How to Run a Social Media Contest to Grow Your Site (Best Practices + Examples)

Do you want to run a social media contest to grow your website traffic?

Social media platforms already have billions of active users. It is a lot easier to find a very targetted audience that could be your potential customer or subscriber.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily run a social media contest to grow your business with some best practices and examples to get started.

Why Run a Social Media Contest on Your Website?

There is so much content on the internet and too many businesses competing for the same targeted customers.

If you have recently started a WordPress blog or launched an online business, then social media contests are one of the best ways to reach your target audience.

Alternatively, if you’re an established business, then you can use contests to boost user engagement by celebrating birthdays or other special occasions like we did on WPBeginner’s 11th birthday:

Social media platforms have a reach of billions of active users. Facebook / Instagram alone has over 3 billion monthly active users. YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest each have millions of highly engaged active users.

Running a social media contest offers you a quick way to reach out to those users. Depending on what your goals are, you can run a social media contest to do any or all of the following:

• Get more traffic to your website
• Get more followers for your social media accounts
• Boost engagement on your social media profiles
• Get more subscribers for your email list
• Build brand recognition for your business

That being said let’s take a look at how you can easily create a social media contest for your WordPress website.

Later in this article, we will also show you how to make your contest successful with real examples.

Creating Social Media Contest in WordPress

For this tutorial, we’ll be using RafflePress. It is the best contest and giveaway plugin for WordPress and helps you promote on all major social media platforms. You can even use one of its ready to use templates to quickly build contests.

Note: There is a free version of RafflePress available, but for this tutorial we’ll be using RafflePress pro account.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the RafflePress plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled ‘RafflePress’ to your WordPress admin sidebar. Clicking on it will take you to the plugin’s Settings page.

First, you will need to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the RafflePress website.

After entering your license key, you are now ready to create your first social media contest.

Simply visit RafflePress » Add New page to launch the contest builder.

You’ll start by entering a title for your contest in the ‘Giveaway Name’ field. After that, you’ll see a bunch of templates to choose from.

There are ready-made templates for different social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you want to focus on one of these platforms, then choosing a template will save you some time.

You can also choose the ‘Classic giveaway’ template and design your own contest actions. This way you can target multiple social media platforms and combine them with your email list or WooCommerce contest actions.

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll show you the classic giveaway.

Next, the contest builder will ask you to enter your prize details. Simply click on the ‘Pencil’ icon to provide a title and description for your prize.

You can also upload an image to display with your prize description. Adding a prize image allows users to visualize the prize and motivates them to participate.

Add Actions to Enter Your Social Media Contest

Actions are the interactions you want users to perform in order to participate in your social media contest and qualify for the prize.

RafflePress comes with several actions that you can add to your campaign. However, you would want to prioritize actions that help you achieve your social media contest goal.

For instance, if you want to increase Twitter followers then adding ‘Follow us on Twitter’ action will be more beneficial.

You need to switch to the ‘Actions’ tab from the left menu, and you will see the list of actions you can add.

Simply click to add any action to your contest, and you will see it appear below your prize details. You can then edit the action settings from the left column.

Each action comes with some generic settings. You can change the action title, select the number of entries users will earn for it, allow daily entries, or make that action mandatory.

You’ll also see settings related to specific actions. For instance, if you want users to follow you on Instagram, then you’ll need to enter your Instagram profile URL.

After entering settings for an action, switch back to the actions tab to add more actions. You can add as many actions as you want. However, don’t forget to prioritize them to match your contest goal.

You can even create your own actions by simply describing the action you want users to take.

Once you are done setting up actions, don’t forget to click on the Save button to store your changes.

Change Contest Appearance and Settings

Next, you need to switch to the design tab. From here you can change fonts and colors. You can also choose a page background in case you want to create a landing page for your social media contest (more on this later).

After you are done with design, the next step is to configure contest settings.

Simply switch to the ‘Settings’ tab and you’ll see a list of options. Under the ‘General’ settings you can set basic options for your giveaway including the option to show winners, number of entries, limit signups per IP, and more.

Most importantly, you can choose a page permalink to create an individual landing page showing your contest widget.

This is particularly handy for running a social media contest where the goal is to drive traffic to your social profiles.

RafflePress also allows you to set up redirects, success tracking, enable social logins, email verification, and more.

For more details on each settings, see our guide on how to set up a giveaway in WordPress.

Don’t forget to click on the Save button at the top to save your settings.

Publish and Add Contest on Your Website

RafflePress makes it easy to display your social media contest widget anywhere on your WordPress website.

You can add it to any WordPress post or page by simply editing that page and adding RafflePress block to the content area.

Simply select the contest you created earlier from the drop-down menu and then save or update your post.

You can now visit your website to see your social media contest in action.

RafflePress also allows you to display the contest widget anywhere on your site using the shortcode. You can find the shortcode by editing your contest and switching to the ‘Publish’ tab.

You can also publish your contest as a stand-alone page. Simply edit your giveaway and go to the publish tab.

Now click on the landing page option and then click below to set up your landing page.

This will take you back to the settings page where you need to create a URL for your landing page.

Enter a short meaningful slug for the URL and then click on the view button to check it out. This is how it looked on our demo site:

Note: You can change the design and background by visiting the ‘Design’ tab in the contest builder.

Best Practices to Run Social Media Contest with Examples

Social media contests can easily go viral by following some best practices. The following are a few tips and examples to make your social media campaign more effective.

1. Keep your campaign focused by setting a goal

Make sure that you set clear goals for your contest campaign. This allows you to achieve your goals and maximize the impact of your campaign.

For instance, if you want to get more subscribers to your email newsletter, then making email action mandatory and giving it priority points will help you get more email subscribers.

Similarly, if you want to run an Instagram contest, then making Instagram actions mandatory will help you achieve that goal.

2. Set enough time to promote your campaign

Plan your campaign well ahead of time. You can add the social media contest to your page and start promoting it across your social channels.

3. Add prize pictures and graphics

Images are a highly effective way to grab user attention. If you are offering a valuable prize, adding pictures makes users visualize it. This makes your campaign more effective.

But what if your prize is a membership plan or an online course? Well, then you can use graphics by making your own banners and images.

We recommend using Canva as the best tool for beginners to make graphics for their WordPress blog or social media campaigns.

4. Promote your contest with on-site retargeting

Make sure that users visiting your website know about your contest and giveaway. The best way to do this is by using OptinMonster.

It allows you to convert website visitors into subscribers and customers. It comes with lightbox popups, countdown timers, floating banners, and other tools that you can use to promote your campaign on your website.

5. Follow social media platform rules for contests

Each social media platform has some specific rules about promoting a contest or giveaway to get more likes, retweets, and shares.

For instance, if you are running a Twitter contest, then they want you to discourage duplicate tweets and ask contest participants to adhere to Twitter rules.

Similarly, if you are running a Facebook contest, then you cannot present your contest in a way that looks like an endorsement from Facebook.

Following are some general rules that apply to all social media platforms:

• Have a clear contest policy and rules mentioning that these social media platforms are not liable for any actions users take.
• Have clear eligibility criteria and who can participate in your contest.
• Do not offer illegal prizes or rewards or ask users to perform illegal actions.

We hope this article helped you learn how to run a social media contest to grow your site. You may also want to see our other tips on promoting your business online without spending too much money.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Run a Social Media Contest to Grow Your Site (Best Practices + Examples) appeared first on WPBeginner.

July 30, 2020 at 06:39PM

How to Create an Alert Bar in WordPress (3 Easy Ways)

Do you want to add an alert bar to your WordPress site?

An alert bar or notification bar is a great way to let visitors know about important updates, special offers, new product launch, etc.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create an alert bar in WordPress with 3 easy solutions.

Why Create an Alert Bar in WordPress?

An alert bar is a great way to let your visitors know about anything important. That could be an ongoing sales event, update about your opening times, or changes to your services.

You can also use an alert bar to tell visitors about a special deal, such as a buy one get one free offer. This is a great option if you run an online store.

Using an alert bar is better than just putting an announcement on your homepage. Your alert bar can appear prominently right at the top of every page across your whole site.

It’s easy to create an alert bar in WordPress. We will cover the 2 best notification bar plugins plus a manual method using HTML and CSS code. Simply click the links below to jump straight to each option:

• Method 1: OptinMonster
• Method 2: SeedProd
• Method 3: Custom HTML and CSS

Method 1: Creating an Alert Bar Using OptinMonster

OptinMonster is the best conversion optimization software on the market. It helps you convert more website visitors into subscribers and customers.

It comes with beautiful lightbox popups, welcome mats, countdown timers, and other dynamic overlays that help you increase subscribers and sales for your website.

You can also use OptinMonster to make an alert bar for your website. Here’s the one we’re going to create:

There are lots of pre-built templates inside OptinMonster. This makes it really easy to create an alert bar that looks great within minutes.

First, you need to visit the OptinMonster website and sign up for an account.

Next, you need to install and activate the OptinMonster WordPress plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

This plugin connects your WordPress site to the OptinMonster app.

Upon activation, you need to enter your license key. You can find this in your account area on the OptinMonster website.

In your WordPress dashboard, click the OptinMonster menu. You then need to click the ‘Connect Your Account’ button. Just follow the on-screen prompts to connect your WordPress site to your OptinMonster account.

After connecting OptinMonster, simply go to OptinMonster » Campaigns in your WordPress dashboard. Go ahead and click the ‘Create New Campaign’ button:

You will be taken into the OptinMonster campaign creation tool. From here, you need to select ‘Floating Bar’ as your Campaign Type.

Next, you will see a choice of campaign templates. Simply choose a template that you want to use. You just need to bring your mouse over it and click the ‘Use Template’ button to select it.

We’re going to use the ‘Promo’ template for our alert bar:

Next, you will be prompted to give your template a name and choose what site you’re going to use it on. OptinMonster should have already filled in the name and URL of your site here.

Once you’ve named your campaign, click the ‘Start Building’ button.

Now, you will see the campaign editor. This is where you can design your campaign.

You will see that your alert bar appears at the bottom of your screen by default. To move it to the top of the screen, click ‘Floating Settings’ on the left hand side.

Next, just click the slider to move the floating bar to the top of the page:

To change the text on the floating bar, simply click on the area you want to change. The editor will open up on the left hand side. Just type any text you want here.

You can also change the font, the size and color of the text, and more.

To change the countdown timer, simply click on it then click the Countdown tab. Then go ahead and enter your desired end date and time.

You can also set the timer to act as an evergreen countdown instead of a static countdown, if you prefer. An evergreen countdown is set separately for each visitor to your site.

Go ahead and make as many changes to your alert bar as you want. Once you’re happy with it, don’t forget to click the Save button at the top of your screen.

Next, you need to go to the ‘Display Rules’ tab to select when and where your alert bar will display on your site. The default rule is for your alert bar to display after the visitor has been on the page for 5 seconds.

We’re going to change this to 0 seconds, so the alert bar appears instantly. Just change the ‘sec’ countdown to 0:

Then, click the ‘Next Step’ button, and leave the action as ‘show the campaign view: Optin’ on the next screen. Click ‘Next Step’ once more and you will see a summary.

Once you’re happy, simply click the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen, then click the ‘Publish’ tab. Click the ‘Status’ slider to set it to Active.

The final step is to activate the campaign on your website itself. Click on the OptinMonster tab in your WordPress dashboard, then click the ‘Refresh Campaigns’ button

You will then see your campaign listed here.

Simply visit any page on your website, and you will see your campaign in action:

Method 2: Creating an Alert bar using SeedProd

Another way to make an alert bar is to use the SeedProd WordPress plugin. SeedProd is best known for its ‘coming soon’ and maintenance mode pages for WordPress.

SeedProd also has a Notification Bar plugin that you can get when you sign up for any paid package.

First, you need to visit the SeedProd website and sign up for an account. Next, go to the ‘Downloads’ page within your account and download the Notification Bar Pro plugin:

Then, you need to install and activate the Notification Bar Pro plugin on your site. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon installation, you will see a page where you need to enter your license key. You can find this in your SeedProd account.

Next, go to Settings » Notification Bar Pro where you will start creating your notification bar. Simply enter a name for it and click the ‘Create Bar’ button.

You will now see the SeedProd notification bar editor. To begin with, the notification bar will show as an orange strip at the top of the screen:

To add text to the notification bar, click the ‘Call to Action Message and Button’ tab on the left hand side. Simply enter the text you want to use. If you want to add a call to action button, you can enter the text and the link for the button:

By default, the text will have the same font and size as the main text in your WordPress theme. To make it larger, just click on the ‘Typography’ tab.

Here, you can set any font and size you want for both the text of the bar itself and the button text.

If you want, you can change the color of your bar and button in the ‘Colors’ tab.

You can even add other elements to your notification bar, such as an email optin, a countdown timer, click to call button, and even links to your social profiles.

When you’re happy with your notification bar, click the ‘Enable/Disable Bar’ tab then switch to the ‘Enable Bar’ option. Finally, click the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen.

Your notification bar will now appear on your site:

Method 3: Manually Create an Alert Bar Using Custom HTML/CSS

What if you don’t want to use OptinMonster or Notification Bar Pro? In this method, we’ll show you how to create a notification bar using HTML and CSS code.

Note: We don’t recommend this method for beginners. If you’re new to WordPress or don’t feel confident adding code to your site, then we suggest using one of the plugin methods above instead.

First, you will need to copy and paste some custom CSS code for the alert bar. Simply go to Appearance » Customizer page in your dashboard, then click the ‘Additional CSS’ tab at the bottom.

Now, go ahead and copy and paste this CSS code into that box:

.alertbar { 
    background-color: #ff0000; 
    color: #FFFFFF; 
    display: block; 
    line-height: 45px;
    height: 50px; 
    position: relative; 
    text-align: center; 
    text-decoration: none; 
    top: 0px; 
    width: 100%;
    z-index: 100;
}

After you’ve copied that code, it should look like this. Simply click the Publish button at the top of the page to save your CSS code.

Next, you need to add the HTML code for the alert bar text to your site.

The best way to do this is to install and activate the free Insert Headers and Footers plugin.

Note: Insert Headers and Footers is one of WPBeginner’s own plugins. We created it to make it really easy to add scripts, HTML code, and more to your website pages.

After activating the plugin, go to Settings » Insert Headers and Footers in your WordPress admin. Just copy and paste the following line of HTML code into the ‘Scripts in Body’ box:

<div class="alertbar">We are currently closed due to Covid-19.</div>

Here’s how that code should look in the ‘Scripts in Body’ box of Insert Headers and Footers:

Of course, you can change the alert text to anything else you like. Don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page once you’re done.

Now, you can visit your site to see the alert bar. It should appear at the top of every page, like this:

Tip: In a few WordPress themes, your alert bar may overlap your menu. You could alter the height of the bar to 40px or 30px to avoid this. You will also need to reduce the line height accordingly, so that your text stays centered vertically in the bar.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create an alert bar in WordPress. You might also like our comparison of the best WordPress drag & drop page builders to help you further customize your site without writing any code, and our list of the best WooCommerce plugins to grow your store sales.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create an Alert Bar in WordPress (3 Easy Ways) appeared first on WPBeginner.

July 29, 2020 at 04:03PM