The material was updated by Alexandra Shpak.
There are many competitions held on VKontakte every day. Some communities get excellent results from this tool, while others are subject to sanctions. How to attract new audiences and leads without losing all previous developments? Let's find out in this article.
Competitions are only part of the work within the framework of comprehensive SMM promotion. A competent strategy, high-quality and varied content, effective community management - all this is needed to differentiate yourself from competitors and attract potential customers.
Official Contest Rules
The social network VKontakte has clear rules regarding which competitions can be held and which cannot. Here you can familiarize yourself with them. If you violate even one of the requirements, your community may be blocked forever.
Social network moderators do not look out for dishonest competitions on their own. Dissatisfied users leave complaints through technical support, and the community is blocked if competitions really do not comply with the rules.
Reasons for blocking VKontakte groups: a guide with examples
Determining the goal of the competition
The type of competition is selected depending on the goal you are pursuing:
- increasing the number of subscribers;
- increased activity;
- attracting new leads and sales;
- new product positioning;
- increasing the email subscriber base;
- increasing the number of installations of a mobile application, subscriptions to a YouTube channel, Facebook, Instagram or other social network;
- cheating of behavioral factors.
Have you decided on a goal? Have you chosen the right competition? Then we move on to its implementation.
Choosing competitive mechanics
The most common types of VKontakte competitions include:
Subscribe + repost
The participant must subscribe to the community, repost and wait for the results of the competition. The winner is selected randomly using a special application.
Subscription + repost + additional condition
The same as in the previous paragraph, but with the addition of an additional condition: joining another community, subscribing to an email newsletter, a Youtube channel, a Facebook page, registering on a website, installing an application, etc.
Competitions for the greatest activity
- who will give the most likes;
- who will make the most reposts;
- who will leave the most comments.
Such competitions are usually held monthly. There may be three winners (one in each category), or there may be only one. In the second case, a point system is used to summarize the results: one point is assigned for one like, two for a comment, three for a repost (the numbers can be changed). The user who scores the most points wins.
For each action a certain number of points is given. The subscriber who scores the most points in a month wins
Creative competitions
To take part in such a competition, the user must complete a creative task. For example:
- take a photo;
- film a video;
- Write a review;
- come up with an original comment;
- other tasks (draw a picture, comic book, write a poem, song, slogan, etc.).
The winner in such competitions is usually chosen by an independent jury, but there are other options: open user voting, randomizers. Which method to use is up to you, depending on the type of task and the goals you are pursuing.
Non-standard competition formats
Subscribers need to solve your riddle or use their intuition to guess the number you have in mind. The first and last users to guess correctly receive prizes.
How to make an unusual competition on VKontakte: 56 real examples
Competition “Buy and take part in the draw”
The main condition for participation in such a competition is to make a purchase for a certain amount. Further conditions may vary: it could be a subscription + repost, a creative task, a task that stimulates activity in the community, etc.
I analyzed more than 50 communities and came to the conclusion that most often such VKontakte competitions are just announced, and the mechanics of the draws themselves are posted on a third-party site.
Mixed type of competitions
The conditions of each of the listed competitions can be mixed to solve the problems of your specific business.
Promotion of VKontakte: 54 tips and a sea of useful services
Which competition conditions to choose?
Let's return again to the first point, what goal have you identified?
We already wrote in a similar article about Instagram that most competitions do not bring results due to incorrectly selected competition tasks.
Advice: hold competitions regularly, increasing the difficulty of tasks gradually
Simple conditions
- join your group
- like the photo
Medium difficulty tasks
- write a comment under the post
- repost the post to your wall
Difficult tasks
- creative competition (send a drawing, record a video message, etc.)
- score points for completing tasks (get the most likes/comments/reposts, etc. during the competition)
- get 10/15/20 reposts - participants repost your post on their wall and ask their friends to repost your post from their page
Please pay close attention to the VKontakte rules, which may not allow you to conduct certain types of competitions. For example, a social network blocks communities that write in the terms and conditions that the competition will only be valid if it receives a specific number of reposts.
