Social Media Contest Creates Buzz Ahead of Restaurant Opening

Running a social media competition is a brilliant and cost-effective way to engage with your audience, boost brand awareness, and achieve measurable results. Whether you want to increase visibility, gain followers, or drive traffic to your website, a well-executed contest can help you achieve all these goals and more.

Why should I run a social media competition?

Here’s why competitions can be a game-changer for your business:

• Increase Engagement: Competitions can create excitement and spark conversations. By asking your followers to answer questions or take part in challenges, you encourage engagement and foster a sense of connection with your brand.

• Build Brand Awareness: A competition is an effective way to get noticed. It increases the visibility of your business, product, or service, and helps you stand out in the crowded social media landscape.

• Grow Your Followers: Competitions often require participants to follow your account to enter, which can be an easy way to grow your audience and extend your reach.

• Boost Website Traffic: Offering a prize or exclusive content can encourage people to click through to your website, giving your site a traffic boost.

• Generate Leads: Competitions also offer an opportunity to gather valuable leads and insights about your audience.

• Collect Data: Running a competition can provide useful market data, helping you better understand your followers and their preferences.

Case Study: Social Contest for a New Manchester Hotel Restaurant

When a brand-new hotel restaurant in the heart of Manchester was preparing to open, they wanted to create buzz both online and offline. The goal was to attract attention to the venue and highlight their signature rotisserie chicken menu ahead of the grand opening.

To drum up excitement, the hotel and restaurant ran a joint competition on social media, offering a prize of a two-night stay at the hotel, complete with breakfast, plus a chicken meal for two and cocktails at the restaurant. To make it easy for people to enter, the competition was simple: “Follow our page and tell us who you’d bring”.

Alongside the competition, an organic campaign was launched, featuring mouth-watering posts and engaging questions about the restaurant’s rotisserie chicken dishes. The aim was to keep the restaurant’s menu front and centre in the minds of potential customers.

The competition ran for one week on Facebook and Instagram, leading up to the restaurant’s grand opening. The results were impressive, reaching a total of 89,874 unique users and generating nearly 1,500 new followers on the restaurant’s social media pages.

In conclusion,

Social media competitions are a cost-effective way to generate excitement and grow your following. When executed well, they can significantly boost engagement, attract new customers, and raise brand awareness. However, it’s important to get the details right to avoid potential risks.

If you’re considering running a social media contest, make sure it aligns with your brand and goals. For expert guidance on social media marketing and contest strategies, contact Lemon Pip Digital today. We can help you create campaigns that engage, excite, and deliver results.