The 6 Simple Steps of Running a Successful Social Media Contest How to boost engagement, gain new followers and jumpstart marketing efforts with this tested social media outreach strategy.

If you're looking to increase engagement on social media pages, running a contest can be a great way to jump-start the process. Not only can you grow a following, but also build brand awareness while rewarding followers for supporting your business.

And the list of benefits goes on. Consider these possible goals (aka key performance indicators, or "KPIs") you can shoot for by running a contest on social media:

• More views of posts. Ask people to like and comment on contest posts so that more people will see them. Add a boost to these posts for even more visibility.