Social media photo contests are more popular than ever. No wonder, as they give businesses the opportunity to increase followers, gain consumers, boost engagement with audiences and increase brand awareness. With all of the new platforms that have popped up lately, it can be tricky to know which is best for your needs. Here’s a breakdown of our top three tried and true photo contest apps.
Offerpop– Offerpop is an easy-to-use platform which allows you to quickly set up a photo contest that can be added as a tab on your Facebook page. With the use of a registered hashtag, you can pull Instagram and Twitter entries into your contest. Offerpop also offers Quizzes, Video Contests, Caption Contests, Polls, and more.
Here’s a photo contest we recently ran for Perinatal Services BC to promote their new Aboriginal Pregnancy Passport: http://bit.ly/1FLc1Q1
Pros
- Team of specialists offer great support and answer questions/respond to emails promptly
- You can moderate entries to ensure they meet your contest standards
- Easily adaptable template; you just need to fill in the blanks (no coding knowledge required!)
- You can modify participant forms to obtain the information you need to gather (i.e. name, email, address, city, ethnicity identifier, etc.)
- In-depth insights are available, including the number of impressions, participants, number of desktop views, number of mobile views, and clicks
Cons
- Cost is a bit higher than other platforms, depending on how long your contest will run
- Sometimes Instagram entries aren’t automatically entered into the contest so you have to manually enter them in
- You can’t veer away from the pre-existing template, so design is limited
Iconosquare– Formerly known as Statigram, this is an easy-to-use tool to run a social contest via multiple channels (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram). While Offerpop is more heavily integrated with Facebook, Iconosquare began using Instagram as its main platform but is now versatile to all three. The France-based company offers metrics about Instagram accounts, allows you to manage Instagram accounts through their platforms, and runs photo and video contests through all social platforms.
Here’s a recent contest our client White Spot ran using Iconosquare to promote their Burger Guest Stars promotion: http://iconosquare.com/contests/bcsburger
Pros
- You can run photo contests on multiple social networks
- Great visually-appealing design and layout available for you to adapt
- They make it easy for you to embed the contest page onto your website
- Numerous statistics available, including Top 10 influencers, locations of participants, increase in Facebook/Instagram followers, etc.
- You can also create a public contest page hosted on Iconosquare
- Allows you to moderate entries to ensure they align with contest guidelines
Cons
- Based in Europe and so you need to consider the difference in time zones to receive support via email
Strutta –a local Vancouver, BC-based company that offers social promotions on multiple channels (Facebook, Instagram and Micro-site).
Here’s a look at some current Strutta photo contests: https://apps.facebook.com/promos-app/
Pros:
- Great customer service
- Based locally in BC – so you can have face-to-face meetings
- Online support centre to ask/answer questions
- Great list of analytics (including key influencers)
Cons
- Can’t integrate Twitter into contest
Next time you’re looking to organize a photo contest for your client or your organization, we highly recommend that you try one of these platforms! Let us know if there’s a platform you’d recommend that’s not on this list, by commenting below.
