3 Social Media Contest Tools Worth Checking Out

Holding contests can be a great way to engage you fanbase on social media, but setting them up – on any platform – can be difficult. Here we look three tools that make organizing and executing contests for your fans online appreciably easier.

Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0

Contests are a great way to boost your audience but it’s not as easy to hold one on you favorite social network as you think. Without the help of a third party contest tool you may be in violation of the service’s terms, which can get you into hot water fast. Luckily there are many contest tools available, and we’ll look at three of the most popular ones today.

First of all, just to show how effective the strategy can be, 34% of new fans actually come from contests, according to Kontest. There are now 8 times more entrants that come from mobile than they did way back when third party contest tools entered the game back in 2012, and music continues to be one of the hottest contest categories. So let’s take a look at some of the best contest tools, according to Social Media Today.

Easypromo

Easypromo allows you to run up to 30 different types of contests, including giveaways, games and quizzes. It also works on multiple platforms like  Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. Not only that, you can also embed it on your website, blog, or eCommerce page, set up automated emails to entrants, and track campaign performance.

Woobox

One of the most popular contest platforms available, Woobox allows you to run sweepstakes, photo contests, video contests, polls, and more across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. Like Easypromo you can also embed it on your website and social media pages, create popups to prompt visitors to enter, and track campaign performance even while it’s running so you can adjust as needed to improve your results. 

Shortstack

Shortstack is very similar to the two tools mentioned above, and although it seems to be aimed more at Facebook, you can also run contests on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube as well. The range of types of contest go from sweepstakes, photo contests, and voting contests, to hashtag campaigns. What does separate it from the others is that it also has a landing page builder with more than 65 customizable page templates, which makes one of the more tedious contest tasks a little easer.

There are many other contest tools available, and most have similar features, so pick the one that you’re most comfortable with. Remember that these aren’t free though, with the price going anywhere from $29 to $499 per month. There are some free versions but they’re very limited, while a typical $29 per month basic version will give you plenty to work with, at least at first.

Regardless of which one you choose, a contest tool is essential if you want to run a contest and stay on the good side of whatever social platform you’re using.