30 Creative Facebook Contest Ideas You Can Use Today

image

Follow this guide for the ultimate list of Facebook contest ideas that any kind of brand can use.

Running contests on your Facebook Page is an easy way to get new Facebook likes, email subscribers, and sales leads for your business. We’ve seen amazing Facebook contest ideas succeed across industries with both our clients and for Wishpond.

But sometimes, it can be difficult to come up with Facebook contest ideas. You need an idea that will captivate your audience and get your leads interested in the products you sell.

From experience, we know the worst thing you can do is give away an iPad and expect a slew of interested leads in return. Anyone who entered would do so only for the iPad. No, we know that an ideal Facebook contest has to benefit your business and your fans.

You need to have an idea that not only captivates your audience in a way that gets them to consider your product or service but is also simple enough for everyone to participate in.

Confused yet? Don’t panic.

In this article, I’ll give you 25 creative Facebook giveaway ideas and contest examples that you can use to create highly engaging and targeted contests on your Facebook Page.

Facebook Contest Idea #1: Tell Us How You Would Use [Product] to Win it!

This Facebook giveaway idea is very simple: Take a product you sell and ask people how they would use it if they owned it. Push people to think about something fun, interesting, or unusual they would use it for. You can then give the winner the product and have them send in a picture of them using it in the way they described: Giving you some bonus user-generated content.

It’s my personal favorite type of Facebook giveaway. It forces entrants to get highly engaged with your product by thinking of interesting ways to use it. This is great for two reasons:

  1. It gets entrants thinking about reasons to use (and thereby purchase) the product – making them more likely to purchase the product if they don’t win it.
  2. It creates tons of social recommendations (testimonials) for your products.

If you use a Facebook contest tool, like Wishpond’s Essay Contest feature, to run this type of contest, you can utilize built-in voting on entries to determine the winner. Entrants will be propelled to share as much as possible with their friends to get the highest vote count. This will get each of their friends to read their recommendation of your product and pique their interest in checking out your products and business.

70% of US online adults trust brand or product recommendations from friends and family and 46% trust consumer-written online reviews, while just 10% trust ads on websites, and 9% trust text messages from companies or brands. This makes each entry in this type of contest a promotion for your company that is 10X more effective than any paid advertisement you can run.

Best Practices for Facebook Giveaway Idea #1

  1. In the contest description/details provide some icebreaker examples to get people started.
  2. In the posts you make on your Facebook Page to promote the contest, include user entries (and your own favorites) of how to use the product – photos of the use cases are a bonus.
  3. Choose a product that’s easy to think of interesting uses for. The product should be fairly mainstream that most people would have a use for, so everyone can easily think of something. The more niche the product is, fewer people will know how to use it and therefore enter.

Facebook Contest Idea #2: Take a Photo of Yourself Using [Product Name] OR At [Location] OR Doing [Activity]

This Facebook giveaway idea entices your customers to take photos of themselves interacting with your product or service or while they’re at one of your brick-and-mortar locations. This can be an excellent local marketing strategy.

It’s similar to #1, in that it creates a personal recommendation/testimonial for your business, but has both a major advantage and disadvantage:

Advantage: A photo provides convincing proof that you recommend a company and its products, as you either need to have purchased a product/service from the company or have visited one of its locations.

Disadvantage: An entrant must have already purchased your product/service or visited one of your locations, which is a high barrier to entry.

For this type of contest to be successful, you need to already have a lot of customers and fans on your Facebook Page. Why? Only a moderate percentage of your customers will see or enter your contest. And to enter they need to take the time to take a photo of themselves doing something very specific. This again will decrease the number of willing entrants in your contest.

To get a successful return on your investment (number of leads) from this contest, I would only recommend using this contest idea if you have at least 5,000 Likes on your Facebook Page. This will provide you with enough entries to make the contest engaging and entice people to share with their friends to get more votes than any other entry to win.

If you have less than 5,000 Facebook likes don’t fret! I would recommend using Facebook contest idea #1: It will get you a ton of entries and product recommendations by making it much easier for people to enter.

You can run this type of contest using a Facebook Contest App like Wishpond’s Photo Contest App. Just like with contest #1, you can utilize built-in voting on entries to determine the winner. Entrants will be propelled to share as much as possible with their friends to get the highest vote count.

