Mark Simpson (Boost Hospitality) gives a concise, step-by-step recipe for launching a high-engagement Facebook competition to drive direct bookings for hospitality businesses. He provides a ready-to-use post template (title, prize line, entry instruction as a single 'like', plus a bracketed encouragement to comment/share/tag), immediate post actions (put T's & C's link in the first comment; share the post into 3–5 competitions/giveaway Facebook groups), and homework to publish and share the post for feedback.
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Welcome to the Boost Hospitality podcast. My name is Mark Simpson and this is season five. In this season, I'm going to show you how to run the perfect Facebook competition. I've been doing this training and this formula for the past three years now, and every single time that I have run it within the Boostly community, it has had fantastic results. Hospitality owners have increased their direct bookings. They've gained over a thousand likes. That means more eyes are on their business and there's more people talking about it online as well. I'm going to show you the step by step, day by day instructions on what you need to do to not only run the perfect Facebook competition, but how you can get bookings on the back of it. So all you need to do to take part, go to www.boostly.co.uk Facebook and I will send you step by step video tutorials to back up the audio that I am going to send you, as well as some bonus material. So it's www.boostly.co.uk forward/facebook to join in. Okay, welcome to the competition. This is the 24th of September. For those of you who are part of the hospitality community, you will have just seen my post on how to start off the perfect Facebook competition. For those of you who are listening to the audio and you want to go see the visual and head over to facebook.com, type in hospitality community, find the group, click to join. If you are a member, you'll be able to go in and see post number one. If you are not a member, click to join. When it asks you the question, just put that you came via the podcast and I'll let you in. So this is possibly one of the most important steps that you will take throughout the competition. If you get this wrong, then the rest of it isn't going to be as effective. And this is about the post. So this is the way that you are going to describe what the competition is. You're going to describe how the people can enter and you're also going to make sure that once they've entered that they comment, they engage and they share it and they tag their friends in afterwards. So you've already done the preparation, you've already done the hard work. The T's and C's are on your website. Check you've got your prize, check you've got your image. First things first, upload the image to your page. A question I get at this stage of it is, what time do I post it? It doesn't really matter because the work that we're going to do afterwards will counterbalance at what time this post gets done. Just do it when you can. Just make sure that it's done on today. The wording is really, really essential. So to start off, the title is competition time. So instantly when somebody sees this post, whether they've been tagged in or they see it on their timeline or they see it in an ad, they know that it's a competition. What I do to make sure that it really stands out is I put a couple emojis either side. The next line is where you tell them exactly what they're gonna win. So, for example, win a free night stay at insert business name. All you need to do to enter this fantastic competition is like this post. That's it. Now, I've done a really big video where I've gone into detail why we are no longer liking and share, no longer doing like and share competitions. So if you want to go and watch that video, go to boostly.co.uk Facebook, make sure you register your details and I will send you the video or on why we no longer do like and share. Secondly, like the post, that's all you're gonna put. All right, the next line in brackets, you're gonna put once you've liked, make sure you let us know below and ask him a question. But also, as well, we get double points if you comment, share, tag your friends. So basically what you're doing here is you're making it absolutely clear to enter your competition on, all they have to do is to like the post. But in brackets underneath, you're saying for good karma, you know, for hugs, for virtual hugs, you know, make sure that you do comment below, share it with a friend, tag them, et cetera, et cetera. So this covers you for reasons that I will explain in that major video. But you're still getting the engagement, you're still getting the interaction, you're still getting all the benefits of a share, but you're making it clear from the start from that it is not essential to entering the competition. And again, the T's and C's will back you up on that. So it's really important. First line, it says competition time. Second line, tell them what they're gonna win. Third line, you tell them how to enter. And then the fourth line, really simple, just say for anybody who wants good karma or virtual hugs, et cetera. Then make sure you comment and share. Share this with friends, tag friends, and just put a bit of spiel around it if you want to see the exact post that I've done. Go to facebook.com granary it's the pinned post. Go have a look at it, see how I constructed it. And you're more than welcome to copy and paste and use it for your own. Once the post has gone live, here's what you're going to do. Go into the post and in the first comment, you're going to put for full T's and C's, go to insert web link. So you're not going to put it in the post, you're going to put it in the first comment. All right? First comment, put for full T's and C's, go to insert your web link and send them to where they can find your T's and C's. Then the next thing that you're going to do, you're going to start to get engagement around this post and the best way to do that is to share it instantly into three to five Facebook groups that are built around competitions. Now, I don't know if you knew this, but Facebook is full of groups and there are groups for every niche and there are thousands upon thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people that join competition groups. They look to join competitions. If you go into Facebook search, type in competitions and giveaways, you'll get a list of 10 instantly with 10,000 members in each. Now, I'm not saying to go join them all three to five is fine. I would go and join them straight away and share your post in that group and mention what they can win. Now, you may be thinking, well, these are just serial competition enters. They're not going to be customers of mine. Don't worry about that. Now, you want to get these people in on your page, sharing your competition with their friends. That's really key because we're not going to be targeting the. The serial competition enters, we're going to be targeting the serial competition friends that want to come and stay with you. And I will explain that in a future episode how you can make that so. So the most important things today get the post out and then once it's gone live, put the T's and C's in the first comment and share it into three to five groups. Your homework is to get it done. Once you've done it, send me an email marketly.co.uk, go and comment and post in the hospitality community. Send me link. I want to see it live. If you're watching this in the future, and it's after the 28th of September, then all you got to do send me a link markooster.co.uk let me know and I'll go and give you some feedback on how it looks. Good luck. The next time that you hear from me, it'll be day two and I will show you on the next step on what you need to do to make sure this competition gets thousands of reach, gets more likes, inquiries and direct bookings.
