Facebook Promotion Help

[TheDude]

I am considering doing a iPad give away to gain more Facebook page likes.  I have several questions running through my brain that I'm hopeful fellow Mozzers can help me with.  I was thinking I'll give away an iPad for every 500 FB likes on our page...or $1.00 per like.

1. If I get an abundance of likes will Google smile upon me?
2. How do I track the entries?
3. Are there any tools that can assist in getting the word out on this and or tracking it all?  I'm kind of a FB newb!

[LukeyJamo]

Hi, We've had experience with a number of Facebook promotions.

1. Quick answer is no. Fanpage likes can easily be bought/fabricated, the raw numbers dont really matter that much. But you are building a valuable community around your brand which can help drive traffic back to your site or a fan page member might 'like' or 'comment' on a post that you make on the wall. Building up your brand, gaining Facebook shares or comments will get Google to smile upon you!
2. The 'sweepstakes' app of http://northsocial.com/ is exactly what you need. You have to pay a small monthly fee for the full North Social suite... but it's definitely worth it.
3. The 'sweepstake' app with North Social enables users to 'like' the page before they enter - this in turn, will appear on their facebook wall and hopefully stir up some interest from their users. You can also ask users to share the promotion directly. Finally, Facebook Advertising might work well for a cool prize like an iPad.

The biggest advice is to just give it a shot!

[TheDude]

Great answer!  Thanks for the advice.  How about this as a revised plan.

-Use North Social to give away 1 iPad/month to entreprenuers/businesses

-Advertise the promotion on my site (get 40K visits/month) and directly on Facebook.

-Make an entry requirement to post on our wall how the iPad will help them in business.

Will I get a positive look from Google with this plan or do I need to change the implementation of the last step somewhow?

[LukeyJamo]

Sounds good - the more 'real' interactions on your Facebook wall the more Google will like it.

Competitions on Facebook can be tricky though as you dont want to break their terms and conditions, I am not sure if you actually ask people to write something on your wall in order to enter the competition.

North Social have all the details and links to Facebook Competition policies.

Goodluck though.

[TheDude]

Thanks for the tips!  I'll check out those policies to ensure I'm within the guidelines.