A Look At The 7 Types Of Twitter Contests

We all want to increase our fan engagement on social media, and a great way to do it is with contests, since it definitely tweaks the interest of your followers.

Adweek recently ran an article about the 7 types of Twitter contests that can be run, which you'll find below along with my comments on how it applies to your fanbase.

1. Photo Contests - Ask the entrants to post of photo of themselves showing a piece of your merch or a CD, or at one of your shows.

2. Most Creative Or Funny Answer Contest - Ask your followers to submit a creative or funny answer to a question that you tweet. Make sure to include a hashtag as part of the campaign.

3. Retweet To Enter Contest - All your followers have to do is retweet your contest tweet and they'll be entered to win.

4. Follow To Win Contest - This is a bit of cross-promotion across some other social networks, where you let them know that if they follow you on Twitter they're automatically entered into the contest. Please note that you can't ask someone to follow you directly on Twitter as it violates their terms and conditions.

5. First To Answer Contest - This happens really quickly, which means the contest is quick as well. It's simple - ask a question, and whoever tweets the correct answer first wins.

6. Tweet A Hashtag Contest - All the follower has to do to enter is include a hashtag that you create in a tweet.

7. Caption Contest - Ask your followers to tweet a funny or interesting caption for a photo that you tweet.

In all cases, make sure to retweet and thank each entry, then give a winner a lot of Twitter love.

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4 Common Facebook Marketing Mistakes

It's true that Facebook has a huge upside potential for marketing, but there can also be a downside as well if it's not done properly. Mashable recently posted a great article about the 10 biggest Facebook marketing mistakes, and here are the ones that I thought were most pertinent to musicians, artists and bands, since they could have serious consequences on your marketing effort.

1. Using An Illegal Cover Photo. The first thing is to use a picture that's pertinent to who you are right now. Don't use a baby picture, a picture of Darth Vader or a famous celebrity. Visitors may think you're trying to cover something up. Also, Facebook has a number of guidelines as for your cover photo as well, like:

• no price or purchase information in the photo (like "50% off")

• a call to action to like, comment or share with your friends

• contact info like web, email or mailing address (there are better places to put this rather than in the cover photo).

2. Breaking Contest Guidelines. Facebook is very sensitive to contests and wants you to closely abide by their rules. Here's what you should know:

• Contests asking for submissions or votes via comments or liking are prohibited.

• All contests or giveaways must be administered within Apps On Facebook.com

• You can't notify contest winners through Facebook on wall posts, messages, chat or the like.

Kind of puts a damper on things, right? Fear not, there are a number of 3rd party providers that can help you run a Facebook promotion, like Wildfire and Offerpop, but they'll cost you. Before you decide on any contest, read the Facebook promotion guidelines first.

3. Overposting. Yes, it's true, you can post too much. Facebook suggests that one or two posts a day get the most response, and there's some evidence that posting any more (sometimes even twice a day) begins to become counterproductive.

4. Too Much Text. Once again, it's possible to be too chatty, and that can produce negative results. Facebook suggests that somewhere between 100 and 250 characters (which equals a line or two of text) gets 60% more likes, comments and shares. Researcher Buddy Media has found that posts of 80 characters or less have 27% higher engagement rates.

You can read the rest of the mistakes in the Mashable article, but start by following these easy ones, since they can make a big difference in the outcome of your Facebook promotion.

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