Check out an example below using Wishpond’s Photo Contest App:
image

Best Practices for Facebook Giveaway Idea #2

  1. Choose a product that a lot of people own, or a highly popular store location, to maximize entries.
  2. Do your best to choose products that are not prone to having inappropriate pictures taken with them to avoid unwanted photos.
  3. Provide images built into the contest design of people using the products or at your store location to give them ideas on how they can do it themselves.

Facebook Contest Idea #3: Name Our New [Product]

I’ve found that people truly enjoy this type of contest: They get to have fun thinking creatively about the product and get the chance to actually make a decision in a company. This second one is especially important for generating goodwill for your company, as people will see you as caring about and listening to your customers.

Letting your customers name your product also gives you great insight into what they think about it, what they value about it. The name they choose will reflect their first impression of what they think it does and what they think its strength is.

This is a great way to build buzz around a new product: People will be reading about its functionality and benefits far more intently than if you showed them an ad. And they’ll be sharing it with all of their friends to get votes for their entry. This is even a great way for new companies to generate initial buzz for themselves when they’re just starting out.

Check out an example of a “Name our new [Product]” contest from Cotton Carrier:

image

Best Practices for Facebook Giveaway Idea #3

  1. Similar to #2, try your best to choose products that don’t lend themselves to inappropriate names to avoid unwanted entries.
  2. Provide details on the specification and uses of the product so people will have a good understanding of how it works and what to call it.
  3. Make sure you actually use the name that wins the contest. To ensure the name is one you like, choose the top ten names with the most user votes and then have an internal panel of judges (or just yourself) decide on the final winner.

Facebook Contest Idea #4: Caption This to Win [Prize]!

The rise of memes on websites like Reddit has made photo caption contests a popular way to engage fans. The basic premise is that you post a picture of something funny or outrageous and then ask people to write a caption (title) for it.

A great way to utilize this to create buzz for your products is to include one of your products in the photo. Two effective ways to create “photo caption contest” worthy photos with your products are to show an animal using it or to show a baby using it. These types of photos immediately make people chuckle and put them inside the mind of the pictured animal or baby to think about what they think the product is/does.

For example, this photo that Walmart posted on its Facebook Page just puts me in the mind of the cat thinking “I do not find this amusing human!”:

cat meme

Best Practices for Facebook Giveaway Idea #4

  1. Use a very simple image that people don’t have to think about or decipher.
  2. Do not use religious or political figures or symbols – this can lead to much controversy.
  3. Use animals or babies in your photos – these are statistically the most engaging photos on Facebook.

Facebook Contest Idea #5: Vote for Which [Product/Service] We Should Put on Sale

This is one of the best Facebook contest ideas to drive new sales. To run this contest you simply choose 2 – 8 products, display them on a page and allow people to vote on each one (Wishpond’s Vote Contest App provides a complete out-of-the-box solution for this type of contest).

Include a title that reads “Whichever product gets the most votes will be 50% off next week”. When the contest ends, post on your Facebook Page, and send an email to every person who participated, saying which product won and how customers can redeem the discount on it.

This will get people sharing with friends to help their choice win, and it could even start comment discussions about which product should win, and why. This will create new recommendations/testimonials for your products as everyone clamors to prove that their chosen product is the best one to vote for.

A twist on this type of contest is to ask people to vote for which [Product/Service] you should add to your seasonal line-up.

Mountain Dew does this successfully with its annual Dewmocracy Challenge in which people vote for which new flavor Mountain Dew should release that year. Check it out below:

Mountain Dew contest

Stitch Collective has built a niche for its business by completely crowdsourcing its product design through the use of voting competitions. Stitch asks its customers to vote on which bag designs they should turn into real products to sell. Check out our case study of how they have used Wishpond’s Vote Contest App to do this.

Best Practices for Facebook Giveaway #5:

  1. Provide an equal discount for all items. If the discount is higher on some items than on others, it will skew the results to those with the highest discount. This will minimize any discussion or engagement about which product is best, as people will focus purely on the price points.
  2. Provide different categories of products to cater to your entire customer base (don’t put six different types of dishwashers up, it will not be very interesting to anyone who doesn’t want to buy a dishwasher right now).
  3. Entice people to add comments about which product is better by telling them in the contest details/description.

