We always recommend running promotions several times throughout the year for our clients. They’re not only the perfect way to reward your loyal fans, but they’re also integral in growing your fan base, building buzz, and supporting brand initiatives such as in-store events or new product launches.

In order to make sure your promotion is solid from top to bottom, you need to plan everything out in advance. Our team loves to map out our promotions on a good old whiteboard, with the below tips in mind.

1. Align It With A Brand Initiative or Holiday

First things first, you need to figure out your objective. Follower growth? Brand awareness? New product launch? Promotions are great for all of these goals. If your demographic is majority female, a Mother’s Day or Valentines Day promo is a slam-dunk. If you’re a restaurant launching a new menu, this is the perfect way to drive restaurant consumers to participate. You can even align your promotional event with a Foodie Holiday - these are huge trending topics!

2. Think Everything Through

Don’t forget to strategically map everything out. Should your campaign live on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter? It’s not rocket science - if you’re a photo-centric brand, then Instagram is always a safe bet.

The majority of promotions include a hashtag. This is where you can really be creative – don’t be afraid to think a little outside of the box on this one. It doesn’t always need to include your company name, but make sure you do a little research before you ink it. If your hashtag has already has been used hundreds of times, it’s probably not the unique hashtag you should be using for your campaign.

I can’t stress enough the importance of working with your legal team to create explicit rules, as well as triple checking that you are in compliance with each site’s terms of service. To make it even easier, you can work with our developers here at Socialtyze to build a Facebook app to house your promotion, the process is super simple and we’ll get things up and running with no headache to you.

3. Design Unique Creative for Each Platform and Experiment With Video

Beautiful pieces of creative and must-watch videos are essential to make your campaign stand out in today’s crowded marketplace. For example, if your campaign runs for two weeks, we’d recommend launching with a video, and some straightforward how-to creative outlining all the important parts of your promotion. Halfway through the campaign, it’s time to highlight some of the best entries you’ve received (as long as you have the rights and it’s a random drawing). Finally, don’t forget to catch any late stragglers with a “Last Chance to Enter” post!

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6OA7e6JcW0[/embed]

4. Get As Much Support As Possible

Unless you have millions of followers, you don’t want to just rely on your social channels to drive awareness and participation. Put up in-store collateral in a place that will be seen by the most eyeballs. Reach out to partners and sponsors for cross promotions. Tap into your email database and send an eBlast with a compelling subject line. And invest some money into a media buy to create awareness around the promotion. Facebook and Twitter have endless options, and, as of early June, Instagram has opened up its advertising platform to anyone who can foot the bill.

Important: don’t spam your fans with promo message after promo message. Space it out across your different platforms and only post about it two times a week max. Let’s not anger the base!

5. Keep The Conversation Going

One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing poor promotional communication. You really need to be clear in your instructions, your copy and all communications regarding the campaign. For example, do they need to follow you in order to qualify? Are they reposting your photo or posting their own? What’s the hashtag and how many times can they enter? This should all be outlined in your rules, but it’s safe to assume 95% of consumers don’t usually read those. It goes without saying that your community manager should be monitoring their social channels on a daily basis, but promotional posts are especially important. Make sure to answer all questions, engage with fans, and be enthusiastic about their participation. If you notice someone posted a photo to enter, but they don’t follow you, let them know! Did someone post a great photo? Share it with your fans! The more involved you are in the campaign, the more successful it will be.

6. Recap, Reflect, and Recommend

Congratulations, you just completed your promotion - what’s next? It’s essential to create a recap deck to figure out what went right, what could be improved on, and recommendations going forward. Was the campaign too long? Did users seem to enjoy it or was participation lower than past promotions? Evaluating the data is just as important as any of the other listed steps. Make sure everyone that touched the promotion on your team has some input into this recap process, including the creative team, community managers, media, etc. This will help you when planning your next promotion and push your team to create something even better the next time around.

Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.