Despite Tik Tok being the "hot new thing," Facebook still has a massive audience, especially if you're targeting the over-25 crowd.
Years ago, Facebook giveaways where you "tag 3 friends" on a post were huge and went super viral, but nowadays that method has been banned.
So how do you run a Facebook giveaway nowadays?
The only way to leverage Facebook traffic now is to run the giveaway offsite, using a tool like VYPER.
We are going to go through some of the best Facebook giveaway examples so that you can copy them word for word to replicate the success of these giveaways.
Before we go through the Facebook giveaway examples, a few things that you need to do before setting up your giveaways are
- What's the goal of this giveaway? Build followers, incentivize social engagements, or grow your email list?
- Do you know exactly who you want to attract with your Facebook giveaway? Your target audience, perhaps?
- Choose a prize that is highly perceived by the people you want to attract. It can be something unique, such as a product, service, or experience. Eg. a music instrument will attract musicians, which is ideal for music stores, music software makers, and music hardware manufacturers.
Facebook Giveaway Examples
Lets take a closer look at a few successful Facebook giveaway examples. We selected these giveaways because of their ability to drastically increase engagement.
Some of the giveaway posts below encourage users to refer other users. This is a recipe for viral marketing, incentivizing people to refer more users, which will end up referring even more users. This snowball effect helps to get your giveaway post noticed by more Facebook users.
Without any further delay, let's analyze these Facebook giveaway examples.
Ghost Golf Weekender Bag Giveaway
- Entry Method: Engage with Ghost Golfs post - Follow, Like, & Tag
- Prize: Ghost Golf Weekender Bag worth $265
- Ideal for: Online stores, accessory brands, or influencers with merch lines
Ghost Golf is a brand of golf apparel and accessories. It has an active Facebook page to promote its products.
Ghost Golf regularly hosts Facebook giveaways to boost engagement and their audience on the platform. They put up incredible prizes that the audience on Facebook thoroughly appreciates. A prize like an exclusive golf bag will get customers to refer new leads for a chance to win quickly.
Pros
- Easy to setup
- The post gets a lot of engagement
- Good for getting impressions on social
- Low friction to tag others.
Cons
- Facebook is cracking down on posts that force people to tag or comment
- Limited contact info collected
- Only lives on Instagram or Facebook (where you post it)
- Can only incentivize 1 action "tag"
- No features or setting adjustment options
Contesting Tool Facebook Giveaway Example
Much more functionality and scalability. You can collect way more data, get way more out of your contestants, and have more advanced features to manage your contest.
The Facebook giveaway example below is the page that links in posts, ads, emails, etc. redirect to. You can see when they sign up, you collect the email, then give them the option to refer friends and complete actions (follow, share, etc).
Pros
- Collect a lot more data
- Get entrants to follow you, share content and refer others
- Create much more engaging and complex campaigns
- Follow up with emails
Cons
- Takes longer to set up
- Software costs money (but you have to invest to get the return you want)
When using a contest tool (like VYPER), you can get much more than just the email address. Use things like bonus actions to build your following, get people to share your content, opt into messenger lists, and more.
Plus, if you use an email marketing tool like Moosend in tandem to share your content, you can engage your customers, send them interactive content, and keep them informed on any future giveaways or contests.
The bonus actions really give you the leverage to incentivize any actions. One of our favorites is getting people to create user-generated content.
How to create a good contest or giveaway post
It's important to make your post wither it be organic or an ad, super engaging and scroll-stopping.
We will go into more of these tactics later, but for now, check out the tips below on how to create awesome posts for your Facebook giveaways.
- Make sure you call out exactly what you are giving away.
- Test multiple creative styles. For example, images of the grand prize, videos of the grand prizes, slideshows or carousel posts of the prizes or even a video of you or your brand spokesman announcing the contest and prizes.
- use emojis
- Give an incentive on signup (free XX or $XX OFF etc)
- Include a short section of how the contest works "enter → collect points → unlock rewards"
- Promote your giveaway on social. Use a service like Placeit to create Facebook covers or banners for the campaign.
How to set up Facebook giveaway & contest ads
Setting up a good Facebook contest and choosing a great prize that’s going to get people excited is one thing. The next is marketing, social media management, and scaling it so thousands of people see it!
One of the easiest ways to do this is through paid media. You can also do it organically, which we cover in a number of guides here.
So below is a video on how to set up your Facebook ad campaign with contests and giveaway.
