Hosting Facebook Contests | Top Tips For More User Engagement

With more than two billion users and 70 million Business Pages, to say that there’s a lot of activity on Facebook is truly an understatement. The amount of time people spend on social media, in general, has increased due to the convenience brought on by mobile innovation.

“Teens now spend up to nine hours a day on social platforms, while 30% of all time spent online is now allocated to social media interaction. And the majority of that time is on mobile – 60% of social media time spent is facilitated by a mobile device. Brands are jumping into social media with social media ad spend expected to reach $36 billion in 2017,” this is according to a post by Evan Asano.

Given these numbers, how can your brand stand out from the crowd?

Why Invest Time In Facebook Contests?

Content marketers say interactive content such as polls, contests, and quizzes grabs readers’ attention more effectively than static content, or those that are plain and one-dimensional read. Which is why it isn’t surprising at all that many SEO marketers invest in interactive content.

On Facebook, an engaging Facebook contest can be an effective way to capture attention and support the business goals. But before you start checking out what type of promo should you try, take note of these important rules.

The Don’ts of Hosting a Contest on Facebook

• Don’t run a contest on your personal Timeline since only business pages can be used for any type of contest.
• Don’t encourage sharing the contest to gain extra entries since using “friend connections” to administer contests is prohibited on the site.
• “Tag your friends in this post to enter” is specifically prohibited. Facebook is clear about this rule.

The Do’s of Running a Successful Facebook Contest

• Be sure to comply with all applicable laws and regulations, it has to be legal.
• Make it clear that you are offering the contest, and that it is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with your website.

For an in-depth explanation on Facebook Pages Terms, read through their site article.

Best Ideas And Example Guide

Here are some of the best ideas that have worked for many brands on the site. Take time to learn about them before running a promotional offer!

Photo Caption

It’s a simple but equally effective method. Start by choose a compelling photo or graphic that supports your business goals (brand awareness or increase in following, for example). Then, encourage people to post a caption idea in the comments. Picking the winners can be done by you, or stipulate whichever entry gets the most Likes wins.

Like or Comment to Win

Whether it’s ‘Like to Win’, Comment to Win’, or ‘Like and Comment to Win’, this type of contest is among the easiest promo to run. And since they’re so easy to enter, this type of contest can elicit a lot of fan participation. Simply share a photo, video, or link to set the dice rolling. Don’t forget to state the rules in every post, what the prize is, and a clear call to action.

Knowledge-Testing Question or Trivia

By asking the audience to answer a relevant question, you can gauge their level of knowledge or understanding about your industry or product. This is especially helpful when talking to potential customers about your product or service offers in the future. It’s also a good way to direct those people to your website who may have never visited before. And trivia questions can be used to highlight the features or benefits of your product.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is exactly as is, the content is generated by users. Then offer a prize to fans who post great photos or other content. Using this type of contest largely helps in generating engagement on your Page, and it gives you a rich supply of material to re-post yourself over time, which is like hitting two birds with one stone.

By acquainting yourself with the different kinds of promos, offers, contests, and other audience-engaging stunts, you got more marketing tools up in your sleeve which you can make use of anytime, in any occasion or purpose.

Hosting Facebook Contests | Top Tips For More User Engagement

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What Is Content Curation And Why Should Brands Start Doing It?

Have you ever reposted a quote you saw on your feed? Or used a line from a recent read to represent your mood for the day? What about quoting from a movie you watched recently? We’re all guilty of sharing someone else’s lines or a portion of some post when updating our own social media status at least once. Heck, it’s pretty much the essence of social media!

This is a habit practiced by many to express their thoughts, to say what’s on their mind but couldn’t put into words, or to simply stay relevant in social media. This act is so commonly done not everyone realizes its true impact. Why so? Because experts call this practice content curation.

What Is Content Curation?

While content marketing is about getting material out to strengthen your brand, curation is about finding something that stands out online instead of creating something new. This strategy could help you lessen the amount of time you spend creating posts from scratch. Constantly coming up with new things to write about, while still keeping up with the demands of a business, takes a lot of creative juice… and sometimes one might not have enough time to do so.

But Why Do Brands Need To Start Curating?

