Depending on what your social media strategy is, you could use restrictions and exclusivity to target your campaign to a specific audience. To that end, we decided to include the possibility to add a password to your promotions and competitions so that only your chosen audience can participate. It works in such a way that when any user clicks to participate, they are prompted to enter an access code to be able to do so.

Prior to having this option, you could already run promotions for exclusive audiences through coupon validation with our applications. Generally, coupon validation is used when you give your customers codes either in your physical shop or your online shop, and get them to validate them on Facebook to receive a discount or gift. It is a way to get our customers to become fans of our Facebook page and means that they can keep up to date with our news and publications and we can encourage more engagement with the use of closer contact on a day-to-day basis.

However, this new function to include a password in your promotions and competitions not only allows you to restrict your customers but also others to whom you can send the access code.

To protect a promotion or competition with a password, you can include the access code in the ‘Basic Data’ section of your promotion’s setup page.

Who could the target audience that you invite to participate in your private competition be?

• Subscribers to your newsletter: Users who read your news and updates with interest also deserve some motivation. A way to generate this is to include a password for a promotion that is created exclusively for them.
• Your employees: Why not motivate your employees by inviting them to participate in a promotion on Facebook? It is a way to make them feel that they are important to the company. As well as creating an exclusive promotion for them in which they have to use the code that you send to them, you could, for example, give them a small gift for participating or have them answer some fun questions to enter into a prize draw for something exciting. Maybe you could get them to upload funny photos and the one with the most votes wins something that you think they would like. Password-protected promotions can be a simple way to motivate your employees.
• Customers from your online shop: You’ve just launched your online shop, or want to give it a boost because most of your sales come through your physical shop, or maybe you just want to reward your online customers. You can just give them the access code for your online competition with the confirmation of their purchase. This way they will become fans if they are not already and feel that you are rewarding them as customers.
• Your best customers: You’ve probably heard many times that “you have to take care of good customers”. That is why it is a good idea to create a Facebook campaign which only they can access. In this campaign, you can ask them to answer a few questions about your product or service, or the quality of your customer service. In return, you can offer them something that you don’t usually offer in promotions that are open to all users or give them one of your products or services that they value.
• Visitors to your website or blog: If your goal is to get more visits to your website or blog, you could post on your social networks that the access code for your private competition is published on one of those two media. That way, users get to know your site and are kept entertained looking for the secret code.

Ideas for password-protected promotions and competitions

1. When you are thinking about creating a competition with a normal setup but personalised for a specific audience and for which you also want to give an air of exclusivity.
2. When you want your customer to see a promotion that you have created on your fan page before it is made public or because you want your colleagues to try it out.
3. When you have to create something exclusively for your employees using Facebook as a tool to encourage them.
4. When you want to publicise your online shop, your blog or your website, since you can include the secret code on one of them.
5. When you want to show something new about your company to a select audience to see it before anyone else and give them a discount, gift, sample, etc.

If you still don’t know how you could use a password-protected competition, we have many more ideas. Contact us and we will be happy to help!

Create your Cool Promo or Cool Promo White Label with a password now >>