How to Successfully run a social media Promotional contest:

1. Choose your goal and ensure it aligns with your target audience. What is it that you wish to achieve with this promotion? Once you define your goal, you will have a better idea of the requirements.
2. Rules: You must establish a clear set of rules that defines the Goal, requirements and limitations of your contest. Be sure to list any actions that may disqualify the entries (example - 1 entry per person)
3. Requirements:  This is set with your goal. Example: You require 10,000 likes or upvotes to "activate" the prize. If you fail to meet your requirement goal, then the promotion has failed and you should re-evaluate your approach.
4. Placement and duration:  You will want to start your promotion on either the start of the week or the start of the month and ALWAYS schedule your posts to ensure your content is released at an appropriate date and time for your target audience. Set the duration for at least 30 days to ensure you have enough time to reach your goals. Shorter promotional periods are no the best idea because you want your target audience to have enough time to see the promotion and also share the promotion.
5. Selecting a winner: Take careful consideration of reviewing all entries and make certain that all entries meet the entry requirements. It is highly suggested to use a non-biased third party to choose your winners. Compile all entries into a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet has row numbers, so now each entry has a number assigned to it. You can use a random number generator to select a number. 
6. Announcing the winner: Do not notify the winner until AFTER your public announcement. Per the rules you established in step 1, you will give the winner a set amount of time to claim their prize, else it rolls over to the next selected winner. 
7. Be sure to follow your own rules. 

Example Marketing Strategy for Social Media Promotional contesting:

Goal: To raise awareness and promote your Brand. We will be providing prizes to the winner(s) if we reach our goal of 10,000 likes.
If you do not reach your goal, then try again in 30 days and adjust the numbers to a more realistic number based on the previous results. 

Rules: We will be selecting three winners at random to receive our prize. This winner will have 60 days to contact us to claim their prize. If the winner is unable to claim the prize, then we will randomly select another winner.  If the winner is out of the country or unable to receive shipping of the gift then we will offer a virtual VISA gift card of equal value. 

To enter you must do the following: 
1: Like our page (not this post) and share it on your timeline so that others can see it. 
       1a: Like our Page
       1b: Share
Winners will be announced on the first of next month at 1:00pm.

The contest will begin on Facebook on August 1st and end on August 31st. The winners will be announced on September 5th. The winners will have 60 days to claim their prize before it will be awarded to the next randomly selected entrant.

Before and during the contest it is important that you promote your content with other avenues of digital marketing such as PAID product placements and PAID Keywords. Also, prote your content on the platform itself with paid content. Remember your goal is to reach 10,000 potential customers, and this easily obtainable with the marketing tools available.

 Example Social Media message:

Hello to all of our loyal followers! We are proud to announce that we will be GIVING AWAY FOR FREE a prize to 3 randomly selected winners. 

Entry Requirements: 
To be entered to win you must complete at least 2 of the following tasks:

• Like our profile page on facebook.
• Share this post with your friends.
• Follow us on instagram.
• Like this post on instagram.

The contest begins today and will run for 30 days. After 30 days we will announce that the contest has been closed and we select the winners within 3-5 days. The winners will be notified on Facebook Private Messenger and posted on our page. The winners will have 30 days to respond and claim their prize; else we will randomly select another winner.

Thank you all for your patronage and good luck!

Additionally, you will want to create a Terms of Service that each participant will agree to just to ensure there is no confusing or legal issues surrounding the promotional contest or the content within.