Sweepstake Application Ideas for Brands

Facebook has seen a lot of changes since we last shared this post with you. Therefore, we have decided to update this post with most recent sweepstakes campaigns on Facebook. Facebook games has revolutionized the way brands look at engagement and fan activity. Modern day brands and companies are using a lot of different ways to reward and engage their fans on Facebook. Sweepstake, lottery, quiz and puzzle applications are quite famous among the Facebook fans. In addition to the above concepts, we have come across an interesting Facebook application. The application performed so well, we were forced to add it to this list. This concept has become a huge success within a few days.

There are a number of techniques used by Facebook application developers to increase the number of users on the application. One of the most favorable and easy techniques to capture the attention of the users is to create sweepstakes applications. It is not a new idea by any means, as a number of brands have used sweepstakes to receive high levels of engagement from the users in the past.

Facebook pages, often only require a bit of incentive (in the form of a prize) to boost the level of engagement with the users. This not only would give a reason to people for constantly checking your page, it would also increase the brand awareness and more importantly provide a chance to increase the number of fans interacting on the page.

Quite often, contests and sweepstakes are mistakenly considered to be the same. But there is a difference between them. Contests require skillful interaction from the player to win the prize, while on the other hand, in sweepstakes users can enter their details and through a lucky draw, they can be the winner. There are no special skills required in winning a sweepstake (just luck).

To better understand the sweepstakes applications concept, have a look at a video walk-through of a sweepstakes app Cygnis Media has designed and developed for IGN & Capcom, to promote their new game Dragon’s Dogma.

Keeping the difference between Sweepstakes and Contests in mind, we have created a list of sweepstakes application ideas, which managed to generate good results:

Free for Fans:

Provide your fans a chance to win free prizes. Southwest Airlines offered free round trip tickets for the destinations it flies. The only thing required for a user to do is to fill out the form and provide the information required to enter the sweepstakes.

Multiple Sweepstakes Entries:

You can offer your fans to enter the sweepstakes multiple times (thus increasing their chances of winning) by asking them to Like your page and other affiliate pages. This technique was utilized in the Dragon’s Dogma application, as users were able to get a second entry into the sweepstakes by Liking Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma page.

Fan Preferences:

You can show your fans a few different options and ask them to choose one. The options can be of products, music albums, videos, people, or anything that you think would work with your brand.

Pick a Door:

The user can be presented with a few doors at the start; one of the doors would lead them to win an entry in the sweepstakes. The prizes can change over time.

Guess the Place:

A nice brain teaser for your fans, you just need to take a picture of your product at a famous location (but make sure the place is easily identified by the fans, so that large number of fans can interact without hesitation) and ask your fans to guess the name of the place where the picture was taken. The correct answers would enter a lucky draw to win the prize.

Pictures with a Twist:

In this technique you can morph an image of a celebrity and ask your fans to guess the celebrity. Whoever gives the correct answer would be entered in a lucky draw for a chance to win the grand prize. Such applications are famous, as this type of application can capture the attention of all types of age groups and provides favorable results.

Follow us:

Make sure you use other marketing resources as well to promote your brand. Ask your fans to follow you on Twitter to earn another entry into the sweepstakes.

Emirates NBD – Spin2Win:

Emirates NBD Spin2Win is an easy and fun application. The idea of the app is to spin a roulette style wheel and be asked to answer a question. Based on where the wheel stops and if they answered correctly, the person would either be entered into a sweepstake for a chance to win a prize or be asked to try again (up to 3 chances per day).

The idea of the application is to engage fans in three different ways in just one go. First, adding excitement by spinning the wheel. Second, adding curiosity of multiple options for different prizes and last but not the least asking a simple yet interesting question to test the fan’s knowledge.

The app is now active on the Emirates NBD official Facebook page and is widely appreciated and accepted by the fans. In just 10 days, the wheel has been spun over 20,000 times and hundreds of lucky winners will be awarded prizes thanks to their participation.

CONCLUSION:

You may find some more ideas through your own brainstorming process, which we highly encourage you to do. We would love to hear from you about more ideas for Sweepstakes applications.