How To Run A Twitter / X Contest

If you're a business with an active Twitter / X profile then there might not be anything you can do to drive online engagement that will be as effective as running a contest.

They are a fantastic way to grow your following, engage existing fans, promote your products, and collect user-generated content.

When it comes to running a contest on Twitter / X, you have a lot of different options to choose from. There's no real right or wrong answer, it all comes down to what will work best for you and what will help you achieve your overall objectives. For instance, if your main aim is to generate photos of satisfied customers you'll be running a contest which is quite different to one designed to promote an upcoming sale.

To help you navigate these choices and figure out exactly what kind of contest is best for you, we're going to give you a rundown of the types of contest you can choose from.

The first types of contests we'll go over are what we call direct or frictionless contests. These types of campaigns are a common occurrence on X, and they're very easy for contestants to enter as they will never have to leave Twitter / X or hand over any personal information.

The downside of frictionless contests is that you will forfeit the ability to capture identifiable or marketable information about your entrants, and X doesn't give you email addresses (even via the API). It's because of this that these types of contests are best for short campaigns which simply aim to engage your audience and spread awareness rather than drive revenue or sales.

The most common type of contest you'll see on your Twitter / X and one of the easiest to setup is to ask users to retweet for a chance to win.

The downside of this particular type of contest is that while you can grow your following and engage your audience, you don't actually capture any marketable information from your entrants other than their Twitter / X profile URL.

You will also need to find a way to track who is actually Retweeting the contest Tweet and pick a random winner from the list.

Some other common types are giveaways which ask users to Tweet with a hashtag, reply to a Tweet, like a Tweet, or follow you on X to enter.

An In-App Contest is probably the most powerful type of Twitter / X contest you can run, and with Gleam's Competitions App organising and coordinating one has never been easier.

Running a Twitter / X contest with Gleam isn't frictionless, as it requires users to leave Twitter / X (via a link you share) and enter their details.

However, these contests will help you drive more powerful actions such as follows, retweets, hashtag usage and much more.

You will also be able to drive multiple actions from each user instead of the single action you are typically limited to in a frictionless contest.

Also, when you run a X contest with Gleam, administering entries, drawing winners, and collecting email addresses from contestants are no longer challenges.

As engaging and easy to as a simple frictionless Twitter / X contest can be, you'll never be able to drive nearly as many powerful actions and generate as much user engagement as you can by running an in-app contest with Gleam.

Take a look at our template below and get a feel for what your own Twitter / X contest could look like with Gleam:

Looking at the demo above you should notice how you can ask your users to do a lot more than you can ask them to do in a single tweet, and this example barely scratches the surface of all the entry actions available with Gleam.

Your contest's prize is the centrepiece of the entire campaign. It's what will drive the actions that will propel your brand's growth, so it's important that you pick a good one.

You want to choose a prize that will resonate with the audience that you're trying to attract. By picking generic gifts you run the risk of encouraging entry from users who want to win the prize while having no interest in your brand or product, so remember to pick a prize that is targeted towards people who are likely to have a genuine interest in what you do.

You also want to make sure your prize is valuable enough to justify the effort of entering your contest. The more you're asking users to do, the more you should be giving them in return.

To help you get your prize selection underway, here are few ideas for highly effective contest prizes:

• Your own products
• Gift vouchers
• Something unique, like meet and greets, limited edition products, experiences or trips, or merch.

Once you've decided on what type of contest you'd like to run, you'll be ready to start customising your campaign and putting all the pieces in place to run a successful contest that will give your Twitter / X presence a serious boost.

To do this, you can choose any and all of the entry requirements that you would like, as well as customising the image, prize details, eligibility requirements, and the terms and conditions.

When you run a contest it's crucial that you include your own terms and conditions. This will help users understand exactly what they should expect from your campaign as well as give yourself a baseline set of rules and guidelines to follow.

Here are a few pieces of information we recommend including in your terms and conditions:

• The name and contact details of the promoting brand.

• Contest dates (including when submissions close and when a winner will be announced).

• Rules of who can enter (such as age and employee restrictions).

• Guidelines of how people can enter.

• How the winner will be informed.

• How the winner will be selected.

• The time period the winner has to claim their prize.

• The specifics of the prize (including the number of prizes, a description of the prizes, and any caveats).

• Details of how the prize will be delivered.

If you run your competition with Gleam all you have to do to set up your terms and conditions is write them out and watch as they are automatically embedded in your widget.

Once you've got your contest set up, you'll be ready to go live and start promoting. Promotion is an often overlooked part of the process, but if done right, it can result in a huge increase in entries & awareness.

To help you get started with your promotional efforts here are 6 best practice tactics for promoting your X contest:

1. Post it on Twitter / X The single best way to promote your Twitter / X contest is simply by regularly Tweeting about it. Remember to always include images to make your Tweets eye-catching and visually engaging, and always use relevant hashtags to try to get some extra attention.

2. Announce it to Your Subscribers As well as sharing your contest with all of your Twitter / X followers, you'll also want to make sure everyone on your mailing list is aware of your contest.

3. Cross-Promote on Other Social Networks In addition to promoting your contest on Twitter / X it's also a good idea to spread word about your campaign across any other social media networks you're active on such as Facebook and Instagram.

4. Use Partners Partnering up with another brand or an influencer is a great way to expose your contest (and brand) to an audience who may not be familiar with you.

5. Use Twitter / X Ads If you have the budget for it, using Twitter / X's targeted ads can be another great way to gain huge exposure from a relevant audience who would otherwise not be exposed to your contest or brand.

6. Embed it on Your Own Site If you run a contest with Gleam then you have the option of embedding your competition into your own website.

These are the tactics that are likely to be the most effective at promoting a Twitter / X contest, but if you want to check out lots more worthwhile contest promotion strategies then check out our in-depth guide.

Learn More About Contest Promotion

Check out our in depth guide for all the information you need on promoting your giveaway.

Once your contest has run its course and you're ready to wrap things up there are a few important tasks you'll need to take care of.

The way you go about drawing winners will depend on the type of contest yxou run. If you run a frictionless contest then you'll need to find a way to gather all your entries and randomly pick a winner. If you run an in-app contest with Gleam then we'll take care of the whole process for you.

Learn About Drawing Contest Winners

Find out everything you need to know about how you can draw contest winners with Gleam.

If you run a photo contest then randomly selecting a winner is still an option, but you may prefer picking a winner yourself based on the quality of submissions. Depending on how many submissions you receive this can be quite a time-consuming task, but if you run your photo contest with Gleam you'll be able to neatly store all of the submissions you receive in a Gallery which will make the whole process a lot easier.

Once you've chosen your winner you'll need to publicly announce who it is and congratulate them for their victory. In the immediate aftermath of your contest you don't want to neglect the other entrants, so consider using your announcement as an opportunity to offer all your users a bonus reward or promote your other upcoming contests.

Once your contest comes to a close it's likely that you'll have a lot of new Twitter / X followers whose interest in your brand has been recently piqued. It's crucial that you take advantage of this heightened awareness and attention by posting engaging content which will drive sales or other types of further action as soon as your contest closes.

For example, if you're an e-commerce store try running a sale at the conclusion of your campaign. This will help you drive sales from your new following and develop your consumer relationships before the goodwill you earned during your contest has worn off.