HOW TO BOOST ENGAGEMENT WITH A HASHTAG PHOTO CONTEST IN 10 EASY STEPS. publication

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1 HOW TO BOOST ENGAGEMENT WITH A HASHTAG PHOTO CONTEST IN 10 EASY STEPS 10 a publication

2 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 2 Have you ever thought running a photo contest would be a big hassle? It s not at all. Collecting pictures from customers is easy, and in a short amount of time, you can build a virtual photo album that demonstrates just how awesome you and your products are. Introducing the #Hashtag Photo Contest If you ve ever used Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram you are no doubt familiar with the humble hashtag. Aside from being a clever way to make a statement about your post (#realtweet, we re talking to you), hashtags are an excellent tool to use to help your # company run and manage a photo sharing contest. In addition to making it easy for people to share their pictures of your product, hashtags also make it easy for you and your customers to follow the contest just by watching the hashtag stream.

3 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 3 #GreatHashtagPhotoContests One of our favorite examples of a hashtag photo contest is by Chegg, an online book store where college students can find deeply discounted used books for their courses. Chegg did everything right to get their loyal customers to spread the word about their service, including their most important value prop (the huge savings) they offer.

4 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 4 In a nutshell, their hashtag photo contest #CheggMeOut required customers to share pics of their Chegg purchase with a note of how much they saved for a chance to win a $250 Visa gift card.

5 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 5 How to Run a Hashtag Photo Contest Want to create your own hashtag photo contest, follow these steps to create a fantastic contest for yourself: 1 Decide on the Types of Photos You re Looking for Pictures of people using your products are a great start, but also consider people participating in activities you want your products to be associated with. Chegg did a great job at that by requiring their participants to share a note with their total savings in their photos submissions. Way to get your customers to share your value prop with their friends! people? activities? product?

6 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 6 2 Pick a Hashtag Hashtags should be short, distinct and clearly understandable. There are really two ways to go about this. Use a unique branded hashtag. Or use a popular hashtag. #hashtag The branded approach can help with establishing a brand identity through the eyes of your customer s camera lens, and it can get people who aren t already aware of you thinking who s #ThatBrand I keep seeing mentioned? The popular approach might get you discovered by people who follow the popular hashtag topic. It s a way to slip into the streams of a conversation that people are buzzing about. There are benefits to both options, so you ll just have to decide what your top priorities are. How to select a good hashtag: When you run your hashtag photo contest using Rignite, we ll run a quick search to show you whether your hashtag is unique or not. Sign up for a free trial today

7 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 7 3 Choose a Grand Prize Select something that s enticing, covetable and relatable to your business. Remember, if no one wants your prize, no one s going to enter your contest. gift certificate Depending on your product s price point, a free product giveaway or a gift certificate to your store can be the most cost effective prize and will attract the loyal customers who want more of what you ve got. free product giveaway

8 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 8 4 Let It Run Long Enough It s important that you let your contest run long enough so that people have time to learn about it, take a photo and enter. Think weeks/months instead of days. Photo Contest Timeline Week 1 Starts Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Ends

9 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 9 5 Promote your contest Put all of your marketing channels to work. Promote your contest on your website, social media channels, newsletters, in-store signage, sky writing, etc Whatever timeframe you choose, make sure to promote your contest aggressively. That can mean tweeting about it several times a day even. Keep in mind that the speed of sharing on Twitter makes it completely acceptable to post about your #hashtag photo contest multiple times to make sure you get it in front of as many people as possible. How to get it done: Rignite makes it easy to schedule a series of posts. Simply write up 3 base tweets, select a desired frequency (i.e. 3x per day for 4 weeks), and let Rignite fill up the calendar with alternating posts to make sure you are getting your message heard. Sign up for a free trial today

10 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 10 6 Get (and Keep) it Rolling People like to join a party that s already rocking, so get your contest rocking by posting some photos yourself. Then, during the contest, post some more to keep the momentum up. Back to that awesome Chegg example. They started their party by posting an image that set the tone for what they were looking for from their participants. They shared a picture with a stack of books and a handwritten note about their massive savings. That takes the guesswork out of it for customers who want to participate. They know just what you want and they don t have to invest too much thought into how to jump in on the party.

11 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 11 7 Keep it Managed With all of the entries you re sure to get, it can seem daunting to monitor and track them all. How to get it done: Make sure to use your social media management tool (like Rignite) to keep the fire burning. Engage with people posting photos. Reply, retweet, share a few of the special entries to let people know their posts are getting your attention and to show other potential participants what you re looking for. Sign up for a free trial today

12 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 12 8 Select Interim Winners If your contest is long enough, there s a good chance that interest will wane over time. Keep people engaged by offering smaller prizes to weekly or monthly winners. By offering two levels of prizes you increase the chances of winning, which increases the chance of participation. Offering small prizes that you announce every week or every month and then a grand prize winner at the end can be a great way to keep the buzz humming. Weekly Prizes

13 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 13 9 Incentivize Sharing To make sure you get the most exposure possible, offer people extra entries if their photo gets shared or retweeted, say 10 times. You can even tie this into the interim winners above by awarding prizes for most weekly shares. Retweeted!

14 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps Proclaim the Winner Loudly When your contest ends, make sure you again bring all of your channels to bear on announcing the winner. Post the winner to all of the places you announced the contest and share their award winning entry so everyone sees their love for your product (after all that s why you chose them, right?). WINNER! How to get it done: Rignite will collect all the tweets that meet your entry requirement. You can give each entry a star rating to narrow down your favorites. When it s time to announce the winner, Rignite will automatically notify them. Sign up for a free trial today

15 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 15 Takeaway Running a hashtag photo contest is an easy and fun way to engage your audience and encourage your loyal customers to spread the word about your product. Get started on yours today!

16 How To Boost Engagement With A Hashtag Photo Contest In 10 Easy Steps 16 EASILY RUN HASHTAG CONTESTS USING RIGNITE Rignite is a software solution that makes it easy to run hashtag campaigns across multiple social networks. 4Sign up for a free trial today WITH RIGNITE YOU CAN BOOST ENGAGEMENT BY REQUIRING PARTICIPANTS TO SHARE A PHOTO USING A SPECIFIC HASHTAG SIT BACK AND LET RIGNITE COLLECT ENTRIES THAT MEET YOUR ENTRY REQUIREMENTS EASILY REVIEW ENTRIES AND SELECT WINNERS REWARD MORE THAN ONE WINNER TO ATTRACT MORE PARTICIPATION CROSS PROMOTE ON TWITTER AND FACEBOOK WITH A SERIES OF POSTS GET CAMPAIGN LEVEL REPORTS SHOWING WHICH POSTS WERE MOST EFFECTIVE Keep Up with Us