We’re all guilty of creating or participating in competitions on Facebook. Whether it’s to win a free dinner at a local restaurant or an overnight stay the classic like, share and tag competitions seem to increase followers, engagement and brand presence. However, these competitions, despite how successful they may seem, could be ruining your brand and it digital presence.

1. Competitions Don’t Build an Engaged Audience

The main aim with these competitions is to get the post shared as widely as possible, thus increasing brand awareness to new customers, who maybe have never heard of you before. However with these types of competitions the audience isn’t targeted. Therefore, you may see that your follower count has grown after the competition has finished, but are these people going to become customers? The answer is probably not. Rather these types of people are only interested in competitions, not what you or your brand has to say after the competition.

2. Competitions Could Damage Your Future Reach

Becuase most of the people that follow you after a competition will only be interested in the prize, they will tend to hide your future posts. This means they don’t receive spam notifications from you in the future. This is despite how engaging or good the posts are. Facebook takes this data and notices when your audience hide your posts. Therefore, the site equates this to the fact that your profile is posting low-quality content. As a result, Facebook, will limit the reach of any future posts causing good quality future posts to recevie less engagement.

3. Quality Followers Become Disinterested

Worst of all the followers that you’ve built up through good quality content and hard work could be put off by your spamming. These active customers may see your posts as deparate and spam-like. Focus rather, on creating good quality content that engages an audience you want to attract to your page. This way these followers are more likely to become potential customers to a professional, engaging brand.

The lesson from Facebook Competitions is to think carefully about the goals for your page. If you’re just looking for numbers then competitions are great. However, these numbers almost definitely won’t correlate with customers, engaging audiences or even better engagement on future posts. Rather these compeitions could cuase more hassle than they’re worth for your social presence and brand recognition.