Wildfire App for Facebook Contests

I decided to again this year offer a Fresh Faces contest for kids. I've seen a lot of other photographers offering contests on their Facebook business pages. After some research, I realized that Facebook has a lot of guidelines in place if you want to run a contest within the site. There have been photographers who have had their pages suspended because they didn't follow the guidelines. I didn't want to get my account suspended, so I was on a mission to find another way to conduct my contest and not break the rules. (Read more about their guidelines here: http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php)

Enter Wildfire - a third-party application that manages contests and promotions that are web-based. I decided to test drive Wildfire for my contest. Depending on your personal needs, there are 4 versions of pricing. You pay a base price per contest or campaign then an additional dollar amount per day. I first planned on using the basic plan, but once I started creating the details of the contest I needed to upgrade to the standard version. The good thing about the app is you can start creating your contest in basic form and if you want to make changes, it lets you know the difference in pricing before you pay.

I did have some issues with entries being incomplete because people were having issues uploading their photos. Since this was a photo contest, it was a big deal. I contacted the Wildfire customer service - they responded promptly, tested my contest and said everything was working fine. I continued to have incomplete entries, so at that point I had people email me all their information and child's photo and I uploaded them myself. Extra work, that's for sure. The other snag I hit was that people could only enter the contest once, so if they had multiple children they had to pick one, I didn't like that idea so yet another reason why I was entering them myself.

I only gained a handful of new Facebook fans, so contestants weren't letting the application post on their Facebook wall that they had entered. I did have a few entries from California. People were somehow finding the contest but not reading the rules that the session would take place in Ohio. I was able to disqualify entries based on the fact they were more than 3 hrs away from me. I could have set the contest to be only Ohio entries, but I know a few folks that live out-of-state that come to Ohio often and wanted them to have the chance to participate as well.

I didn't love the Wildfire App and I didn't hate it. For me, it didn't do exactly what I wanted it to do for the budget I had to run the contest. It sounds like they are always looking for ways to update the application and make changes to suit users' needs, so maybe down the road it will work better for what I want it to do. If you're set on finding a workaround to running a Facebook contest, then this may work for you if you want to deal with the bumps in the process. I plan on running future contests on my blog, which is free!

Follow Up on Facebook Advertising

I wanted to follow up on the post from February about my Facebook advertising. Well, I'm glad I didn't spend big bucks on it. It did work out slightly for me. I had a lot of hits on my ad - so I was pretty excited. My ad was strictly for Senior Reps, I wasn't looking to book any regular sessions since I still needed to build my senior portfolio. I spent almost all of my $100 advertising credit - I think it was about $95. I had 4 girls contact me (no guys) and 2 apply to be reps. Both girls were selected (two different schools) but only one followed through. And we just did her session 2 weeks ago. It turned out great and she doesn't even have her proof book or rep cards yet and she's already sending folks my way.

My low turnout could have been from my lack of senior images on my site. Or the fact that I was advertising to Juniors in February and March to be reps and it wasn't even close to the end of the school year. I'm glad I did it and it was free - I did get one rep and that might be all I need to get the senior side of my business off the ground.

I plan on doing some additional senior advertising on Facebook mid-summer when the kids will really be looking to get there photos done. Especially since I have built up some additional senior images since my last round of advertising. And I just created a Facebook Fan Page for my business.

If you're thinking about doing it - just be careful that you watch what you spend. I can see that it could easily snowball into some big bucks!

Have you advertised on Facebook? Let me know how it's gone for you in the comment section below!

Thinking About Facebook Advertising?

Can you believe it - three posts in 1 day, I'm trying to get caught up, since I've been slacking lately!

I'm currently trying to build up my Senior sessions and get my hands on a few senior reps. Kinda hard since most of my friends are in their 20's and 30's and if they have kids they are still little. I had pondered Facebook advertising but wasn't sure if it was worth the money or not after reading mixed reviews.

I decided to give it a shot after getting $100 in FREE Facebook advertising. I know, I didn't believe it at first either, but it's true, it's free. It's through the Visa Small Business Network. If you have (or create) a Facebook account and sign up for the Visa Network, they give you a $100 advertising credit. I believe the expiration date to use the credits is 5/6/09, so sign up soon!

I'm not going to get into all the details of how to advertise on Facebook and I'm holding off to share my results, as I want to have a month in before I make a decision to continue on. But if you've been thinking about it, this is the cheapest way to try it out!! Here's the link to the Visa Small Business Network page - which includes instructions on how to sign up and receive your credit! http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=24249628048

Good luck advertising, I'd love to hear your results and I'll be sharing mine in April!