When managing a Facebook community, you quickly learn what the community loves to do and discuss on and offline. The Magners community in particular loves to socialise with their mates, in the summer, over ice cold ciders. By extracting this knowledge of the Magners community, The Shop created Magners Summer Party Sessions; An interactive application developed and launched to give the community the chance to win their dream summer party with Magners Irish Cider.

The user experience was broken down into three parts. The first involved the Facebook user joining the Magners community. Secondly, the user engaged with the Summer Party application by entering their details and selecting what their ultimate summer party would entail (music, Magners, BBQ necessities, and location). Lastly, the user asked their Facebook friends to vote for their party in order to gain the highest number of votes to make their dream party become a reality.

The Magners Summer Party Session giveaway worked well for fan engagement and community growth. Fan growth skyrocketed from this competition because Magners gained access into the entrant’s friends networks. The process that the entrant went through while creating their summer party evoked an emotional response, because the format of the application clearly painted an image of what the entrant’s dream party could actually look like. By painting this mental picture, the eager entrant promoted their Magners party through their own social media outlets to ensure that their friends would vote for their party.

Most Facebook giveaways have a prize that will be awarded to just the winner and will have no affect on the winner’s friends. This competition method was successful because voters had an incentive to connect with Magners and vote for their friend’s entry, as the prize included a party that would involve the Facebook users that voted for their friend’s entry.

When creating a giveaway application, it is important to strategically plan how the competition will not only affect the Facebook user who is entering the giveaway, but how it will directly affect the Facebook user’s friends.