How to Add a Facebook Giveaway in WordPress to Boost Engagement

Running a Facebook giveaway can be a powerful way to increase engagement and bring more attention to your page. When done right, contests can drive more visitors to your Facebook content and encourage them to interact with your posts.

If they like what they see, many will follow your page or join your group, helping you build a stronger online presence. We’ve used this strategy on our own websites and successfully run giveaways to boost engagement.

This guide will walk you through the steps to easily set up a Facebook giveaway using WordPress. It’s a simple and effective way to attract new followers and keep your audience engaged.

Why Run a Facebook Giveaway in WordPress?

Social media contests can help you reach a new audience and grow your following across different platforms.

We have used giveaways to successfully gain more followers, boost engagement, and drive traffic to our Facebook group. Our founder, Syed Balkhi, shared his reasons in a case study:

I use viral sharing (refer-a-friend) to spread the word, which in turn helps us supercharge our user growth in terms of email subscribers, social media users, website engagement, and more.

Syed Balkhi – Founder of WPBeginner

However, Facebook doesn’t allow you to offer a prize for liking or following your page, which is a big problem if your goal is to increase your number of followers.

The good news is you can still ask people to visit your Facebook page or engage with a particular post.

This can get you more visitors and engagement. If your page has lots of great content, then these people may even decide to follow your page.

In this way, you can grow your Facebook following without breaking any rules.

That said, let’s see how you can add a Facebook giveaway to WordPress to increase engagement.

Running a Facebook Giveaway in WordPress

The easiest way to run a Facebook contest in WordPress is by using RafflePress. It’s the best WordPress giveaway plugin and lets you create all kinds of competitions using a simple drag-and-drop editor.

RafflePress comes with integrations for all popular social platforms, so you can create viral TikTok giveaways, Twitter contests, Twitch giveaways, and more. You can also offer multiple entry methods to get more followers and engagement across multiple social media platforms.

With that said, let’s create your first Facebook giveaway campaign using RafflePress.

Step 1: Creating Your First Facebook Giveaway Campaign

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the RafflePress plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on installing a WordPress plugin.

Note: There is a free version of RafflePress that has everything you need to create a simple giveaway in WordPress. However, we will use the premium plugin in this guide since it has more features, templates, and giveaway actions, including entry methods that allow you to create a photo contest in WordPress.

Upon activation, you will see the RafflePress welcome screen in the WordPress dashboard. You can now go ahead and enter your license key.

You will find this information under your account on the RafflePress website. After that, click on the ‘Verify Key’ button.

Now, you are ready to create a Facebook giveaway in WordPress by going to RafflePress » Add New.

On the next screen, you will need to give your Facebook contest a name.

You can use anything you want, but it’s a good idea to choose a name that helps you identify the Facebook giveaway in the WordPress dashboard.

Next, choose the template that you want to use. RafflePress has ready-made templates for specific goals, such as creating a WooCommerce contest to boost loyalty and engagement.

You can select the template that best suits your goals, but we’ll be using ‘Classic Giveaway’ in this guide.

Simply hover your mouse over the ‘Classic Giveaway’ template and then click the ‘Use this Template’ button when it appears.

This opens the template in RafflePress’s drag-and-drop builder.

To start, you need to add the prize to your Facebook contest. Simply click to select the headline area, which shows ‘My Awesome Prize’ by default.

You can now go ahead and type a title into the ‘Name’ field. To encourage visitors to enter the Facebook contest, you will typically want to talk about your prize in the headline.

After that, type in a description, which will appear below the headline. For example, you may want to add some more information about your competition, such as why visitors will want the prize, how much it’s worth, and why you are running the Facebook giveaway.

It’s also smart to add a photo of the prize so that people can see what’s on offer just by glancing at the giveaway. If your prize is digital, you can easily create professional-looking images to promote it using web design software such as Canva.

To add a photo or graphic, simply click ‘Select Image’ and choose a file from the WordPress media library or upload a new image from your computer.