• It lessens the work. When you’re too occupied with SEO marketing strategies for your business, you might not have the time to make enough fresh content to do the subject justice.
• It adds fresh variation. When you talk about a subject, that’s one thing. But to quote from someone else… then yet some other person… now you have a very valid point substantiated by others. Now you really look like an expert!
• It shows that you’re involved. If you post the latest trends in the industry from time to time, it could show your engagement is at a deeper level. It gives you and your business a sense of relevancy to the latest news within the industry.
• It paves way to better connections. Curating the content of bigger names could help you connect with the leaders in your industry, which means bigger opportunity for more connections. It could also trigger conversation with your social media audience in general.

How To Effectively Curate

First, you’ll need to figure out the topics you want to search for, and once you find the right material, decide what you want to share. Start asking questions like: Is it relevant to my brand? Is the source trustworthy? Will it offer fresh and unique ideas to the readers? Is it entertaining or engaging?

Keep these question in mind when finding the right content to share in your social account or blog post. Also, think about the so-called ‘Social Media Rule of Thirds’ – One third of what you share should be brand promotion, one third should be curated content, and the remaining one third should be about the conversations that are happening on social.

What Is Content Curation And Why Brands Should Start Doing It

Consider These Best Practices and Start Curating Like a Pro

• Read. Watch. Listen. Out of the many things you can find online, make sure to check and validate them before sharing.
• Relevancy. Even if it’s most talked about on social, if it’s irrelevant to your brand, skip it. Look through the next material.
• Trustworthiness. Only use materials that are from trusted sources. There’s no way around it.
• Personalize. Though the content isn’t yours, add a personal touch to it. Tell the audience how it might interest them.
• Prioritize. The most important of all, ensure that the material is either interesting, entertaining, or useful to your audience. It won’t work if it doesn’t catch your audiences’ attention.
• Credit. Put credit to where credit is due. Don’t forget to mention the source and tag them in the post whenever possible.

Check out this list of tools before you curate you next post.

Curating content is a fresh way to bring in ideas similar to your brand’s philosophy. It might seem like taking the time to go find curatable content wouldn’t be worth the effort, but as you can see, the amount of benefits both you and your audience receives clearly makes it worth it.

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10 Awesome Free Stock Photo Sites Worth Checking Out

Going online is the probably the easiest way to look for visual content you need to post on your website. With just a few clicks, in a short time span you can find the just the right stock pictures for your post. Choose from thousands of pictures readily downloadable from iStock Photo and other major photo sites as beautiful as all of them are, not all of them however, are free.

But did you know that there are two major types of stock photographs you can find online? Let’s go get to know them, shall we?

Rights Managed (RM) Stock Photography. Though we’re talking about stock photographs, there will be a lot of factors going into the price of this type of image. The final price will depend on factors like usage, duration of the campaign, media, location, print run, size, exclusivity, and industry type. For this reason, RM photos cost more, but are often of higher quality.

Royalty-Free (RF) Stock Photography. Royalty-free doesn’t mean completely cost-free. It simply means the pictures don’t have ongoing royalty fees and can be purchased for a one-time, fixed price. These can be used multiple times, however, there are usually limits to the number of times these image can be reproduced.

Sites That Offer Free Stock Photos

Fortunately, there are several noteworthy sites out there where you can find high-quality images that are free to use when creating your next post or improving your SEO marketing campaign. These sites offer an array of different images that could be perfect for your next post.

1. Gratisography

Photographer Ryan McGuire has a quirky style when taking shots. His images are high-resolution and ready for use anytime. The site is well-organized in a number of categories such as nature, objects, people, urban, animals, etc.

2. Pixabay

There are over 490,000 images and videos for both personal and commercial use available in Pixabay. Every picture is royalty-free and is covered under Creative Commons, which means they can be modified and commercially used either in print or online.

3. IM Free

IM Free is a very interesting stored images website. The visuals are a curated collection of different categories from Flickr, all for commercial use. The pictures which are royalty-free organized by themes such as technology, education, and nature. The site also provides templates, button makers, icons, and so much more.

4. Unsplash

Via an email subscription and on their website, Unsplash offers 10 new photos every 10 days. All photos are licensed under Creative Commons Zero which means the copying, modification, distribution, and use of the photos are totally free.

5. Picjumbo

Picjumbo is a popular resource for social media images with over 5,427,891 downloads since it launched in 2013. It offers over 600 high resolution photos or a downloadable pack that includes all images as well as three Photoshop mockups in exchange for a donation of $10.

6. Stockvault

There are over 35,000 royalty-free images, graphics, and designs from photographers, designers, and students around the world hosted in this website. In the Free Stock Photos tab, anyone has access to a huge library of photos to use on social media.

