s business to over 3000 people, which is the number of fans who like Susan Knight’s facebook page.
Thank you April and Susan!
If you are going to run your own contest have fun but also make sure that if you are using a social media platform you are aware of their policies and restrictions. Also take the time to make your contest rules clear and test it out before you make it public. The less confusion there is then the better your success rate will be. Feel free to share your stories with me in the comments. I’d love to hear about your experiences!
*this increase was over the span of 2 months and 3 different contests