Tips for running competitions
To conduct a VKontakte competition, you need to remember two important rules.
First, you must comply with the official requirements of the social network.
Secondly, you must ensure complete transparency of the competition so that users do not even have the thought of complaining about you to technical support.
The most detailed description
To minimize the number of questions and complaints, describe the conditions of the competition in as much detail as possible. Don't limit yourself to listing prizes and actions that the user must complete.
Full rules in doc or pdf format
Large brands often describe the terms of the competition in great detail and divide them into two parts. A list of basic rules is left in the post, and the full terms and conditions are placed in a doc or pdf file.
If you are even going to apply, do not forget to focus the attention of users on the fact that the full rules are in the pdf attached to the post.
How to participate in the competition
To make it easy for the user to navigate your post and not make mistakes, list the conditions for participation in a list.
What prizes are up for grabs?
According to the official rules of VKontakte, you do not have the right to hold a competition if you have not designated a specific prize in advance. If there are several prize places, you need to indicate which prize belongs to which place.
If there is only one winner, but there are several prizes (that is, he chooses the prize that he likes most), you need to focus on this.
If it is not possible to attach photos of all prizes to the post (for example, there are more than 10), provide a link to the album or catalog.
When will the results be summed up?
The description of the competition must indicate the exact timing of the competition - the specific date and time when the results will be summed up.
How will the winner be chosen?
If this is a random selection application, write its name. If the winner is determined by a jury, tell us who the jury is and what criteria they will use.
Everything is immediately clear here
Residents of which countries and cities can participate?
A common mistake that organizers of VKontakte contests make is that they do not indicate which cities and countries can take part in the drawing. As a result, this results in sharp negativity on the part of users: they fulfilled the conditions of the competition, hoped to win, but then it turns out that only residents of a certain city can participate in the competition!
At whose expense will the prize be delivered?
Not all communities that hold competitions provide free delivery of the prize to the winner. Naturally, if this information is conveyed to the participant after summing up, it will cause negativity.
Information about delivery should be indicated in the description of the competition (no matter whether it is paid or free) - this will remove unnecessary questions and make the competition more transparent.
Which pages will be considered fake?
Sometimes people create fake pages to increase their chances of winning, or use one page but only repost competition posts to it (i.e. the page is essentially “dead” and does not provide any value to the community). It is clear that the organizers do not want the prize to fall into the hands of one of these people.
In the competition description, indicate that fake pages will be excluded from the competition.
What conditions must be met so that the page is not considered fake? It needs to be described in more detail. For example, like this:
- Your page must be created no later than such and such a date.
- Your page must have at least 3 real photos and at least 30 friends.
- You must have no more than 5 competition posts published on your wall in the last week.
How long does it take to contact the administrator / pick up the prize?
It often happens that you have identified a winner, but he does not respond to your messages or even appear online. As a result, sending the prize gets stuck, and you cannot prove to your subscribers that the competition was conducted fairly. To prevent this from happening, indicate in the competition description the time during which the winner must contact you, and warn that if he does not meet the deadline, a new winner will be selected. Don't set too strict limits. In my opinion, 3-5 days will be enough.
Good post design
When a competition is designed beautifully, users have more trust in the company running it and are more willing to participate.
- Use emoticons and beautiful photographs to design your posts.
- Write without errors.
- Make indents between semantic blocks.
- Add bulleted and numbered lists to make your post easier to read.
Valuable gifts
Many users lose all interest in a competition if the prizes awarded are not valuable enough. Judge for yourself: would you bother if shampoo or a set of stickers were at stake? The more valuable the prizes, the greater the desire to participate.
The value of a prize is determined not by its cost, but by its importance to your audience. For example, a horse bridle itself may not cost as much as an iPhone, but it will only attract your potential customers.
Not too difficult competitions
The more complex the conditions of the competition, the fewer users will take part in it. It’s easy to join the group and repost. Taking a photograph on a chosen topic is more difficult, but a loyal audience will happily take it on.
Try to hold competitions that do not put too much strain on users, otherwise you risk not getting even the minimum number of participants, and the competition will only bring losses.
