One of my cuties – Bex is presh!
Ok, so you’re a portrait photographer and you’re trying to grow your business. You feel like you have tried and tried and tried and NOTHING is working. Well, I may have something that might work for you. As you all know I’m a wedding photographer but one time I thought it would be a FANTASTIC idea to try and get some local portrait business in my area. I had been reading different ways to get my name out there and someone suggested running a “Cutest Kid Contest” on your blog/Facebook. O.M.G. Thank you for this idea, whoever thought of it! It was the best contest I ever ran.
Think about it this way. You have a kid, you obviously think they are the cutest right? If you’re trying to win a prize and the ability to say that your kid won a contest for the cutest kid, of course you’re going to spread that ALL AROUND the internet making everyone from your next door neighbor to the bagger at your grocery store help you win this contest!
I literally grew 1000+ fans on my Facebook page within a month. NO JOKE. I don’t even know how that even happened and I couldn’t even believe my eyes as it was happening. This is an amazing tool to get your name out there and to start a buzz in your company. The beauty of this is, you can mold this contest to fit anything you want to do, “Cutest Pet Contest” or “Cutest Couple Contest.” So here’s what you need to do to get started and make an awesome contest campaign for your Facebook fan page.
- Say to yourself, “What type of contest should I run?” If you’re trying to get more wedding clients, run an engagement contest, if you’re trying to get more kids, run a cutest kid contest.
- What do I want the prize to be? When I did this contest I made the prizes absolutely ridiculous, 3 mini sessions, prints, you name it – I was giving it away. You have to think in terms of the amount of exposure this can get. This is HUGE, so how much is that worth to me?
- Set rules and regulations for the services/products that the winner will get. I.E. The mini sessions have to take place at this location, for this long. If they get prints, they get this much time to order them; it does or does not include a cd. Make this as specific as possible but make the prizes WORTH creating a buzz about.
- Have a Facebook Business Page set up. Don’t know how to do that? Click here.
- Facebook has a ton of regulations on contests and giveaways so make SURE you read these, so you don’t get your page taken down. Click here to read the rules and regulations.
- Use different apps like Wildfire to run your contest. You can set the rules, whether or not people have to like your page, put in deadlines and rules and regulations about the contest. Makes the contest user friendly to the contestants and also helps make sure no one is “cheating”. This is not a free app, but for $35 and this much exposure, well worth it! The best thing is, it takes all of the overwhelming part of the process out of it. It walks you through how to set it up step by step.
- PROMOTE this campaign on your personal page, business page, in newsletters. Have everyone you know post about it, even if they don’t have a kid or a pet.
- Don’t have this contest drag on forever. I would do no more than 1 month.
- Use the time that this giveaway is going to post super strong images to your Facebook. This may seem like a no-brainer, but remember the month you run this, probably will generate the most buzz you’ve had on your page so give the contestants and the voters something to look at.
- The most important piece of advice is: pick a deadline for when the contestants can submit the photo. So let’s say you wanted to do this in September. August 22nd-August 29th they would have to submit the photo to the contest. The actual contest with voting would start September 1st and then it would run for however long you would want it to run for. I messed this up when I did the contest and it created major drama – so take my advice!
I would love to hear if you tried out this campaign and how it worked for you! Let us know over on our Facebook page. Share your contest on there so others can see how you set it up!
Happy shooting!
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