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How to Run a Competition on LinkedIn to Grow Your Brand

How to Run a Competition on LinkedIn to Grow Your Brand

Written By: author image Stacey Corrin
author image Stacey Corrin
Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.
     Reviewed By: John Turner
reviewer image John Turner
John Turner is the co-founder of RafflePress. He has over 20+ years of business and development experience and his plugins have been downloaded over 25 million times.

Do you want to learn how to run a competition on LinkedIn?

Even though Facebook grabs the headlines, we think LinkedIn is the best social media platform for B2B (business-to-business) lead generation. If your target audience includes professional adults and high-earners, it’s the ideal place to market your brand.

One of the most effective ways to do that is with a LinkedIn giveaway contest.

This article will show you how to run a competition on LinkedIn to raise awareness and grow your business.

Table of Contents

Why Should You Run Contests on LinkedIn?

As we already mentioned, LinkedIn is the top platform to reach B2B audiences. But more importantly, the majority of users are on the platform to improve their professional lives. This means they’re looking for opportunities to engage with other businesses.

It’s also worth noting that 40% of LinkedIn visitors organically engage with a page every week. So, if you’re running contests on LinkedIn, you have a much better chance of reaching your ideal audience.

40% of LinkedIn visitors organically engage with a page every week

Plus, 50% of social media traffic to B2B websites comes from LinkedIn, increasing traffic from LinkedIn contests.

Business Website vs. Company Page Competitions on LinkedIn

You might think that it’s best to run your LinkedIn competition from your company page on the platform. After all, that’s where people follow your brand for news and updates.

But if you want to get those users to spend time on your website, a better solution is to host your giveaway from your business site and then promote it on LinkedIn.

Plus, when you host your LinkedIn contest from your website, you can also:

  • Encourage users to subscribe to your email list
  • Get people to visit specific product pages
  • Suggest relevant content they’d like
  • Get valuable feedback from your audience
  • Promote your other social media profiles
  • And more.

Having more people engaging with your website is also an excellent way to reduce your website’s bounce rate.

Before creating your LinkedIn contest, there are a few things to consider. It would be best if you planned each stage of your giveaway so that you can get the best results for your brand.

Follow the steps below to plan and run a successful contest on LinkedIn.

1. Set a LinkedIn Competition Goal

Your first task is to set a goal for your LinkedIn giveaway. With a primary goal in place, it’s easier to determine your contest’s success and measure the results.

The easiest way to choose your giveaway goals is to ask yourself a few questions.

Do you want to run a competition on LinkedIn to:

Pick a goal that’s relevant to your business’s marketing objectives. This will make running a successful LinkedIn competition easier and help you achieve your desired results.

2. Choose Your LinkedIn Contest Prize

While most people enjoy getting freebies, they won’t make an effort to enter your giveaway if the prize on offer isn’t any good. So, pick a prize that will excite your target audience and encourage them to enter.

LinkedIn giveaway example

Some popular contest prizes include:

  • Cash prizes
  • Free products
  • Free subscription to your service
  • Consultations and coaching
  • Gift cards and vouchers

Take a look at these B2B giveaway prize ideas for even more inspiration.

By choosing a LinkedIn giveaway prize relevant to your brand and audience, you can achieve more contest entries, engagement, and leads from your ideal customers.

3. Determine the Rules for LinkedIn Promotions

After setting your goals and picking an excellent prize, you should think about your LinkedIn giveaway rules.

LinkedIn doesn’t have a specific promotions policy, but it does say that all users must comply with its general User Agreement. Based on the LinkedIn promotions guidelines, when you want to carry out a promotion on LinkedIn, you must follow these 2 crucial regulations:

  • State that LinkedIn is not responsible for the promotional action.
  • Do not use data scraping to get data from LinkedIn.

After considering LinkedIn’s promotion regulations, you can focus on LinkedIn giveaway rules relevant to your brand.

LinkedIn giveaway promotion rules

First, is your contest based on luck, or does it require some effort to enter? We call these chance and skill-based giveaways.