No changes to the competition conditions
Any, even the slightest change in the conditions of the competition can cause a lot of negativity. The conditions of the competition cannot be changed. You cannot extend the competition to get even more reposts. You cannot add conditions by which you will determine whether a page is fake or not. Think through all these points in advance.
Reliable service for choosing the winner
If there are too many participants in the competition, the service for selecting the winner may be terribly slow or even freeze during the live broadcast. This situation happened with the organizers of the competition from. As a result, they had to urgently look for another service, which caused dissatisfaction on the part of some users.
To prevent this from happening to you, check in advance how a particular service works.
6 services for summing up the results of VKontakte competitions
Notifying users about results
Once you have chosen a winner, post a post in your community with their name and evidence that the results were tallied fairly. Set the name as a link so that the person receives a notification.
Please write in the comments to the post with the competition that the results have been summed up and you can read them at the link.
If you often hold competitions, create a separate topic in which you will celebrate the winners.
Transparent debriefing
To ensure that users have no doubt that the winners were chosen fairly, provide them with evidence.
It is best to choose the winner live. If this is not possible, show them a video of you choosing the lucky one. At worst, provide screenshots from the service. If there is no such evidence, you may be accused of rigging the results of the competition.
Honest choice of the best job
If you are holding a creative competition for the best photo, poem, video, etc., it is better to immediately tell about the independent jury. Open voting will most likely not lead to anything good: likes will most likely be increased, and it will be difficult for you to determine who cheated and who did not.
Prompt gift delivery
You held a competition, determined the winner, but your work doesn’t end there. Now you need to deliver the prize to the recipient. It is advisable to send the prize within a few days after the competition. If you don’t meet these deadlines, contact him and tell him the exact date of shipment so that he doesn’t worry. When you send a gift, send him the mail ID (if sent by mail). Such care for a person will arouse his sympathy and form a loyal attitude towards the company.
Rules for organizing VKontakte competitions
Prohibited:
- Use programs to get friends and likes. As well as special scripts and other mass actions of the same type.
- Send messages to users without their consent asking them to vote, etc.
- Place commercial and political advertisements in the community that is hosting the competition.
If at least one of the rules is violated or one of the users complains, moderators will become interested in the community. If violations are detected, he may be banned forever.
Active promotion
Do you want as many people as possible to participate in your competition? To do this, you need to actively promote it. Here are a few options on how this can be done:
Groups with competitions
There are a lot of such groups, and their audience is huge (search for “competitions” and see for yourself). To arrange accommodation, you just need to write to the admin. The prices of such groups depend on the conditions of the competition. For example, if you are willing to give away a prize in their group rather than just announce your post, posting will be cheaper.
Thematic groups
Buy advertising in groups that include your target audience. If you're raffling off an elegant dress, choose communities that are predominantly female. If the prize can only be received in your offline representative office, place yourself in groups dedicated to your city.
Blog, email newsletter, affiliate sites
If you have a blog, email newsletter, or other audience interaction channels, use them to promote your competition.
- Make an announcement on your website.
- Write a newsletter detailing what cool prizes await the winners.
- Agree with your partners so that they also promote your competition on their sites.
The more active you are, the more coverage your competition will receive.
Competition Reminders
You need to constantly remind your subscribers about the competition (what if someone missed information about its launch?).
Commentator Activity Contest
Sometimes commentators are incentivized so that activity in the group increases and people feel the impact of their comments. The most active ones are rewarded with prizes or other goodies.
Collecting feedback from the winners
Ask contest winners to leave a review of your gift and take a photo with it. This way you can prove to participants in future competitions that everything is fair and absolutely anyone can win.
Screenshots of reviews and photos of winners can be collected in a separate photo album so that users can log into it at any time and make sure that you are not cheating.
It is also very advisable to save all the videos in which you choose the winners. All this will demonstrate your honesty and contribute to a more loyal attitude towards your company.
