Engaging Customers Through a Facebook Photo Contest

There are many benefits to keeping an updated Facebook page for your restaurant, chief among them being the deeper relationships it allows you to create with your customers. Keeping your restaurant in their minds with a constant stream of engaging content results in happy customers and repeat business for you.  If you are looking for a new way to get interactive, Facebook Photo Contests are a fun way to get your customers involved with your brand.  They are simple to execute but this should not mean that they are done without planning (like coming up with comprehensive rules). Here are a few things to consider when you are creating your contest…

• Require likes before entry.
  It wouldn’t make much sense for someone to win the contest but to not like your restaurant.  You not only want to get engagement from this, but to reward someone who actually enjoys your brand. You may even give them the opportunity to sign up for your email list too.
• Promote, promote, PROMOTE!
  Not just online, but in house.  Cross-promotion on social media is great but make sure you are also promoting the photo contest in your restaurant.  Tell your servers to mention it to customers, as well as have signs about it throughout the restaurant.
• Come Prepared.
  Customers expect that you will be able to follow through with the contest without any problems. You
  should test every aspect of it. You need to assign responsibilities and set in motion marketing strategies beforehand.
• Determine if automatic entry approval is right for you.
  Sites like Woobox, which you can use to create the contest app, allow you to choose whether you would like all photos submitted to automatically go through or if you would like
  to do it manually.  Selecting manual approval can allow you to choose the ten best photos to be voted on, and can prevent photos that you don’t like from showing up on your page.
• Use the submitted photos after the contest ends.
  After you have your fans take all these pictures of your restaurant, it would just quite a waste to not use them. A great prize for the contest could be that the winning photo gets featured on your Facebook page for a month. Remember to make using the submitted photos a condition for entering the contest.

We’re living in a picture-driven world today and creating a Facebook Photo Contest for your restaurant is the perfect way to take advantage of this. Combining everyone’s love for visuals with the chance to win a great prize results will create happy faces all around.