Chance-based contests allow users to enter for a chance to win by performing simple actions like entering an email address. The winners are typically drawn randomly from the pool of entries.

Skill-based contests require more effort to enter. For instance, users might have to submit a photo for a chance to win or write a blog post. You can pick the winners for this type of contest by judging which entry is the best.

Related: How to Promote a Blog on LinkedIn

The easiest option of the 2 is a chance-based, classic giveaway. More people are likely to enter if it doesn’t take much effort.

A few other details you’ll need for your LinkedIn giveaway rules:

  • Any age limits for entering
  • If your contest is limited to specific locations (US only, International, etc.)
  • The start and end dates for your contest
  • How people can enter, and how often
  • How you’ll pick the winner

You should also ensure the methods for entering your contest align with the goals you set out earlier. For instance, if you’re running a contest on LinkedIn to grow your LinkedIn followers, following you on LinkedIn should be a requirement to enter.

After planning your goals, prizes, and LinkedIn contest guidelines, it’s time to create your LinkedIn competition.

4. Create a LinkedIn Contest in WordPress with RafflePress

If WordPress powers your website, the easiest way to run a LinkedIn competition is with a giveaway tool like RafflePress.

How to run a competition on linkedin with RafflePress

RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market. It makes it super easy to run any type of contest right from your WordPress website.

This powerful WordPress plugin comes with everything you need to meet your giveaway goals, including:

  • Ready-made giveaway templates
  • Tons of targeted giveaway entry actions
  • Giveaway landing pages
  • Giveaway rules generator
  • Random winner picker
  • And more.

Here’s how OptinMonster generated 3,500+ new users from one giveaway if you’re not convinced.

So, if you want to create a LinkedIn contest in WordPress, here’s how to do it with RafflePress.

Step 1: Create a New Giveaway

First, click here to get started with RafflePress and download the plugin to your computer. Then, install and activate the plugin on your WordPress website.

If you need help with this step, here’s a guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After installing and activating RafflePress, navigate to RafflePress » Add New to create a new giveaway. 

Create a new linkedin competition in WordPress

Step 2: Choose a Giveaway Template

On the next screen, you can choose from several pre-made giveaway templates. Each template aligns with a specific giveaway goal and, when launched, will include entry actions for achieving that goal.

RafflePress giveaway templates

For example, if your goal is to get more email subscribers, you’d choose the Grow Your Email List template. And when you launch it, it will include a giveaway action for users to subscribe to your newsletter to enter the contest.

Today, we’ll choose the Classic Giveaway template, which allows you to start from a blank canvas. 

Give your contest a name, hover your mouse over the Classic Giveaway template, and click Use This Template.

Choose the Classic Giveaway Template to get started building your contest

Step 3: Add the Contest Prize Details

After choosing your giveaway template, it will launch in RafflePress’s drag-and-drop giveaway builder. You can enter your LinkedIn contest prize details on this screen, like the prize image, description, etc.

First, click the pencil icon under the Giveaway Prize Details heading.

Click the pencil to enter the linkedin contest prize

This opens a panel on the right side of your screen, where you can enter your prize name and description.

Enter your linkedin giveaway name, description and prize image

Under that section, you can also upload an image of your prize from your WordPress media library or computer by clicking the Select Image button.

When you’re happy with your prize details, click the Done Editing button.

If you have more than one prize, click the +Add Another Prize button to enter more details.

You can set when your giveaway starts and ends on the left side of your screen and choose your preferred time zone under the Start and End Time heading.

Remember to click the Save button in the top-right corner often to store your contest settings.

Save your LinkedIn competition settings

Step 4: Choose Your Competition Entry Methods

The next step is to add entry methods to your LinkedIn competition. RafflePress offers tons of ways for people to enter your contest. You can even add bonus entry methods to improve people’s chances of winning while promoting your brand.

For example, you can award users 1 entry for following you on LinkedIn, a 2nd entry for sharing your contest on LinkedIn, a 3rd for subscribing to your email list, etc.