After that, you can set the start and end date for the Facebook giveaway. If you plan to run many contests, it’s a good idea to schedule them in advance, as it guarantees that the competition will start and end on time, no matter how busy you get.

By scheduling your Facebook contest in advance, you will also have time to promote the giveaway properly. For example, you might promote it using web push notifications or sending SMS messages to your users. This helps build a sense of excitement and anticipation before the contest goes live.

To schedule the Facebook giveaway, simply enter a date and time into the ‘Giveaway Starts on…’ and ‘Giveaway Ends on…’ sections.

You will also want to check the ‘Timezone’ dropdown. RafflePress uses the timezone in your website settings by default, but you can change this to anything you want.

When you have finished making changes to this section, click the ‘Done Editing’ button.

Step 2: Adding More Actions to Your Facebook Giveaway

Now, let’s add some actions that will help visitors participate in the contest. This includes subscribing to your podcast, joining your email newsletter, visiting a particular WooCommerce product, and many other actions.

To see the different actions you can add to the Facebook contest, click ‘Actions.’

To add an action to your giveaway, simply give it a click.

To boost Facebook engagement, we recommend adding actions such as Visiting us on Facebook, liking our Page, Viewing a Facebook Post or video, or Sharing on Facebook.

After adding an action, click to select that action in the giveaway preview. You can now configure the action using the settings in the left-hand menu.

For example, if you add a ‘Visit us on Facebook’ action, you will need to enter your page’s URL into the ‘Facebook Page URL’ field.

Similarly, if you are using ‘View Facebook Post / Video,’ you will need to enter the post URL or video you want people to visit.

Each action also has some basic settings. You can type in a title, make an action mandatory, and even allow users to submit daily entries.

After that, you need to assign a value to the action, which is the number of entries users will earn for performing that action. By default, all actions are worth one entry.

If you offer several entry methods, you can use different values to make certain methods more attractive.

For example, if your goal is to increase your Facebook followers, you might make the ‘Like our Page’ action worth two entries.

Once you have filled in these settings, you can click the ‘Add Actions’ tab and add more entry methods to your competition.

Adding multiple ways for visitors to participate can increase their entries, so you may want to add multiple actions.

Although you are creating a Facebook contest, you may want to consider adding some entry methods that aren’t related to Facebook. This will allow more people to enter your contest, including people who don’t have a Facebook account.

For example, you might grow your email list by asking people to subscribe to your newsletter in order to enter the contest.

It’s also a good idea to arrange your actions based on your campaign goals. For example, if you want to increase your shares, we recommend placing the ‘Share on Facebook’ action at the very top of the ‘Entry Methods’ list.

Simply hover over the action in the editor and grab the dotted button that appears to the left of it. Then, move the entry method using drag and drop.

When you are happy with how the Facebook giveaway is set up, don’t forget to click on ‘Save’ to store your changes.

Step 3: Design your Facebook Giveaway to Stand Out

Now your Facebook giveaway is set up, it’s time to change how the contest looks.

Simply switch to the ‘Design’ tab, and you will see options to select a new button color, change the fonts, and more.

RafflePress lets you embed the Facebook contest in a page or post or publish it as a separate landing page.

If you are going to post your Facebook giveaway as a standalone page, then you can add a background image or change the background color.

To add an image, scroll to the ‘Background Image’ section and click on ‘Select Image.’ You can now either choose an image from the media library or upload a new file.

Another option is to change the background color by clicking on ‘Page Background Color.’

You can now make your selection from the popup that appears.

If you’re not sure what colors to use, our guide on how to choose the perfect color scheme can inspire you.

By changing these settings, you can create a beautiful Facebook giveaway that perfectly compliments your WordPress theme and the rest of your website. You can even change the giveaway template using custom CSS.

When you are happy with how the giveaway looks, click on ‘Save’ to store your changes.