Good Facebook contest ad examples
Here are a few Facebook giveaway examples for posts and ads that you can copy when marketing your contest or giveaway. Notice there are some common themes, one of them being a good video or image of the product.
- Use emojis to break up the text
- Using an evergreen contest so you can continue to run the contest for a longer period of time
- Shows the product in the holding image
- Used the giveaway to incentivize social engagements (shares, views, and comments)
- Tell people exactly what they can win first-up
Influencers, Formatting, and Hashtags
- Working with influencers, building awareness, and preparing people for the actual giveaway
- It looks like this was originally an Instagram post; make sure to post your giveaway natively to all the social platforms you are using.
- Using the #giveaway hashtag is a little broad, better than using brand or niche-specific hashtags.
- Great image but would need to keep under 20% for ads
- The vape, cannabis, CBD, guns, crypto and adult industry all rely heavily on giveaways and contests to build audiences as they are restricted by ad networks.
- Partnered up with another company
- Keeping people engaged even after the contest
- Using hashtags
- The Facebook giveaway post is engaging
- Great copy outlining the prizes
- The creative shows what the prize is quickly
- Shares the dollar value
- Could have made a video showing the sous-vide machine in use and all its features and applications.
- This Facebook giveaway example shows all the prizes in the image.
- Using a square image to take up the most room on Facebook and Instagram. Both platforms accept square so you can use the same image for both.
- Calls out the giveaway in the image and the text.
- Calls out who they are trying to attract in the copy.
- They could have added more information about the prizes or the value in the copy, but short and sweet is sometimes better. It's worth split-testing the two separate giveaway posts to see which one does better. Scale the one that has a better cost per sign-up or click-through rate.
Tips for running a Facebook giveaway or contest
If you are considering running a contest or giveaway on Facebook or Instagram, here are a few tips:
- Choose a prize that your target audience will be interested in: The prize is the main incentive for people to enter your contest or giveaway, so it is important to choose a prize that your target audience will be interested in.
- Promote your contest or giveaway: Once you have created your contest or giveaway, be sure to promote it on your social media pages and website. You can also use paid advertising to promote your contest or giveaway to a wider audience. You can also schedule Facebook reels for added visibility.
- Make it easy to enter: Your contest or giveaway should be easy to enter. This means minimizing the number of steps required to participate.
- Follow the rules: Facebook and Instagram have specific rules for running contests and giveaways. Be sure to follow these rules to avoid having your contest or giveaway shut down.
Contests and giveaways can be a great way to achieve your marketing goals on Facebook and Instagram. By following these tips, you can create a successful contest or giveaway that will help you to reach your target audience and achieve your marketing goals.
Bad contest ad examples
You should try and avoid some Facebook giveaway examples when running your contest or giveaway. One of the main things to remember is to try and be different. Try and stand out, try something new, engage with people!
So, take a look at these below so you know what NOT to do.
- Image is not optimized for social (use square or landscape depending on the network)
- The copy is cut off in the title and description
Notes
- The prize is pretty general and also low value, the amount of sharing was more than likely low on this campaign as people are not too interested in sharing a comforter.
- Good to use hashtags however spammers do sometimes abuse this by automating entry based on the #giveaway and #contest hashtags. Using more industry-specific hashtags is usually better.
A Few FAQ's From Our Facebook Group About Contests and Giveaways
Yes, you can. Social platforms are trying to reduce the amount of gamification on their platforms, so native posts with tagging friends or enter or liking pages to enter are being removed. However, if you host your campaign on another tool you can still collect the emails and run a contest or giveaway.
It's best to place the Facebook tracking pixel on your contest page. VYPER does this for you if you just enter your Facebook Pixel idea. It will then place the PageView and Lead events. You will want to run a conversion campaign optimized for the Lead event.
The most common time frame we see is 3-4 weeks. This gives you enough time to build up enough momentum from referrals and your marketing efforts.
Stick to 2-3 channels and master them. The main ways to promote a contest are email lists, website traffic, influencers, organic traffic, referrals, and a few other ways (keep reading our blog ?)
It's best to use both so that you can get all the ad placements. Video will work better in some placements and images will work better in others.
The most important rule is to not force or require anyone to like your page, tag someone or make a purchase. You can require them to sign up with their name and email, then ask if they want to follow your page for extra points.
I'm sure you now have a few ideas on how to create the perfect giveaway or contest Facebook post now.
You can also take a look at some of our other posts on marketing your contest or giveaway here.
Add a link to your giveaway or contest post in the comments and we will review and give you some suggestions.