7. Morguefile

Created in 1996, Morguefile offers photographs to be used in creative projects. The website isn’t strict on giving credit to the photographers or artists when their images are being used. It’s a great resource for all types of online posts.

8. Fancycrave

Fancycrave aims to provide emotionally driven images that tell a story. Two new images from professional photographers are loaded in the website everyday. It’s easy to navigate and they are known for stocking colorful and vibrant nature images.

9. RawPixel

RawPixel is known for having the most diverse collection of pictures around the web. They are trying to change the face of stock photography by starting the world face project that aims to photograph people from every nation in the world.

10. New Old Stock

Ever need a vintage photo and just struggle looking for them online? This is a great site that has curated hundreds of public domain vintage photographs that, to their knowledge, is free of royalties or copyrights.

9 Awesome Free Stock Photo Sites Worth Checking Out

You may also check these other free stock photography sites:

• StockSnap
• Startup Stock Photos
• Splitshire
• Life of Pix
• Pexels
• Jay Mantri
• ISO Republic

You can also check this page for more tips on finding the right image for your content.

So as you can see, running into any mental blocks when trying to come up with the perfect photo for your post or newsletter won’t be a problem any more! Bookmark this page so you always have it as a resource to thousands of free-to-use images online!

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5 Great Reasons Why Images Can Boost Your Posts

In an age where snapping captivating photos can happen in a millisecond, images now hold the ace card in terms of engaging viewers. People are drawn to look at images of other people online as much as they love taking photos of themselves. Stilled moments caught on a digital camera and displayed online are seen by SEO marketers as one of the most powerful tools to engage target audiences.

Based on the latest statistic, “Top brands on Instagram are seeing a per-follower engagement rate of 4.21% which is 58 times higher than on Facebook and 120 times higher than on Twitter.”

Another statistic post shows us that:

• 74% of social media marketers use visual assets in their social media marketing, ahead of blogs (68%) and videos (60%).
• 37% of marketers said visual marketing was the most important form of content for their business, second only to blogging (38%).
• When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later.

These numbers are proof that visually captivating images can boost your posts. But what makes them so effective?

Why Are Images So Effective in Marketing?

#1 They Create Brighter, More Appealing Posts

A picture compels viewers to read and creates a positive first impression about the post. When your page is just a block of boring text, it appears dull and lifeless, and visitors will mostly likely just leave the website without reading a word. Visually attractive posts give a sense of connection with the readers. And that connection is what you need to engage your audience, either through liking or sharing the post, or by following your site.

#2 They Create Better Page Structure

It’s easier to divide a whole block of text into several sections with the use of pictures. Divided texts with visually stunning pictures are far more inviting and relaxing to read versus a plain looking blog. Too much text to read scares people away. It gives a sense of intense reading which is less interesting (or uninteresting at all) to visitors.

#3 They Give a Sense of Having Longer Posts

There are some posts that do not need a lot of writing, and some are far more informative with the use of images. This is especially true for social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest. If a post is titled “15 Kitchen Designs For Your New Home”, wouldn’t it make more sense if you show a gallery of unique kitchen designs than paint the pictures with words then expect the readers to have a creative mind? It’s just too much work for you and especially for most readers.

For more tips on effective Instagram marketing, check out this page.

#4 They Simplify Complex Information

If your topics are mostly technical with heavy use of jargon, bare words are usually not enough, especially for non-tech-savvy users. Or if you love writing about rare animals or plants, adding photos of these rare species help readers understand the complexity of the information you’re throwing at them. As much as possible, simplify the information through informative visuals.

#5 They Give Better Social Media Exposure

When users scroll through their mobile phones, only a few of them will pay attention to posts without images. Images also win more space for your post in a long list of content feed, thus your post don’t get lost so easily. Also, there are users who are fond of sharing a page when they feel a special connection to it, even without actually reading what it’s about. To this day, social media is just dull without interesting visuals so make sure yours stand out!

5 Valid Reasons Why Images Can Boost Your Posts

Additional Reasons To Add Pictures

If the first 5 reasons weren’t enough, images:

• Support your statements.
• Help create memorable stories.
• Increase your chances of better ranking in search engines.
• And images make your pages look more professional.

Today when we post, share, tweet things all day long, images do speak a thousand words, share a thousand feelings, evoke a thousand emotions. Make sure you help your audience connect with you by always including at least one image in every post you make.

 

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