Step 4: Fine Tuning Your Giveaway Settings

RafflePress has lots of settings you can use for your WordPress giveaway or contest. Now that your giveaway looks great let’s check these settings by switching to the ‘Settings’ tab.

Most of these settings are self-explanatory, but we will go through them one by one. First, we will look at the ‘General’ settings.

Here, you can set the basic options for your giveaway, including whether you will show the giveaway winners and the total number of entries. You can also make money from your Facebook giveaway by joining the RafflePress affiliate marketing program.

Next, you can create the rules for joining the Facebook giveaway by selecting the ‘Giveaway Rules’ tab.

RafflePress comes with a Rules Generator that will create rules for your campaign using a sample template. To get started, click on the ‘General Rules’ button.

This will open a form where you can type in some information about the Facebook contest.

In most cases, you or your company will sponsor the contest. To do so, you’ll need to type in your company name and your business email address.

RafflePress will then use this information to create some basic rules for the giveaway.

Every area has its own rules about Facebook contests, so it’s a good idea to review these automatically generated rules and add any missing information.

If you are using the contest to generate leads or get more email subscribers, it’s a good idea to only accept entries from people verifying their email addresses.

To do that, select the ‘Email Verification’ tab and then click on the ‘Contestant Must Confirm Their Email’ toggle to turn it from ‘No’ to ‘Yes.’

You can also use these settings to change the verification email that users will get when they enter your giveaway.

If you want to add Google Analytics or other tracking codes like Facebook pixel, then RafflePress allows you to track users who have successfully entered your giveaway.

To do this, click the ‘Success Tracking’ tab and add your Google Analytics script or Facebook retargeting pixel code.

When a visitor enters your Facebook contest, it’s not the end of the process. You may want to redirect the person to a thank you page, your top-performing blog post, your most popular WooCommerce product, or some other page.

To create a redirect, select the ‘Success Redirect’ tab and then click the ‘Enable Success Redirect’ toggle.

In the ‘Redirect URL’ field, type in the URL where you want to send participants.

RafflePress allows visitors to enter your contests using their Facebook account. This is often quicker and easier than typing in their email address, so it’s a great way to improve the visitor experience and get more entries.

To enable Facebook login for your contest, simply select the ‘Social Logins’ tab and then click to enable the ‘Allow logging…’ toggle.

After that, click on the ‘GDPR’ tab. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union (EU) law that gives EU citizens more control over their data.

If you break GDPR, you could face a fine or even jail time. To help you comply with GDPR, RafflePress can ask for the visitor’s consent before they enter your giveaway.

To add this checkbox, simply click on the ‘GDPR Consent’ toggle to turn it from ‘No’ to ‘Yes.’

RafflePress’s default GDPR disclaimer will show to visitors, but you can edit it to add any missing information. For more information on the topic, see our ultimate WordPress and GDPR compliance guide.

Spammers and bots can stop you from achieving your contest’s goals. With that in mind, you may want to protect your Facebook giveaway with an invisible recaptcha.

Regular captchas usually ask users to complete a puzzle, which makes it more difficult for people to enter your Facebook giveaway. The good news is that invisible recaptchas run in the background, so you can block spammers without adding friction to the user experience.

Click on the’ Recaptcha’ tab to add an invisible recaptcha to your Facebook contest. After that, activate the ‘Enable Invisible Recaptcha’ toggle.

For more information, see our guide on how to add recaptcha to WordPress.

When you are happy with how the Facebook contest is set up, click on the ‘Save’ button to store your changes.

Step 5: Add Your Facebook Giveaway to a WordPress Post or Page

You can add a RafflePress giveaway to your WordPress website in a few different ways.

The RafflePress block allows you to add the contest to any page or post. This is a great choice if you want to embed the Facebook contest in a blog post or other page.

To start, simply open the page or post where you want to include the giveaway. Then, click the ‘+’ button and type in ‘RafflePress.’ You can then select the right block when it appears.

