Social media is a great way to create awareness, encourage engagement, and showcase your fun culture! Contests build an incentive for current and potential clients to become more involved in what your school has to offer and will lead to referrals through community engagement. You can even encourage your classrooms to get involved and advertise by posting on social media, sending students home with flyers, and marketing your contest in a newsletter.
We have compiled a list of the top five trending social media contest ideas of 2020, how to implement them, and what awesome prizes you can give away as incentives! Trust us; these challenges will be a blast and ultimately increase your enrollment!
5 Social Media Contest Ideas:
Coloring Contest
There are a lot of different ways that you can implement a social media coloring contest. You can have a ‘mommy and me’ coloring contest where students and community members can color something at home and then post it to social media. ‘Mommy and me’ coloring contests are a fun way to encourage engagement and also promote mommy and child bonding time. However, if you are concerned about potentially excluding children who may not have a mother present in their lives, you can always rename the challenge to something more inclusive. The goal is to encourage engagement and awareness while fostering a time to bond between the child and their guardian.
Another fun way to host a coloring challenge is to have students color something within their classrooms and then post it on social media for votes. Remember to make each student feel like a winner while nurturing a fun and creative environment!
Coloring contests are most effective on Facebook and Instagram platforms.
Photo Contest
When implementing a photo contest, the options are endless! You can create a theme by having students create a sign that lists one reason why they love going to your school every day and have a parent photograph them with that sign. What a great way to promote your culture to potential clients and gain testimonials by actual students themselves!
Other themed ideas, such as having parents submit a funny picture of their child or their best ‘smash cake’ photos, can be a fun way to drive engagement to your site.
Another popular idea is a ‘caption this’ photo contest where you supply the photo and encourage parents and students to come up with funny captions for that photo. You can post a goofy photo from a recent classroom event and allow your community to use their imagination to come up with a word or phrase that describes that photo. This is another great way to promote your culture, showcase how fun your center is, and create community involvement.
Photo Contests are most effective on Facebook and Instagram platforms.
Referral Contest
A referral contest is more for the parents or guardians. Create a challenge where parents are encouraged to collect as many referrals as they can by the end of the month to win a grand prize!
A referral contest is ideal for Facebook because your clients can tag their friends to follow your site but can work on almost any social media site.
Book Contest
Supply a list of books or allow parents to share their own. Provide a reading log and a deadline to see how many books families can read together throughout an allotted time frame. Book contests will enrich children while advocating for family learning time.
Encourage parents to post pictures and videos of their family reading together. Photos and videos are a great way to show the community how your center creates a fun culture and engages parents in their children’s learning.
Facebook is a great social media platform to host a book contest because it will allow participants to interact with one another.
Quizzes or Trivia Contests
What is your parenting style? How well do you and your child know your school? Quizzes can be a great way to spark interest in parents and provide your center with invaluable information. Through quizzes, you can understand your students learning styles better and where you may need to increase marketing or awareness.
Trivia contests are fun for the whole family. Create a trivia about your school or pick a popular topic that kids will love to participate in!
Quizzes or Trivia contests are ideal for Facebook. Short quizzes or trivia questions can be completed through Snapchat.
Bonus Social Media Ideas
- Tik Tok Challenge: Pick a theme and spur parents to create a fun Tik Tok video with their children. The best video wins a prize!
- Holiday Decorating Contest: Host decorating contests within your teacher’s classrooms or inspire parents to share images of their household decorations! The best-decorated room or house gets a prize!
Prizes
Prizes can range in price and value but do not necessarily need to be expensive or elaborate. Prize ideas include:
- Three days to a week of free child care
- Free book or coloring book
- Gift card
- Free photoshoot for your student and their family
- Free back to school gift supply set
You are welcome to get creative with prizes and find something that works for your budget!
Increase enrollment, encourage engagement, and foster fun through social media! Don’t delay; a new family is only a click away!