Facebook Contest Idea #6: Win an Adventure

Who doesn’t love new adventures? The promise of adventure is hard to resist, especially in an age where new experiences provide highly shareable social media content.

A children’s gymnastics and activity center gave away a massive adventure package in their social media contest. The prize package included a 2-week pass, 1 birthday party, and 4 nights out for the parents.

What we like about this contest is the wide range of appeal of the prize. It was something both the child and the parent could enjoy. It was also a prize that allowed the customer to fully experience what Kerrigan had to offer.

Facebook Contest Idea

Facebook Contest Idea #7: Vote For Your Favourite Product

Let your fans have their say with this unique spin on a Facebook vote contest.

For this contest, your fans will vote on their favorite product of yours. Once the contest is over, a winner is chosen at random to receive the grand prize.

What makes this vote contest different is the fact that you win too. Having your customers vote for their favorite product gives you valuable data. It can help you decide what product to order more of or what to invest more in.

Lisette L ran a Facebook vote contest to see what pair of leggings their customers liked most. The winning fan received their favorite pair of Lisette L leggings and $1000 in cash. Lisette L received invaluable data of the product their fans liked most which influenced their buying decisions in the future.

Want to run a high-impact Facebook contest but don’t have the time or expertise to make it happen? At Wishpond, we offer a team of marketing experts who can create powerful campaigns for you. Book a demo to learn more.

Facebook Contest Idea #8: Sign Up And Win

Do you market a digital SaaS type of product? Looking for more users and sign-ups?

Then a sign-up and win contest is what you need. Reward those who sign up for your platform by offering a chance to win a free year of service.

BitPages created a massive Facebook contest giving away a car to one lucky user. By signing up for BitPages you are entered to win. It doesn’t get much more complex than that. It increased sign-ups for the BitPages platform and garnered a ton of exposure in their industry.

Facebook Contest Idea #9: Update Your Cover Images

This is more of a tip than an idea but it’s really worth mentioning. Update all of your creative assets across your owned properties. We see marketers forget to do this all the time.

Once your Facebook contest or giveaway is live, change your cover images, pin a post about the contest, and update your links. It’s the best way to let everyone who follows your business know you’re running a contest. That way the contest will receive more exposure and be in a prime location to receive more shares.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #10: Refer a Friend

Amongst all the contests we run here at Wishpond, refer a friend contests are one of our most popular. Not only do people enter the contest with their emails, but they also receive bonus entries by sharing the contest with their network. This will help you spread brand awareness in a big way.

This type of contest leverages your followers and their networks to help extend the reach. As long as you’re offering a prize that your audience desperately wants to win, you should have no trouble getting them to share it.

Mobogenie ran a referral contest just as I described and gave away awesome grand prizes that included cellphones, headphones, backpacks, and more. Entrants were encouraged to share the contest with as many people as they wanted to, to receive bonus entries and more chances to win.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #11: Selfie Contest

If you’ve had any experience with social media at all, you’ve likely seen your fair share of selfies. Like them or not, lots of brands love leveraging people’s selfie addictions. A selfie contest involves having participants enter a selfie under a certain theme for their chance to win.

One of the sillier Facebook contest ideas we’ve run involved taking and sharing a selfie with your horse. Fun spins on a selfie contest like this can be adapted for any brand. Take a selfie with our product. Take a selfie at our store. Take a selfie of you doing anything! You get the point. Each time your entrants submit a photo, you get some great user-generated content too.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #12: Tell Us Your Story

Rather than making entrants submit a photo, this Facebook contest takes a different approach. For businesses looking to learn a little bit more about their loyal fans, they can request story submissions.

Wonder Bread wanted to learn more about the people who loved their product. They requested that fans enter the contest and upload a photo of their hero and tell their story. It gave Wonder invaluable insight into who its customers are and what things they value. It allows you to answer a question about your audience that you aren’t sure of.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #13: Brand Battle Vote Contest

If the rise of the UFC and mixed martial arts tells us one thing it’s that people love a great battle.

Pit two brands or products against each other and have your fans vote for their favorite. Seeing which wins will give your business valuable data on the products your fans like the most.

Lego did just that with a vote contest that put Minecraft, Lord of the Rings, and Lego City against one another. Fans got the chance to vote for their favorite lego series and Lego got valuable data to use on their next production run.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #14: Caption This

Pick a funny photo that involves your team and have your fans submit captions. This is all that’s involved in a classic Facebook caption contest.

