Most of these contests employ one of these tactics:
1. Like and share the post
2. Like and share the post plus tag someone (to share the prize) or as many people as you like for higher winning chance.
3. Upload pictures on Facebook comment or Instagram with relevant content and Hashtag.
4. Provide the correct answer in Facebook comment and like and share the post.
5. Provide your experience with the brand and like and share the post.
6. Be the first to give the correct answer.
7. Playing games to score points for lucky draw chance.
8. Playing games to win prizes.
9. Share your experience and the comment with the most like wins.
This is not an exhaustive list.
As a marketer, you can be as creative and interesting as you want in running such contests.
But I guess that the bottom line is that the contest must be easy to participate. After all, the world now is all about quick and fast. There's never enough time to do all that you want to do. No one is going to spend more time than what they feel the prizes are worth.
More importantly, you want to create buzz online and hope it will gain traction and become the talk of the topic in people's conversation. You want to make it viral and get as much exposure for your brand as you could.
Out of these tactics, there's one that is quite interesting.
Some companies run contest and will give out the prize to the first person who is able to provide the correct answer in the comment.
To win in such a contest takes the whole universe to be align in your favor.
Such contests can be posted on any day at any time.
You have to be the first to see the post. You have to know the correct answer. You have to be quick enough to type in the correct answer and be the first where your comment appear.
If you need a few seconds to google for it, someone would have already beat you to the game.
If you happen to see the contest as a sponsored post, you're already too late.
Even if you are following a particular brand, there's no way that you can keep your eyes glued to their online profile 24 hours.
As the comment you post is instantaneous, you will be able to know immediately if you are the first person to answer.
The time difference between the first two comments to appear probably is 0.0001 second apart. The time differences between the first 4 to 5 comments probably range from 0.0001 to 0.01 second apart.
What's interesting is the rest of the comments that came in much later like five hours after the first person has commented.
Why do these people are still commenting and giving the right answer even though they know they are not going to win the prize?
Do they want to let other knows that they also know? Do they want to do it because they do not have anything else to do? Do they get a kick out of doing this? Or are they afraid of being left behind?