After adding the block, open the dropdown and choose the Facebook giveaway you created earlier. The RafflePress block will now show a preview of the contest inside the WordPress block editor.

You can then either publish or update the page to make the contest live on your WordPress blog or website.

Using a shortcode, you can also add the giveaway to any page, post, or widget-ready area. This is particularly useful if you want to show the Facebook contest in a sidebar widget so that it appears across your entire website.

In the RafflePress giveaway editor, go ahead and click on the ‘Publish’ tab. From here, click on ‘WordPress Shortcode’, and RafflePress will show the shortcode you can use.

Simply copy the code and add it to any page, post, or widget-ready area. For more details, please see our guide on adding a shortcode in WordPress.

Another option is to create a giveaway landing page. This is an excellent option if you want a standalone page that you can easily share on social media or add to your email newsletter.

In the RafflePress editor, select the ‘Publish’ tab. Then, choose ‘Giveaway Landing Page’ and select the ‘Click here…’ link.

In ‘Page Permalink,’ type in the URL where you want to publish your giveaway landing page.

After that, simply click on the ‘View’ button.

RafflePress will now publish your giveaway as a landing page.

If you use the SeedProd page builder plugin, you can design a landing page using ready-made templates, blocks, and a drag-and-drop editor. You can then add your giveaway using a special Giveaway block.

This block integrates with RafflePress, so you can simply drag and drop the block onto the SeedProd editor.

Then, choose the RafflePress giveaway you created earlier.

SeedProd will now show the giveaway inside your beautifully designed landing page.

For more information on SeedProd, please see our step-by-step guide on creating a landing page in WordPress.

Step 6: Promoting Your Facebook Giveaway

If your Facebook contest will be a big success, it’s smart to start promoting it before publishing it. Your campaign might even go viral, which will help you get more entries and achieve your goals.

You can start by emailing your subscribers and announcing the Facebook competition on your other social media profiles.

Another option is creating a floating bar with a link to your Facebook giveaway using a plugin such as OptinMonster.

You can even use FOMO on your WordPress site to get more entries by adding a countdown timer to the floating bar.

Sending web push notifications can also increase the number of participants. For example, you might ask your push notification subscribers to enter the giveaway or refer any friends or family members who might be interested in participating.

PushEngage is the best push notification tool on the market. It allows you to connect with visitors after they leave your website by sending them targeted push messages about your Facebook contest.

PushEngage also has advanced features such as A/B testing, automated drip notifications, smart opt-in reminders, custom-triggered campaigns, interactive message options, and more.

Step 7: Announcing the Giveaway Winners

Once your giveaway closes, you need to pick a lucky winner. RafflePress automates this process, so simply go to RafflePress » Giveaways.

If you scheduled the contest to end automatically, then you can find the giveaway and click on the ‘Need Winners’ link.

If you didn’t set an end date for the Facebook giveaway, then you can close it manually by hovering your mouse over the competition and selecting ‘End Now.’

After that, just click on the ‘Need Winners’ link that appears.

RafflePress will show everyone who entered your Facebook contest on the following page. Just type in the number of winners you want to select and choose whether to allow unverified emails to win.

If you plan to contact the winner via email, you will typically want to ensure that only people with verified emails can win.

After that, click on ‘Choose Winners Now,’ and RafflePress will highlight the winner at the top of the list.

We also recommend announcing the winner on your Facebook page. If you’re shipping a physical prize, you might ask the winner to share a photo of themselves with it. This is great content for your followers and also proves that your contests are genuine.

Wherever possible, we recommend thanking all participants via email. This will help you build a stronger relationship with these new leads and give you another chance to mention your brand. You might even share a small prize with all entrants, such as a coupon code for your online store.

You can see our complete RafflePress review for more details.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily add a Facebook giveaway in WordPress to boost engagement. You may also want to see our guide on how to get more traffic to your WordPress website or our picks for the best WordPress Facebook plugins.

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