The Chicago Bears and Dunkin Donuts teamed up for a Facebook caption contest to engage their fans. Fans were asked to create and submit their funniest captions. All captions were posted on the contest page for everyone to see and vote on to encourage group participation.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #15: Back2School

Tired parents everywhere rejoice every time September and the back-to-school seasons come around. For those in the business of preparing students for the new school year a back-to-school-themed contest works perfectly.

In anticipation of the new school year, Brentwood mall ran a back-to-school contest. For the contest, students were asked to submit their freshest school outfit photos for a chance to win a $500 gift card.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #16: Your Daily Driver

Do you sell products, goods, or accessories that your customers use every day? Find out just how your customers use your product with a daily driver photo contest.

In the example below, EverydayCarry hosted a contest to see what setup their readers used on the daily. Fans would submit photos of their everyday carries and be entered to win an awesome gadget prize pack.

Facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #17: You’re The Designer

Don’t leave all the creative work to your designers, let your fans have a say.

Mindzai hosted a design contest to let their fans become the designers. Fans could submit their t-shirt designs for a chance to win $500 and have their art featured on Mindzai apparel. Mindzai also made it a requirement to have participants follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #18: Sporting Events

Is there a major sporting event happening in the near future? Sporting events that draw massive attention are perfect opportunities for Facebook contests.

Like they do every year, the NFL used Facebook to give away tickets to the Super Bowl. All fans had to do was submit a video of their end zone dance for a chance to win free tickets to the Super Bowl.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #19: How Do You Use It?

As much as we like to think we know, our fans don’t always interact with our business in the ways we think they do. They might use our products in a different manner for example.

REI ran a Facebook photo contest to see just how their customers are using their products in the great outdoors. The winner received a REI gift card and REI got some great user-generated content in return. Not to mention some insight into how their products were being used in the real world.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #20: What Type Are You?

You shouldn’t be surprised to hear that not all your customers are the same. They all have different reasons and stories for why they chose to do business with you. If you’re interested in finding out the “why,” (which you really should be) a Facebook contest can help.

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts used a Facebook contest to find out a little bit more about their customers. They wanted to find out what type of travelers their customers were so as to serve them better in the future. Contests like these that produce valuable data and delight customers in return are our favorite because they’re a win for the company and the consumer.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #21: Changing Of The Seasons

This contest involves exactly what you think it does, a celebration of the changing of the seasons.

If you’re not into massive sporting events or selfies you can at least get behind a celebration of the warm summer months.

Worldwide beauty powerhouse Sephora ran a contest to celebrate summer and their line of surf-themed beauty products. Winners received an all-inclusive trip to Costa Rica and a year’s supply of surf products – not too shabby if we do say so.

facebook contest ideas

Facebook Contest Idea #22: Co-Promotion Team Up

Up until this point, you should understand the benefits of a good Facebook giveaway idea. But you might be thinking, “I don’t want to put in all the work and spend money on a prize.” This is a legitimate concern for many businesses. But what if I told you it doesn’t have to cost much money OR take up much time? This giveaway idea cuts things in half.

Team up with a partner company to run yourselves a co-promotion. Split all the production work, prize, and promise to share the leads when it’s all over. Each company commits to half the prize (e.g., a gift card or a free one-year membership) then both companies actively promote it. It adds twice the promotional power and results in twice the number of leads you would receive otherwise.

We did one ourselves and teamed up with the graphic design app Snappa. The prize was free subscriptions to both Wishpond and Snappa, and we both promoted it to our networks. In the end, the leads were shared, a huge success by our standards. Outstanding results like our partnership with Snappa have us always on the lookout for more co-promotion opportunities.

facebook contest ideas

Facebook Contest Idea #23: Next Model Search

No, not to the level of America’s Next Top Model… but similar. If you’re looking for a brand ambassador or need some pretty faces to help rep your business, turn it into a Facebook giveaway idea.

Dove and their “real beauty” campaign was looking for their next model to be the face of Dove in Shoppers Drug Marts across the country. Participants were asked to submit photos of their friends and tell Dove why they represented “real beauty”. The winners received a boatload of Dove products and became one of the faces of Dove marketing.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Contest Idea #24: Our Next Recipe

Trying to drum up some creativity for your next product launch? Like we’ve seen before, a vote contest is a great way to drum up some input from your fans.

