See ALSO Facebook Competition

Facebook invites innovation and creativity. For years Facebook users have been creating apps that expand Facebook functionality and brand managers are finding new ways to engage through Fan Pages all the time.

Facebook Fan Pages and Brand Pages are great Facebook marketing outlets and opportunities- you can engage a large group of people, get your message out there and get people excited about something new or something you have to offer.

Facebook competitions do the trick. A Facebook competition will get people engaged with a classic combination- a challenge (it should be doable) and the need to check back in to see how the competition is going.

Competitions inherently need people involved and that’s what social media marketing and facebook marketing are all about. Over the past few years I’ve seen some interesting examples of Facebook compeitions, both big and small.

1. 2009 Dell Social Innovation Competition
Dell and the University of Texas at Austin teamed up on Facebook to ask, “Everyone has a dream with the power to change the world. What’s yours?”
They asked for college students to submit plans to change the world combining creativity and innovation that tackles a pressing social issue. The winner, received 50,000 to put their plan into action.
The group ended up with 175 members, some great Wall participation, and an invaluable association between Dell and philanthropy for young social entrepreneurs.

2. Microsoft’s “It’s not cheating” Facebook competition
This one was more or less a straightforward way for Microsoft to get more fans. It was late 2007 (if you remember that far back, that was before Twitter was in the news all the time) and Microsoft was looking for a way to get Australian students to buy their software through social media. They came up with a program to get interns, bloggers and student partners to do the recruiting for them by creating Facebook Groups! Top recruiters had the chance to win a Smartphone or an XBOX360.

3. Inspire Photo Competition
This one got contentious but it also got lots of people involved- almost 2,000 group members and 200 monthly users. With the ease of submitting photos combined with group access for voting and commenting, Facebook is a natural forum for this kind of competition.

There are many other ways and reasons to hold a Facebook competition – the message here is that competitions are good for your numbers, your engagement and your brand management. And they’re just fun. So next time you are thinking of a marketing idea, think Facebook competition.

Facebook Competition Ideas and Innovations

Scott