Types of Contests on Twitter

Twitter is the new found interest of brands, both big and small, as gradually the realization of its being a really powerful medium has crept in. It now forms a mandatory element of any brand’s social media strategy and several contests and campaigns are planned over it.

A contest on twitter not just helps build buzz around a brand or enhance engagement with fans, but also brings new followers on board, expanding brand’s reach and presence. Recent studies even claim that Twitter contests are far more effective in creating brand-engagement than any other paid online media.

With so much importance associated with them, contests on Twitter are getting innovative by day. Thereby, here we are with few of the most popular types of contests happening over twitter:

1. Answer in style

In contests as these, tweeps are asked to answer a question put up by the brand in the most interesting way possible making use of the designated hashtag.

This kind of a scheme not just gets you lot of mentions and visibility but leads way to many interesting conversations as well, thus building association. For the on-lookers as well, it is fun to know what quirky ideas people come up with in those 140 characters.

One such contest that got really popular was #55SecondsToLive, done for the launch of 55DSL from the house of Diesel in India. Tweeps were asked what would they do if they had “55 Seconds To Live” with the hashtag #55SecondsToLive and some great answers could stand to win awesome 55DSL goodies.

The best tweets were also put up on a digital graffiti wall that was created on their microsite. There were different sets of prizes that would be unlocked at different levels of tweets.

2. Question & Answer

A question and answer contest is a pretty straight-forward one, as here the organizers of the contest pose a question for tweeps to answer. The winners are then selected based on either the fastest time in which the question was answered or whatever was the most accurate answer.

One such contest was # FunWithNumbers conducted for YES Bank. The YES Bank handle posted easy number game questions for its followers to answer. Each question closed the moment it was answered correctly.

But, beyond the answer tweets there were many followers who tweeted, even long after the contest, that how interesting it was for them to participate in thing like this.

3. Tweet & Play

These are one interesting kind of contests, where the user has to keep tweeting to unlock various levels of a game being played on a microsite. The better the frequency of tweeting, more the points, and higher the chances of faring well in the game, for the participant.

Superdry Tweet Fuel campaign was an excellent example of this which asked users to tweet and drive the iconic Superdry Morgan 3 Wheeler roadster to India, as their tweets were to be converted into fuel for the car. The tweeps had to tweet, where would they go for a #SuperDrive if they get a chance to have a Morgan 3 Wheeler.

Fuelled by their tweets, the car travelled from London Superdry stores India via Dover crossing through the English Channel, traversing France, Germany, Belgium and Dubai. The participants could not just win apparels from Superdry but also an opportunity to drive the Morgan 3 Wheeler.

4. Integrated Contests

Such kind of contests, integrate the offline and the online. Based on the tweets people do, some event unfolds offline and engages the participants beyond the social network.

The “Chill Out Surprise” campaign by Lipton Ice tea was an eye-catcher. The organizers began with locating stress-filled or complaining tweets in the city of Mumbai to trace out stresses users. After zeroing down on the location of these users, there place of work etc were found out.

Thereafter, the Chill Out Surprise campaign crew reached their places with a Chill Out hamper to relieve them of the stress.

5. Retweet & Follow to Win

This is the one of the most simple and popular kind of contest where participants stand a chance of winning by following and Retweeting the brand’s tweets. After the duration of the contest is over, the winners are determined randomly or with the aid of a lucky draw.

However, one major issue with such contests is that, herein, an entrant does not agree by any rules before retweeting or entering the contest and hence, legal implications may follow.

 6. Photo Contest

In contests as these, users need to send in a photo of theirs and associate it with the designated hashatg. The best or most popular picture gets to win a prize.