Everyone’s favorite out-the-box waffle brand Eggo, ran a vote contest to see which recipe should come out on top. The contest was meant to create some user-generated content and build hype around a brand that could use some excitement. Judging by the mouth-watering food photo submissions we’d say the contest was a huge success.

facebook contest ideas

Facebook Contest Idea #25: Anniversary Celebration

In the list of reasons to run a Facebook contest, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one than a business anniversary. A one-year anniversary is a perfect time to recognize your accomplishments and reward the customers who helped get you there.

San Churro jumped at the opportunity to celebrate their milestone with their audience. They gave away a year’s worth of churros to the lucky winner (gasp!). In line with the theme of the contest, participants also were asked to tell San Churro what makes them happy. Perfect content to use in the future when sharing stories about their customers.

facebook contest idea

Facebook Giveaway Idea #26: Everyone’s a Winner

When looking for Facebook giveaway ideas to build your audience, one of the best is taking the “everyone’s a winner” approach. With these giveaway ideas, you offer a small prize to everyone that enters and supplied you with their information.

The prize could be something like a free drink at your restaurant, or a discount code for your store. Everyone who enters will end up as a lead for your business, and you’ll be able to grow your mailing list pretty quickly.

Another one of the best Facebook giveaway ideas similar to this would be to give away one grand prize, and then offer small prizes (like discount codes) to everyone else who entered. This allows you to attract a big audience, as well as generate some sales after the contest.

Free margarita contest

Facebook Contest Idea #27: Fill in the Blank

If you’re looking for fun Facebook giveaway ideas that get your audience involved, then this is a good option. You can post a photo with a half-finished quote, and ask users to fill in the blank. The best answer wins. Answers could be chosen on a vote basis, or selected by you.

A fill-in-the-blank contest lets your business show off its fun side. You can generate some really entertaining entries that your audience will be interested in checking out.

fill in the blank contest

Facebook Contest Idea #28: Video Contest

Using video in your marketing strategy is one of the best ways to grow your business. Video is incredibly engaging, and it can be used to create one of the best Facebook contests out there.

You could use all kinds of Facebook giveaway ideas to base your video contest around, as long as participants submit their entries via video. They can tag your business in the contest, or use a dedicated hashtag, to make their video entry valid.

Sure, videos take a bit more effort to create, so you might not get as many entries as an “everyone’s a winner” contest. At the same time, everyone has a camera, and producing short simple videos is easier than ever before. Video entries will also offer more valuable user-generated content for your business.

Facebook Contest Idea #29: Puzzle Contests

If you’re looking for a fun way to get your audience thinking, then a puzzle contest is a brilliant idea. You can post some kind of a puzzle game or quiz, and get your audience to guess the correct answer. The right answers will win a prize.

If you’re going to be giving away prizes to all of the correct entries, then you’ll need to make sure that your prize isn’t too expensive for your business. The other option is to put all correct answers into a draw and randomly choose one winner.

Puzzle contests are fun, and your audience will certainly appreciate the challenge.

puzzle contest

Facebook Contest Idea #30: Recurring Contests

Running one big contest is a good idea, but you can generate even more buzz if you have a regular contest going. This could be a weekly giveaway, a monthly draw, or you could do a “5 days of prizes” type of contest.

By offering more than one contest, you’re giving people more chances to win, and more reason to enter. You can do any type of contest for this, but you run it on a repeat basis.

Weekly giveaway

Final Thoughts

Facebook contests are a great way to drive new, targeted leads for your business in short bursts over a long period of time.

If there’s one thing I’d like you to take away from this article, it is to think of creative ways a Facebook contest can be beneficial for your business and your customer. That could mean collecting user-generated content, surveying your fans, or finding your next hit product. The opportunity for a Facebook contest to help you grow your business is boundless.

Over the long term, these types of contests are meant to develop the relationship you have with your customers. Engaging with them is a great start.

Regular interaction with the folks who love your brand is vital and over time it builds trust. And as we all know trust is what leads to lifelong customers.

Are you looking to run a Facebook contest?

Or if you’ve already run one, what was your experience like?

Share your comments with me below!

Related Reading

jordan-lore

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *