Attention competition for repost. VK prize draw: key rules, features

We are glad to welcome you again, friends! After a long pause (not our fault - circumstances dictated the conditions to us), we again begin to talk about life on the VKKrutoy social network. Dear readers of our blog about VKontakte, today we want to tell you about how to create competitions in VK. This article was prompted by a comment from our reader, Yegor Gaiduk. He asked us - how to make a VKontakte competition? And we are happy to answer Yegor...

So, let's begin. Some people who use social networks are not even aware of how effective competitions can be and how quickly you will reach a large audience, a considerable percentage of which will have a better attitude towards your group or public, and ultimately towards the brand for which you are working. created a group. In this answer article we will talk (naturally) about the social network VK.com or, as we are more used to, VKontakte, but these ideas are also suitable for other social networks, because there is only one idea...

What needs to be done before creating a VKontakte competition?

You need to perform a number of easy, and in some cases not so simple, steps to create a competition VK: Idea for a competition. First of all, you need to invent it! Original ideas will always be in great demand, but it happens that the thought “doesn’t work”, the creative mood is not today. In this case, it will be easiest for you to spy an idea for a competition in other groups, maybe even in another social network. networks, the main idea here is, isn’t it? Wink?. Go through groups on similar topics to yours, don’t forget about other social networks - Facebook, Odnoklassniki, Mail, Google+, etc. You can also devote a little time to non-thematic groups, you can also “catch” an idea in them, because you don’t know where inspiration will come from...
Think about the audience that would be interested in participating in your competition, and then think about what might generate that audience. After all, if you gather an audience that is not interested in your competition, then in the end you will spend a lot of time and effort, and only a few dozen people will participate in the competition so that there is no moment when only a few people will take part in the competition. Remember - your target audience is important for the competition!
Think over the terms of the competition to the smallest detail, try to simulate in your head various situations that may arise, all the nuances. Write all this down in detail in the competition rules. Many options are possible, the most unpleasant are cheating and other similar frauds of competition participants who do not want to participate honestly. Be sure to mention all these points separately in the rules, otherwise a conflict may flare up due to the fact that these points were not spelled out in the rules, and it is better not to allow a conflict in the competition. If we talk about the strategy of action of the participants, then it is also necessary to describe all the important points tied to time, i.e. performing action 1 - a period of time, action 2 - a period of time, etc., this will make it possible to conduct the VKontakte competition most effectively and not waste your time. Do not forget to also indicate in the rules the time when the prizes will be awarded and all the nuances associated with this.
You need a banner for your competition that you can distribute. Try to compose headlines so that when a person skims through the banner, they catch all the key points. It is also important that the banner contains your logo and (or) the name of the brand that you are promoting on VKontakte.
Members of your VK group should find out when the competition starts not on the day it starts, but a couple of days before. This can be done using your banner (which you have probably already done on our advice). Attach a banner in front of all group posts, and also inform members of similar groups or public pages about the start of the competition. Of course, if you do this by hand, it will be very time consuming and not easy; suitable programs for this, which are available on our website, in the “VKontakte Promotion” section, will help you with this. We have already written about why it is better to use these programs and how we tested them, do not step on the rake that many people have already stepped on and paid for it with VK accounts. But that’s not about that now... If you have your own website, be sure to add an article about the competition to the site; the more accessible it is on the site, the better. Create a separate page on the website, put all the information about the new competition on VK on it and let there be links to the registration pages for the competition and, of course, to the rules.
Many of those who are just starting to create competitions on VKontakte immediately “zealously rush into battle,” i.e. They always enter the competition, monitor its status, look at the number, track those who are trying to inflate the result... You shouldn’t do this, you’ll only wear yourself out. Set aside a certain time for this, and then control the progress of the competition; believe me, devoting a little time to this once a day is quite enough. But if the competition has a huge number of participants, then you will need an assistant; you can’t do it alone.
You also need to communicate with your audience. Users often write messages and ask questions. Communicate with them, respond, your audience is your EVERYTHING! Also clear the group of spam; if it’s difficult for you to do this yourself, there is special software for clearing groups of spam. Also, don’t delete “bad” messages, i.e. those that you consider negative! Try to “resolve” the situation yourself, competently, politely, tactfully. Otherwise, the negativity can lead to big consequences.
A few days before the end of the competition, notify all participants that the competition will end soon. This has one very important goal - the activation of participants in the VK competition. Write to them that they still have every chance to compete for prizes, by the way (prizes) it is better to do not one but three, why? We will talk about this in the next article about competitions, it makes sense I’m teasing
When the competition is over, provide your participants with all information about the winners and prizes. All this must happen within the time period specified in the rules of participation. But anything can happen, and it happens that sometimes you don’t have time to get everything done on time. If this is the case, then post a full explanation of the reason for the delay in the group. Remember - the slightest negative can negate the entire effect of the competition.
Well, at the end, thank everyone for taking part in the competition. You can make a separate poll about the competition or create a topic where participants can leave their feedback about it.

By taking into account all the recommendations that we have given here, you will be able to hold a successful competition in VK, and not only in it, also in other social networks, the main thing is to understand the principle. Everything, as always, depends on your desire. Wink!

What needs to be done before creating a VKontakte competition?

You need to perform a number of easy, and in some cases not so simple, steps to create a competition VK: Idea for a competition. First of all, you need to invent it! Original ideas will always be in great demand, but it happens that the thought “doesn’t work”, the creative mood is not today. In this case, it will be easiest for you to spy an idea for a competition in other groups, maybe even in another social network. networks, the main idea here is, isn’t it? Wink?. Go through groups on similar topics to yours, don’t forget about other social networks - Facebook, Odnoklassniki, Mail, Google+, etc. You can also devote a little time to non-thematic groups, you can also “catch” an idea in them, because you don’t know where inspiration will come from...
Think about the audience that would be interested in participating in your competition, and then think about what might generate that audience. After all, if you gather an audience that is not interested in your competition, then in the end you will spend a lot of time and effort, and only a few dozen people will participate in the competition so that there is no moment when only a few people will take part in the competition. Remember - your target audience is important for the competition!
Think over the terms of the competition to the smallest detail, try to simulate in your head various situations that may arise, all the nuances. Write all this down in detail in the competition rules. Many options are possible, the most unpleasant are cheating and other similar frauds of competition participants who do not want to participate honestly. Be sure to mention all these points separately in the rules, otherwise a conflict may flare up due to the fact that these points were not spelled out in the rules, and it is better not to allow a conflict in the competition. If we talk about the strategy of action of the participants, then it is also necessary to describe all the important points tied to time, i.e. performing action 1 - a period of time, action 2 - a period of time, etc., this will make it possible to conduct the VKontakte competition most effectively and not waste your time. Do not forget to also indicate in the rules the time when the prizes will be awarded and all the nuances associated with this.
You need a banner for your competition that you can distribute. Try to compose headlines so that when a person skims through the banner, they catch all the key points. It is also important that the banner contains your logo and (or) the name of the brand that you are promoting on VKontakte.
Members of your VK group should find out when the competition starts not on the day it starts, but a couple of days before. This can be done using your banner (which you have probably already done on our advice). Attach a banner in front of all group posts, and also inform members of similar groups or public pages about the start of the competition. Of course, if you do this by hand, it will be very time consuming and not easy; suitable programs for this, which are available on our website, in the “VKontakte Promotion” section, will help you with this. We have already written about why it is better to use these programs and how we tested them, do not step on the rake that many people have already stepped on and paid for it with VK accounts. But that’s not about that now... If you have your own website, be sure to add an article about the competition to the site; the more accessible it is on the site, the better. Create a separate page on the website, put all the information about the new competition on VK on it and let there be links to the registration pages for the competition and, of course, to the rules.
Many of those who are just starting to create competitions on VKontakte immediately “zealously rush into battle,” i.e. They always enter the competition, monitor its status, look at the number, track those who are trying to inflate the result... You shouldn’t do this, you’ll only wear yourself out. Set aside a certain time for this, and then control the progress of the competition; believe me, devoting a little time to this once a day is quite enough. But if the competition has a huge number of participants, then you will need an assistant; you can’t do it alone.
You also need to communicate with your audience. Users often write messages and ask questions. Communicate with them, respond, your audience is your EVERYTHING! Also clear the group of spam; if it’s difficult for you to do this yourself, there is special software for clearing groups of spam. Also, don’t delete “bad” messages, i.e. those that you consider negative! Try to “resolve” the situation yourself, competently, politely, tactfully. Otherwise, the negativity can lead to big consequences.
A few days before the end of the competition, notify all participants that the competition will end soon. This has one very important goal - the activation of participants in the VK competition. Write to them that they still have every chance to compete for prizes, by the way (prizes) it is better to do not one but three, why? We will talk about this in the next article about competitions, it makes sense I’m teasing
When the competition is over, provide your participants with all information about the winners and prizes. All this must happen within the time period specified in the rules of participation. But anything can happen, and it happens that sometimes you don’t have time to get everything done on time. If this is the case, then post a full explanation of the reason for the delay in the group. Remember - the slightest negative can negate the entire effect of the competition.
Well, at the end, thank everyone for taking part in the competition. You can make a separate poll about the competition or create a topic where participants can leave their feedback about it.

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VK is one of the most popular social networks, which opens up maximum opportunities for users. With its help, you can not only maintain communication with friends, but also implement various commercial ideas and ideas. One of the effective tools for successfully running and promoting a business are groups and communities. You can attract new audiences through sweepstakes. Next, we will tell you in detail how to hold a competition in VK and what you can achieve with its help.

The principle of the drawings

All competitions on VK follow the same pattern. It involves performing the following actions:

publication of a separate entry that contains information about the rules of participation;
selection of a picture that matches the theme of the drawing or prizes;
creating a prize fund (or purchasing raffled goods and services).

The competition entry must contain information about the number of prizes, the timing of the promotion, as well as the method for determining the winners. The visual component is of particular importance - users will be more willing to take part in the drawing if they see what awaits them if they win. That is why it is recommended to place photographs of prizes on competition posters.

Another factor that encourages users to participate is the simplicity of the conditions, so there is no need to come up with complex schemes. The rules for holding competitions require participants to fulfill the following points:

subscribe to a public page or join a group;
like the competition entry;
repost it;
do not delete the post from your page until the end of the promotion.

As a rule, the number of prizes awarded varies from one to three. The more prizes there are, the more willing people are to take part.

VK management policy

As a rule, the owners of groups and public sites decide to hold a drawing on VK in order to expand the audience and increase the activity of subscribers. Previously, automated programs and cheating applications were used for these purposes, but the VKontakte administration launched a serious campaign to combat them. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, all the methods that help increase the number of subscribers and likes do not allow the group to earn money from its target audience. And secondly, they undermine the internal ecosystem of the social network, which negatively affects the incentives to fill public pages with high-quality and interesting content.

In addition to external resources, VK management is fighting communities that specialize in distributing prizes to everyone who joins them and invites a certain number of friends. They are variations of automatic cheating programs and facilitate the sending of spam and illegal advertising.
Official rules for holding competitions in VK:

Groups that are entirely dedicated to distributing votes and other virtual gifts for joining them and inviting friends are subject to penalties and are blocked without warning. It is not recommended to use them for advertising purposes or to promote goods and services.
When organizing competitive events in commercial or entertainment groups, you should not use VK virtual objects (votes, stickers, gifts, etc.) as prizes. Give preference to your organization's products and services. This way you will not only increase the target audience of the community, but also promote your own brand and increase interest in its products.

By adhering to these rules, you will successfully conduct the draw without blocking or other penalties.

How to hold a draw on VK

You must consider three important aspects:

The competition must be creative and interesting.
The prizes to be played must be real (a product or service that the winner can use).
Do not encourage users to subscribe to the community - this will not bring you many new subscribers.

At the end of the entry, be sure to indicate how the winner will be determined. This will convince participants of the fairness of the action and dispel assumptions about fraud. As a rule, applications such as:

Random App is an official application recommended by VK management. To use it, you must allow access to confidential information. The winner can be chosen by likes or reposts.

An honest and clear determination of the winner is the key to a successful competition. If you are suspected of rigging the results, the group may be blocked. You will avoid this by providing participants with irrefutable evidence: video or photo report, live broadcast. In addition, results must be summed up within a strictly specified time frame. When the prize is awarded, it is recommended to take a photo or video with the winner.

What competitions can be held

Competitions and sweepstakes are clearly regulated by VK management. If you fail to comply with at least one of the established rules, you risk being subject to penalties and being blocked from the community. Next, we will talk about what it is strictly forbidden to do during competitions, and how to avoid getting banned.

Young groups often offer the following condition: repost the post and collect the maximum number of likes on it (the one who manages to get the most “Like” marks wins). Such competitive schemes are a direct path to blocking. The fact is that they stimulate artificial cheating and mass spam, thereby disrupting the internal functioning of the social network.

Often, communities require contestants to write a post of a recommendatory nature (for example, about goods or services sold to them). The one whose review ends up with the most likes wins. Such conditions are also subject to penalties and lead to blocking.

What conditions are acceptable? The organizer of the competition may require participants to:

like the post;
repost;
subscribe to the community or join the group where the draw is being held;
subscribe to one third-party source (YouTube channel, sponsorship account on Instagram, another VK public page, etc.).

To summarize all of the above, we note that regardless of the topic, competitions should be held after all prizes and gifts have been announced. People need to understand what they can get if they win. Some publics use a trick, saying that the prize fund can be increased if a certain number of contestants are recruited. Such tricks are considered illegal and are not allowed by the VK administration.

Another question that interests many who are looking towards social networks and have already started working there is competitions that help increase the effectiveness of their presence on social media. networks. More precisely, we will talk about “VKontakte”.

Purpose of the competition
You must clearly understand why and why you are holding a competition; if you do not have a goal, then there will be no evaluated results. It is advisable to set a goal that you can then measure, for example, a goal: to double the number of participants.

Simplicity is the key to success
The simpler the conditions of the competition, the better; you don’t need to require huge efforts from people in order to win a $10 prize. You need to understand that people on VKontakte are not particularly inclined to work hard; clicking a few times is all it takes. That’s why competitions are so popular where you just need to click “like and repost” to participate.

Give good prizes
There is no need to be greedy for prizes, because this will be the main motive for participating in your competition. Therefore, allocate some budget that will be of interest to people, and not to save money. Typically, the better the prizes, the more participants.

Don't give too good prizes
If you promise a house in Florida, most likely they will not believe you. Therefore, even if you are ready to give expensive prizes, you should not do this. In my opinion, anything more than $5 thousand will already arouse suspicion. But you can try everything yourself; it would even be interesting to look at the drawing of several cars for reposting on VKontakte. :)

Prizes must match efforts
If you give cheap prizes, then simplify the conditions and actions for participation as much as possible; if the prizes are expensive, then you can do something more complicated than reposts, so that it doesn’t turn out that people won’t even pay a third for the prizes you offer from what is needed.

Don't procrastinate
If your competition lasts a whole year, then most will not be interested, although of course if you are giving a million dollars, then maybe. However, in ordinary cases, it is better not to delay with ordinary prizes. If the prizes are very simple, like a ticket to a concert or inexpensive souvenirs, then the competition should hardly last more than 3 days, and ideally 1 day.
If the prize is a laptop for 1-2 thousand dollars, then the normal period is 2-3 weeks. It’s better not to do it at all for more than a month.

There should be several prizes
If you only have one prize, many will not participate, even if the prize is very expensive and desirable, simply because they do not believe that they can win. Therefore, I recommend playing at least 3 prizes. Then this barrier will be removed.

Donate your goods and services
If you make or sell something, don't be shy about giving it away. After all, this is even better, this way you are promoting yourself. It would look stupid if you produce, say, buckets, and raffle off the same buckets, but of a different brand.
The main prize should not be doing something that no one needs. For example, if you are an online store, then you don’t need to give away something that isn’t for sale. Such prizes can be made secondary, and the main one is something desirable.
You can go another way, namely, to draw a certain coupon for a certain amount, which the winners can use to buy what they themselves want.

Conditions must match the purpose
If your goal is to communicate more closely with members of your VKontakte community, then the competition should be held in such a way as to involve the participants as much as possible, and not people from the outside who just want a prize, but don’t care about your group or public.
If your goal is to increase the number of participants and attract new ones, then you need to try to achieve a viral effect, namely all sorts of reposts, inviting friends, and so on.
Although the viral effect will always be beneficial.

Any competition requires promotion
If you want to attract new people, you will have to buy advertising, maximize viral effects and actions, and promote the competition outside your group.
If the competition is for community members, then you will have to try to notify as many participants as possible.
You won’t be able to post about the competition and just wait, although of course if you have a huge active community, then maybe this option will work for you, but in any case, for maximum effect you will have to promote the competition.

Write clear rules for the competition
Otherwise, you will then explain to a bunch of people why this one won and not that one, why these people were removed from the competition, but these were not, and so on. Clear rules will protect you from such consequences. Some groups are even blocked after competitions because dissatisfied people begin to complain to the contact support. Be careful in this matter.

How not to lose people after the competition and retain new participants?
After the end of competitions that are aimed at attracting new people, there is an outflow effect. Since the majority will come only for the prizes, and not for the sake of your group or public. This means that in addition to the task of attracting, you also have the task of keeping people in the group after the end of the competition.
To do this, you need to prepare interesting content that you will publish when the competition is running, so that those people who joined will become interested in your community while they are participating in the competition. This will help you retain a higher percentage of people.

In general, the competition should still be perceived as a process of familiarizing or better acquainting people with your project or community, which means you should not take seriously the fact that people leave, which means they simply were not interested in your group, public or project.

I recommend that before holding any competitions, you seriously think about why, why, budget, and so on. Because maybe the money and effort spent on running a competition can have greater returns in other matters.

You create an entry in your community, where you publish a photo with a gift and describe the conditions for receiving it. A prerequisite is to join your community and repost (click on the “tell friends” button) under the entry with this promotion (in VK). Without this, there is no point in holding this competition. Other conditions are at your discretion. You also choose the number of winners. Usually this is 1 person. The period is also at your discretion, I did it for 1 month. Here is an example text:

Where can I get non-standard characters in the form of VKontakte emoticons?

In this text, for example, non-standard digit-symbols 1 and 2 are used. They cannot be found among the standard symbols. And I found them in this group.

Use them or not, decide for yourself. 🙂 But definitely, pranks decorated with emoticons look more attractive.

What do you need?

Choose a prize that you will give to one of those who repost your post (it does not have to be any product, it can be 100 rubles to the phone account). I recommend giving only what you actually have in stock, and so that the picture does not differ from what you will actually give. It is advisable to entrust the image to an experienced designer, it needs to be attractive :) Here are examples of images that I made in Photoshop:
Set the promotion period and write the text of the draw with all the conditions. You can copy them from others. Here are 3 links to communities where only giveaways are published:
After the publication of our action, unfortunately, crowds of people wishing to participate will not come to us. And all because they simply don’t know about it yet. Your task now is to notify as many VKontakte users as possible. To do this, you need to select a public or group and buy advertising there for this post. What matters here is whether you work with all of Russia or only in your city. Based on this, you select a group to buy advertising. Nowadays there are many groups and public pages where they post only such information. Some do it for free, others pay. The cost is different everywhere. I even remember in my experience there was a community to which you pay money, give the drawing text and image, they post it on their site and choose the winner themselves. Since the message about the giveaway was posted in their community, they had to order another advertisement in another group to repost this post from their community. Otherwise I would just order advertising for this post from my community. It turned out that in this way I promoted not only this competition, but their public. I still recommend that you do not buy in communities where only sweepstakes are published, since you will notice that after the winner is determined, your group will be unsubscribed en masse. Where then should you place it, you ask? If you work only in your city, then I can recommend news communities in your city.
Next, you will need to choose a winner. I use - Random.app / Prize draws.
I have already told you how to choose the winner. It is advisable to make a video. I usually do this using Qip Shot. You can download it from here: https://welcome.qip.ru/shot
Using it, you can take both video and screen photos (screenshots). You can capture the entire screen or a specific area. You can also add arrows, frames, text, etc. to the screenshot.
Here are 2 examples of videos shot using it. In the video, the winner is first selected, and then his presence in the group is checked.
Video #1
Video #2
Well, the last step is presenting a gift to the winner. If he lives in another city, you will have to send it by mail or transport company at your own expense.

Cost of organizing the competition

1000 rub. — approximate value of the prize (may be higher or lower).
300 rub. - the work of a designer.
1200 rub. — approximate advertising budget if you buy advertising for 600 rubles. 2 times: after the publication of the drawing and in the middle of the term. The more you spend on advertising, the better.
400 rub. — the approximate cost of delivery by mail or shopping center to another city.

Total: 2900 rub. Afterwards, I advise you to be sure to measure the number of people who have joined your community. Once you know this number, you can divide it by expenses and see how much 1 subscriber cost you. 🙂 That’s all, if you have any questions, write in the comments. Bye everyone! 🙂