The majority of participants will take as many actions as possible because it improves their chances of winning your grand prize.

Add entry actions to your linkedin competition

To add entry methods to your giveaway widget, click the Actions tab, where you can see the entry methods grouped by goal:

  • Get More Subscribers
  • Get More Social Engagement
  • Get More Traffic

Then go ahead and click the actions that align with your giveaway goals to add them to your widget.

For this guide, we’ve picked the following actions:

  • Follow us on LinkedIn
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Join an Email Newsletter
  • Refer a Friend – Viral
giveaway actions for a linkedIn contest

After choosing your actions, you can click each one to add entry options. These settings include the title, value (how many entries the action is worth) if the action is mandatory, and a field to add your LinkedIn profile URL.

Edit the entry actions for your linkedin contest

If you have many entry methods, make sure the most important ones are worth the most giveaway entries.

Click the Save button to store your changes, and repeat the process for each action you add to your contest widget.

You can also rearrange actions for your contest by dragging and dropping them on the left side of your screen. Alternatively, you can delete actions by clicking the trash can icon.

You can easily rearrange your linkedin giveaway actions

Step 5: Design Your LinkedIn Contest

Next, click the Design tab to customize the design of your LinkedIn competition. You can choose from 2 different layouts (display image, then header, or header, then image) and several fonts and button colors.

Click the design tab to customize your linkedin competition

If you decide to publish your contest on a standalone landing page, you can set the page’s background color or upload a custom background image. Just click the Select Image button under the Page Background heading.

Upload a custom background image to your linkedin giveaway landing page

When you’re happy with how everything looks, click the Save button.

Step 6: Configure Your Contest Settings

For the next step, click the Settings tab.

Configure your linkedin giveaway settings

On this screen are 8 different settings you can customize for your giveaway, including:

  1. General – Change your giveaway name, add a permalink for the giveaway landing page, show or hide total entries, display the giveaway winner, and more.
  2. Giveaway Rules – Use the giveaway rules template to generate simple contest rules.
  3. Email Verification – Automatically send an email to users to confirm their email address when they enter.
  4. Success Tracking – Add Google Analytics tracking scripts and retargeting scripts that fire whenever anyone enters your contest.
  5. Success Redirect – Redirect entrants to a specific URL after entering your giveaway.
  6. Social Logins – Allow users to sign up for your giveaway using their social media accounts.
  7. GDPR – Add a checkbox to your contest that users must agree to register for the giveaway.
  8. Recaptcha – Prevent spam, fake, and fraudulent signups to your giveaway.

One of the most important settings is the giveaway rules.

RafflePress makes creating your contest rules super-easy. You can use the Rules Generator Template to get started quickly.

Easily generate linkedin giveaway rules in seconds

Clicking this button shows a window where you can enter your:

  • Sponsor name
  • Email
  • Address
  • Country
  • Eligible locations
  • Minimum age to enter
  • And more.

Then click the Generate Rules button to load the details into your widget automatically.

You can check out our documentation for details on all the RafflePress settings.

Remember to click Save before you move on to the next step.

Step 7: Publish Your LinkedIn Contest in WordPress

Now that you know how to run a competition on LinkedIn, it’s time to make it live on your WordPress site.

Launching your giveaway is straightforward. Just click on the Publish tab at the top of the screen.

Choose an option for publishing your linkedin contest

Here you’ll see 3 options for publishing your contest:

  1. RafflePress WordPress Block – Embed the giveaway widget in your WordPress post or page (new WordPress block editor).
  2. WordPress Shortcode – Embed the giveaway in the classic WordPress editor, sidebar widgets, or inside your WordPress theme.
  3. Giveaway Landing Page – Create a distraction-free landing page on your website for your giveaway.

The best option to secure the maximum number of entries is to create a giveaway landing page for your contest. Since there’s nothing besides your giveaway widget on the page to distract users, they’re more likely to sign up and enter.

So, choose the giveaway landing page option. Then, under the Giveaway Landing Page URL heading, click the link to enter your page’s permalink.

