Facebook competition: what's the best way to do it

[eunaneunan]

Taking some advice/ideas from this seomoz blog post

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/99-ways-to-build-links-by-giving-stuff-away-and-improve-your-brand-too-14029

I decided to launch a facebook competition were you like/share the product you want to win.

The question is should I be looking for share or likes?  From what I have read Share are more valuable than likes, but Likes would be easier to get I think (ie we could get a lot more of them).  Here is an example of one of our product pages:

http://www.lovefurniture.ie/sofas-furniture/corner-sofas-l-shaped-sofas/rihanna-corner-suite-with-sofabed

We already have a like, tweet +1 buttons, but not a facebook share, should it be there?

Any feedback or advice would be appreciated

[kevin4803]

I think you should read facebook legal page. It says you can't run a contest based on likes or shares. The way to get around this is to run a third party contest app on your facebook page.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if a user shares a facebook contest page they are not made fans. So if you want more fans I would suggest making it a "like" contest.

[eunaneunan]

The aim of this contest is not too get more likes for our facebook page but to get actual share/likes for our site (or pages on our site), which is is becoming more important  googles eyes (or so i have read)

I didn't know it was against facebooks rules since like based contests are so common on facebook, but good to know.

Don't know much about contest app's will look into it.

Thanks

[pauledwards]

What do you mean third party contest?

I'm sure i've seen people saying if you like us you get entered into a prize draw, can you do that?

What's the best way to encourage shares?

Any advice much appreciated.

[kevin4803]

http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php

there are a few apps out there. they will all allow a contest page on your facebook page.

http://www.wildfireapp.com/

http://www.wildfireapp.com/

[eunaneunan]

Reading though the guidelines it doesn't actually say you can't use shares, just not "likes, checking in or connecting to an app".

But the more I think about it, i'm sure I have seen big companies using likes to enter contest etc

[kevin4803]

Yes most companies do run contests with a "like" but it is almost always done with a app installed on their page

http://apps.facebook.com/promotionshq/contests/96234

here is one using the wildfire app

[eunaneunan]

Going back to the original question, based on this webinar

http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/future-of-link-building

FB share are more "powerful" than likes, but is it better to target "likes" as we could get more of them.

Has anyone any experience doing something like this?

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[jennita]

Hi! Hopefully I can shed a little light on whether to go after shares or likes. Both actually correlate well with higher rankings, but this isn't necessarily a direct correlation it could simply mean that good content gets shared AND linked to which in turn helps rankings. Originally "likes" didn't show up in a user's wall or stream only shares did, so at that point they were more valuable because the share would be seen by more people. However FB has changed it so if you "like" something, not only does it show up on your wall/stream but it also allows you to add a comment. So it works very similarly to a share. If you feel that you can get more "likes" then go for it!

I hope this helps a bit.

Jen