For pubs and bars, social media competitions can be a simple way to generate attention without needing a huge budget. A well-planned giveaway can encourage comments, shares, follows, user-generated content (UGC), and give people a reason to think about visiting your venue.
Even so, a competition that generates thousands of likes can still be a commercial failure if those interactions do not translate into footfall, customer data, brand awareness, or useful content.
The most effective competitions start with a clear business objective, use a mechanic that suits the venue, and are promoted beyond the original social post.
Here's your ultimate guide to organic social media competitions.
Article summary:
- Set a clear objective before you start
- Instagram and Facebook competition rules
- TikTok competition rules
- Choose a prize and mechanic that fits your venue
- Promote the competition beyond the post itself
- Social media competition: FAQs
1. Set a clear objective before you start
Before doing anything, decide what you actually want the competition to achieve.
This might be:
- Footfall: encourage people to visit the venue, perhaps by giving away a meal or experience that needs to be redeemed in person.
- Email list growth: use the competition to encourage people to sign up to your database.
- Brand awareness: reach people in your local area who may not already follow you on social media.
- Gather UGC: encourage customers to share photos or videos featuring your venue, food, drinks, or experiences.
- Increase engagement: generate conversation around a particular menu, event, launch, or seasonal campaign.
These objectives require different mechanics.
If your goal is to gather UGC, asking people to comment with their favourite dish probably won’t achieve much. If your goal is footfall, giving away a generic national prize could attract lots of entrants who have no intention of visiting your venue.
Before launching, write down one primary objective and decide which metrics will demonstrate whether you achieved it.
2. Instagram and Facebook competition rules
Instagram and Facebook are owned by Meta, so competitions held on these platforms need to comply with both Meta rules and UK advertising and promotional rules.
Meta’s promotion guidelines require organisers to include official competition rules, offer terms, and entry requirements, and make clear that entrants release Facebook and/or Instagram from responsibility relating to the promotion.
They also require competition organisers to state that the promotion is not sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with Facebook and/or Instagram. Furthermore, promotions should not encourage inaccurate tagging of people or content. [1]
Your competition rules should clearly explain:
- Who can enter
- Any age or geographical restrictions
- How to enter
- When the competition opens and closes
- What the prize is
- How many winners there will be
- How the winner will be selected
- How and when the winner will be contacted
- Any restrictions on redeeming the prize
- Any other significant conditions of entry
This is also important under the UK’s Committees of Advertising Practice Code (CAP). The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) says terms and conditions should be communicated clearly and upfront, including how to participate, the closing date, prize details, and eligibility or geographical restrictions. [2]
For example, rather than posting:
“WIN A £100 MEAL! 🎉 Like, follow and tag a friend to enter!”
You should make the important conditions accessible from the outset, with a clear route to the full terms and conditions.
Be particularly careful with complicated entry mechanics.ASA has taken action where promoters could not demonstrate that they had accurately tracked all valid entries or fairly selected winners. [3]
And remember: Facebook and Instagram are hosting your promotion. They are not running it for you.
3. TikTok competition rules
TikTok adds another layer of consideration, particularly for hospitality brands.
TikTok's current Community Guidelines prohibit certain gambling and gambling-like activities and regulate commercial activity on the platform. TikTok also requires commercial content promoting your own business, product, or service to use its content disclosure setting. [4]
If you are running a giveaway through TikTok Shop UK, the rules are more specific. TikTok Shop currently allows free giveaways in certain circumstances, including “join to win” and “comment to win” formats, but prohibits gamification such as lucky wheels and lucky draws within TikTok Shop. Where available, TikTok Shop’s Gift Tool must be used for free giveaways. [5]
For competitions and promotions more generally, TikTok guidance also emphasises clearly communicating key information such as the entry method, duration, number and nature of prizes, restrictions, winner selection, and how winners will be notified.
For a pub or bar, this means you should avoid assuming that a mechanic which works on Instagram can simply be copied onto TikTok.
Check the current platform-specific rules before launching, particularly if alcohol is involved. TikTok’s current Community Guidelines place restrictions on the marketing and promotion of alcohol and other regulated goods.
4. Choose a prize and mechanic that fits your venue
Your prize should attract the right people, not simply the largest possible audience.
For a pub or restaurant, that usually means making the prize directly connected to the experience you want people to buy.
