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If You Build It They Will Come: Growing Your Presence With a Social Media Challenge

Are you looking to build a solid email list for your business? Do you also want to strengthen your relationship with existing clients along the way? Then launching a social media challenge may very well be the answer you are looking for

A social media challenge involves a series of activities that creators offer to their subscribers for various reasons The activities involve several steps and with the guidance of pre-written content

One of the end-goals for the creator is to build their followers Ever since the health crisis began, social media challenges began popping up left and right

As for the nature of the challenges, there are many Some of the most popular ones include the “Flip the Switch Challenge;” the “Bin Isolation Outing Challenge,” and the “Pillow Challenge ” *VerticalResponse provides all the tools you need to run a successful email marketing campaign. VerticalResponse, a Deluxe company, provides email and social media marketing solutions for small businesses and nonprofit organizations. We empower our users to easily and affordably create, manage and analyze their own marketing campaigns.

But the question is, how do you exactly make a challenge for your business? Check out our guide below

A Social Media Challenge Starts with the Audience

Creating a social media challenge is not as easy as you think There are certain steps and areas you need to cover But what you need to realize is that everything starts with your target audience

The first order of business is to determine what your audience wants Here, you need to align your challenge with what interests your target market Don’t pose a 30-day-25-pushup challenge if you’re catering to a market of seniors

Not sure what your followers want? Start by asking some questions through email The key to ensuring the success of your email inquiries is hiring a company that offers comprehensive email marketing services

Start by creating your automation rules You also want to set up your tags Thereafter, you can proceed with the email’s contents

The rule of thumb is to keep your email short and sweet Stick to around three to five questions And for each question, include a link trigger connecting them to the tags you decided on earlier

When they click on a question, it will automatically add them to a corresponding tag

Alternatively, you can create a Facebook poll Here, you will use your Facebook business page where you want to increase your number of followers In turn, you want these new followers to be part of your email list

Additionally, you can run a Facebook poll in other Facebook groups you belong to But make sure these groups are relevant to your niche market

Determine the Type of Challenge

After gathering the results of the email and/or Facebook polls, the next step is to analyze them This is the part where you begin to determine the type of social media challenge ideas that will pique the interest of your followers

Gather the results of the poll and see which one garnered the most responses is the winner Thereafter, you can start drafting the rules of the challenge

Before you finalize the rules, you need to be clear and specific about the benefits of joining the challenge What is the end benefit that your audience will get if they join the challenge? You want the final outcome of the challenge to be something your target audience truly wants

Be clear with the end benefit, and make sure you can explain it in a maximum of two sentences

Also, you want your social media challenge to be unique With so many challenges coming out, you need to keep your users’ excitement level up by becoming creative You don’t need to make your challenge a one-of-a-kind thing

There is no problem taking a few elements from other social media challenges However, be sure to put a different twist to your challenge Some unique changes will go a long way in making your challenge stand out from the rest

As for the rules, you need to explain them clearly How long do you wish the challenge to run for? How will you deliver the challenge? Lastly, make the challenge short and doable

Now you are ready to launch your social media challenge The first thing to do is to promote it You have the option to invest in Facebook Ads

You can also post promos on your Instagram account If your business has a YouTube channel, you can launch the challenge through a short video

Your goal is to promote your challenge everywhere you can Also, decide how you want to share the challenge

For starters, there is the good old email With emails, you can reach anyone who is already on your mailing list Ideally, you want to send daily emails about the challenge

You want to remind the people of the upcoming challenge You want to build their excitement leading to the launch

But the problem with this is that only the ones on your list will get to see the challenge

Thus, consider partnering your email approach with your social media posts But in doing so, consider your goal of growing your list Do you want to grow a list that comes mostly from your Facebook followers? If so, then use your Facebook page to share your challenge

Lastly, you need to come up with a follow-through strategy If you see that your list doubled during the event, then congratulations on launching a successful social media challenge

However, that shouldn’t be the end of your efforts You need to capitalize on what you already built Hence, the next step is to convert the participants into sales