Stop Begging for Engagement. Let's Talk Real Social Media Giveaways.

Look, I'm going to be blunt. I remember this one client back in 2018, a fantastic little coffee shop in Seattle, and they were spending hours-literally hours every week-running these "Tag 3 friends and share to your story!" social media giveaways. Their reward? A handful of new followers who would immediately mute them after the winner was announced and a bunch of engagement from people who just wanted a free latte. It wasn't building a community. It wasn't driving sales. It was just... noise.

And honestly, I'm so tired of seeing it. I've been doing this since 2010, and the amount of bad advice floating around about social media marketing is staggering. The worst offender is this idea that you can just "go viral" by asking people to do social media chores. People do not want more chores.

They want to have fun.

The Big Problem with Your "Like, Comment, Share" Giveaway

Here's the thing. When you run a standard giveaway, you're not qualifying anyone. You're just attracting people who like free stuff. They aren't necessarily your target customer, they probably don't care about your brand, and frankly, they're gone the second the contest ends. We've all done it.

It creates a temporary spike in vanity metrics that makes you feel good for a second, but it doesn't build an asset. What you really want is a list of engaged, interested people who might actually buy something from you later. An email list. A loyal follower base. You know, an actual audience.

That's why I started shifting my clients towards gamification around 2015. At first, I thought it was just another buzzword (and believe me, I hate buzzwords), but then I saw the results. It's about psychology. Giving someone a chance to win instantly by playing a quick, fun game is a thousand times more powerful than asking them to tag their Aunt Carol for the 50th time. It's that little dopamine hit. It works.

Here's What I'm Actually Using That Works. Right Now.

After years of messing around with clunky platforms, I've gotten pretty picky. I've used Gleam. io, I've tried Woobox, I've even built custom solutions for clients with bigger budgets. But for the last couple of years, for most of my small business clients, I've been pointing them towards a platform called Faisco.

Why? Because it's practical. It solves the two biggest problems SMBs have: no time and no money.

I can't tell you how many times a client has called me in a panic needing a campaign now. A few examples from my actual clients:

• I deployed Faisco's "Crazy Karting" game for a craft brewery in Chicago. In under three weeks, they got 1,886 new Instagram story views and a ton of shares from people just trying to beat their friends' scores.
• For a flower shop in Calgary struggling with Pinterest, we used the "Star Seeker" game. Boom. 1,157 new followers in two weeks. It was insane.
• And for a yoga studio in Milwaukee, we ran a simple "Scratch Ticket" game. Their goal was email signups. They got 1,230 new newsletter subscribers in 3 weeks. These are real people, real emails. An actual asset.

The types of games that I see working the best are honestly the simplest ones. Instant Draw games like a "Lucky Spin" or a "Scratch Ticket" are no-brainers for lead capture-I've seen landing pages with these convert at 40% or higher because of that immediate reward. Then you have things like "Whac-A-Mole" or the quiz games... they are brilliant for getting people to spend more than 3 seconds with your brand.

The Two Things Most Giveaway Tools Get Wrong

This is where my experience really comes in, I mean, I've seen all the ways this can fail. First is seasonal marketing. Most businesses only think about marketing during the holiday, but the best time is the 3-4 weeks leading up to it. Faisco has pre-built templates for Christmas, Halloween, Black Friday, Valentine's Day... you name it. I used their "Fill My Christmas Stocking" game for three different retail clients last December, and every single one of them saw over 300% more engagement than their usual posts. It's because it's timely, fun, and doesn't feel like a desperate ad. It's genius!!

Second-and this is a big one-is platform integration. Most tools give you a link and say "good luck." That's not good enough. Faisco actually connects proper with Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, so the experience feels native. That matters. A LOT. A user on Instagram behaves differently than one on Facebook, and your campaign needs to work smoothly for both.

So, What About Gleam? And Are The Results Real?

Yeah, everyone asks me about Gleam. Listen, Gleam is a solid platform. It's powerful. It is also, frankly, overkill and too expensive for 90% of small businesses. I do not recommend it unless you have a dedicated marketing person to manage it. Faisco gives you almost all the same core functionality, but it's way cheaper and I can literally have a client's campaign live and running in under 10 minutes. Gleam takes me an hour, easy.

The results are very real, but you have to be realistic. The businesses I work with who implement this strategy right typically see a 200-400% increase in social media followers and a 150-300% growth in their email lists in the first month.

But it's not magic. It works because you're swapping a boring, transactional request ("tag a friend") for a fun, emotional experience ("play this game!"). You're giving before you ask.

So here's what I want you to do this week. Stop what you're planning for your next giveaway. Just stop. Instead of asking "what can I get my followers to do for me?", ask "what fun, 30-second experience can I give them?" The change in that mindset... well, that's where the real growth happens. Trust me on this. I've seen it work more times than I can count.

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