For example:
- A meal for two
- Sunday lunch for four
- A £50 or £100 venue voucher
A £500 national shopping voucher might generate considerably more entries, but many of those people will have little connection with your venue. A meal for two at your pub may generate fewer entries, but those entries can be much more relevant.
The mechanic should be equally straightforward.
For example, if your objective is local awareness, you could ask people to comment with the person they would bring along should they win. If you want UGC, ask customers to share a photo of their visit using a specific hashtag. If you want to drive footfall, consider making the prize something that encourages a future visit rather than simply offering cash or a generic voucher.
And keep it simple. Every additional step creates another opportunity for someone to abandon their entry.
5. Promote the competition beyond the post itself
Publishing a competition and waiting for people to find it is rarely enough.
Think of the social post as the centre of the promotion, not the entire campaign.
Your existing marketing channels can help drive relevant people towards it:
If you already have an engaged email database, tell subscribers about the competition. They are already familiar with your brand and may be more likely to enter, visit, and share it.
In-venue signage
Put the competition in front of customers who are already in your pub or restaurant.
Table talkers, posters, menus, receipts, chalk boards, screens, and QR codes can all direct customers to the relevant social post.
Staff
Brief your team before the competition launches.
Staff should know:
- What the prize is
- How people enter
- When it closes
- Where to find the terms and conditions
- What customers need to do
This is particularly useful for UGC campaigns. Your team can encourage customers to share their experience naturally rather than leaving the social campaign entirely online.
Your other social channels
If the competition is running on Instagram, consider using Facebook and TikTok to direct relevant audiences towards it – provided the entry mechanics and platform rules allow this.
You can also create reminder content during the campaign. A competition does not have to live in your feed as one post for seven days and then disappear.
6. Measure success and use the data afterwards
Once the competition closes, resist the temptation to measure success purely by likes.
Look at the metrics that relate to your original objective. Also look at the quality of the entries. Did people from your local area participate? Did existing customers enter? Did new people discover your business? Did anyone book?
If you have collected customer data legitimately and with the appropriate marketing consent, the competition can also become the beginning of a longer-term relationship.
New subscribers could be introduced to your email marketing, while non-winners could potentially be given a relevant follow-up offer – for example, a limited-time incentive to visit the venue.
Just make sure the follow-up activity matches the permissions people actually gave when entering. Winning or entering a competition does not automatically give you permission to send unrelated marketing communications.
Finally, document what happened.
Record the number of entries, reach, engagement, audience growth, redemptions, costs, and any other results. This gives you a benchmark for the next competition and helps answer the most important question:
Did the competition achieve what we originally wanted it to achieve?
Social media competition: FAQs
Yes, businesses can run free draws and prize competitions in the UK, but the promotion must comply with applicable law, advertising rules, and the platform’s own requirements.
Not necessarily. A genuine prize competition based on skill, knowledge, or judgement does not necessarily require a free entry route, while a free draw can be structured with a free entry route to avoid being classed as a lottery.
Tagging can be used as part of a competition mechanic, but it needs to comply with the relevant platform rules, and your promotion must be administered fairly. Meta specifically says promotions must not encourage inaccurate tagging, while the ASA has scrutinised competitions involving tagging where administration and entry tracking were unclear.
There is no universal ideal length. For a local hospitality promotion, a relatively short campaign can create urgency, but you should allow enough time to reach your intended audience and clearly communicate the opening and closing dates.
Depending on your objectives, it may be worth boosting your competition post to a wider audience. However, treat it as a separate campaign and make sure the competition's significant conditions remain clear in the advertising.
At minimum, consider the entry method, opening and closing dates, eligibility restrictions, prize details, winner selection process, notification and claiming process, and any restrictions on prize redemption.
References
[1] Meta/Instagram: Instagram Help Centre: Promotions guidelines
[2] ASA/CAP: Promotional marketing: terms and conditions and significant conditions
[3] ASA/CAP: Promotional marketing: Prize draws
[4] TikTok: Community Guidelines
[5] TikTok: TikTok Shop UK Gambling, Gifting and Surprise-based Product Guidelines
Beatrice Oakey
From the halls of Birmingham City University to the client-facing expertise of Brew, Beatrice hit the ground running with fast-paced brands like Wadworth and never looked back.