Publish as a linkedin giveaway landing page

This takes you to the General settings, where you can add a custom URL for your giveaway page.

Enter the permalink for your linkedin contest landing page

Now you can click Save, store your changes, and click the View button to see how your LinkedIn contest looks.

Preview your linkedin competition

The result is a great-looking landing page for your LinkedIn contest.

5. Promote Your Contest on LinkedIn

After creating your contest, you can’t sit back and wait for people to enter. Instead, promote it to spread the word to your audience.

Since your contest is for LinkedIn users, start by sharing it on your LinkedIn company page and profile. Write a short message detailing what your contest is about, how users can enter, and the link to your giveaway landing page.

Here’s an example from the Porchlight Book Company:

how to display promotion on linkedin

You can also promote your contest by:

It’s vital to start promoting your contest weeks before it goes live to get plenty of traffic and entries from the day you launch.

Check out this article for even more contest promotion ideas.

6. Pick A Giveaway Winner

When your competition on LinkedIn is over, you’ll need to choose a winner for your grand prize. If your contest is chance-based, the easiest way to pick a winner is to draw one randomly.

You can do this easily with RafflePress’s random winner picker. When your giveaway ends, navigate to RafflePress » Giveaways from your WordPress admin area and click the Needs Winners link on the right.

pick a winner for linkedin giveaway

You can see who entered your giveaway and the number of entries each person has. To choose a winner randomly, click the Pick Winner button, select your options, and click Choose Winners Now.

pick a linkedin giveaway winner

The winner is highlighted instantly, so you can click to email them with the good news!

email the giveaway winner

7. Follow Up with Participants

After drawing the winner of your LinkedIn contest, it’s essential to follow up with all the other people who entered. This allows you to form better relationships with your new audience and mention your contest one last time.

Announce your LinkedIn contest winner

You can follow up with participants after the contest by:

  • Social Media Announce the winner and the prize on LinkedIn and your other social media accounts.
  • Email Newsletter – Send an email to announce the winner, thank everyone for joining in, and invite them to enter your next giveaway.

In the end, you won’t just have 1 happy giveaway winner but tons of new fans too.

8. Measure Your LinkedIn Competition Results

The final step for any online contest should be to measure your giveaway results. This enables you to learn what did and didn’t work and how you can run a successful giveaway on LinkedIn next time.

MonsterInsights overview report

The easiest way to get the information you need to optimize your LinkedIn contest is with MonsterInsights, the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.

With MonsterInsights, it’s easy to track your contest landing page visits, traffic to your website, referral traffic, website activity, eCommerce promotions, and much more. You can even see all of the data right in your WordPress dashboard.

By looking at your website data, you can see which strategies drove the most traffic to your giveaway page. You can then use that data to improve the success of future campaigns.

If you like, you can learn more about this powerful WordPress plugin in this MonsterInsights review.

FAQs About LinkedIn Competitions

Do giveaways work on LinkedIn?

Giveaways are effective on LinkedIn when executed thoughtfully, as they can increase brand visibility, boost engagement, generate leads, and promote community building.

How do I target competitors’ followers on LinkedIn?

While directly targeting competitor followers on LinkedIn has limitations, you can use tools like Sales Navigator, analyze competitor engagement, or use LinkedIn Ads’ targeting options to reach a similar audience.

How do I retarget my audience on LinkedIn?

To retarget your audience on LinkedIn, add the LinkedIn Insight Tag on your website and then create retargeting audiences within LinkedIn Campaign Manager. You can also add retargeting scripts inside the RafflePress settings.

This activates retargeting whenever users successfully enter your LinkedIn competition.

Next, More Ways to Run Competitions

And there you have it!

We hope this article helped you learn how to run a competition on LinkedIn that generates tons of awareness for your brand. Now, all that’s left is to make one for your business!

Ready to dive in?

You might also like the following helpful competition guides:

If you liked this article, please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for RafflePress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

author avatar
Stacey Corrin Writer
Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.

Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. We only recommend products that we believe will add value to our readers.

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