So, our latest Facebook contest has wrapped.  Winners have been chosen, newsletter has been renamed, prizes have been sent out.  So I’d like to take a minute and reflect back on what I’ve learned about this specific kind of Facebook contest.

To get right to it, I’ve learned that asking people to actively participate in a contest (that requires more than just entering their name and email) is equivalent to pushing an elephant up Mt. Everest.  It’s just not very likely to end with the most successful of all outcomes.  We had nowhere near the number of submissions of our first contest and even some of the submissions didn’t do what we asked (submit a new name for our newsletter).  Has anyone out there found similar results when running a contest that requires entrant participation?

My goal of boosting participation definitely hasn’t been thrown out the window -but it certainly needs to be reworked.

Any suggestions or tips out there?  Anyone have a similar experience?  Feel free to comment below with any feedback you might have!