Timely handling of negativity
People don't like to lose. Even if 100 thousand people take part in the competition, and the chances of winning are extremely small, negativity still appears. Users begin to study the profiles of the winners and look for reasons why they can complain about you to VKontakte technical support. If you did everything correctly, then it will be impossible to find fault with you, but you still need to work off the negative so that people have a good impression of your company and the competitions that you hold. How to do it? It’s very simple: we politely respond to all negative comments and prove with facts that we are right. If possible, use humor. Sometimes it helps better than any arguments.
In such situations, the right attitude helps. All subscribers are friends. And you should always treat them as warmly and politely as possible. Therefore, we exhale and only then respond. The tone should always be calm and polite. It is worth offering a compromise solution to the issue if there were indeed inaccuracies in the competition, or if technical problems arose.
A big mistake would be to delete an unpleasant comment. After all, in this way the company shows that it wants to hide something. As in any situation with working out negativity, here you just need to formulate a competent answer.
During the lectures of the Community Management course, my students and I go through a lot of techniques for processing different types of comments, including negative ones. We always try to explain to students that the main task of an administrator, community, SMM specialist or marketer is to create the most comfortable conditions in the community for all participants and maintain a positive attitude even when communicating with negative people.
How to deal with negativity online: to help all brands, companies and people who have been bullied on the Internet. That is, to help EVERYONE
What about during the competition: warming up a new audience
And so you launched a giveaway: subscribers pour in like a river, likes are given and comments are written, and you sit and just wait for the end of the draw - don’t do that.
Think in advance about your promotion strategy for the launch period of the giveaway. I'll explain. At the very beginning of the article, I already said that a joke is a stimulating tool for attracting attention. And it is a big mistake to believe that attention should be drawn to the draw itself. You are developing your blog or business profile - show your expertise, status, reveal your personality.
Incoming subscribers should see you as a new source of interesting content, and not a disposable bag of gifts. Therefore, try to reveal your topic, talk about your products, services and other competencies in a native way. Share your “life” and get a response from new subscribers in the spirit of “yes, yes, I had this too.”
For example, a very popular Runet blogger launched a giveaway and immediately starts getting to know her subscribers.
Or here’s another example: a blogger posts a joke and after some time publishes posts about his life that directly relate to the topic of the blog and allow readers to “get to know” the author:
New subscribers should love you, win them over!
Saving competition results
Some communities want to increase their audience through a competition and not pay anything. They post a contest (usually with good prizes and lasting several months), and then they simply delete it, turn off comments, and generally erase all signs that there was going to be a giveaway in the community.
The results of the competitions must be summed up . Publicly and as openly as possible. After summing up, do not delete anything.
What's the end result?
A raffle is, of course, a good, but far from the only, method of promoting an account. We talked about other options for promotion on social networks here.
In addition, without carefully thinking through the terms and mechanics, you are more likely to harm your account than to advance it. This is why the preparation stage is so important.
To conduct or not to conduct?
You decide! But I hope that this article will help in organizing the competition. Well, if you need help with promotion on Instagram, we are always ready to help!
Fraud Protection
If you even occasionally take part in VKontakte competitions, then you have probably encountered scammers who tried to trick you out of money. They usually operate according to the following algorithm: they write to the contest participant that he has won the main prize, and ask him to pay a small commission or cover the cost of delivery to the address.
To prevent your participants from becoming victims of such scams, warn them that the results of the competition cannot be summed up in advance, and that the winners will only be contacted by the group administrator. Ask them not to click on suspicious links or download archives from strangers.
Turn temporary subscribers into regular viewers
Any well-promoted contest will attract casual subscribers, but not all of them will become permanent ones. If this is a one-time event, half of them will unsubscribe from you immediately after the results are announced. To retain them, make competitions regular.
As promised, now every Friday the most active subscribers will be able to take part in a drawing
By tradition, every Saturday of the month we give away a SUPER PRIZE!
Subscribe to my profile so you don't miss the next prize draw
And to keep your subscribers from getting too expensive, don't offer too expensive a prize. Any little thing that you can get for free will attract attention, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a gold ring or a handmade hairpin.
