Remember how much fun it was in school whenever you heard the teacher say “we're going to have a scavenger hunt”? It didn't matter if you were hunting for toys or hunting for items or that you were learning something — it was just fun. And the whole class would get excited and involved…

And you wanted every school day to always be a scavenger hunt after that.

Good news! It turns out, adults like those scavenger hunts just as much as you did as a kid. Which means, of course, that you can run a branded scavenger hunt on social media for your direct sales company and help your community have a blast.

Not only that, but a branded scavenger hunt can help your community find your other channels and what you're doing on them and bake your personal brand into their minds for a prolonged period of time.

What is a Branded Scavenger Hunt?

Exactly what it sounds like: a scavenger hunt that is designed to immerse your community deeper inside your personal brand. You can use them in contests, giveaways, or just as regular community builders.

To run a branded scavenger hunt on social media, start by mapping out which social media channels you want to include. There are a couple things you want to consider when it comes to choosing just which channels you want to include in your:

• How active is that channel? Don't bring someone to a channel you won't be able to update later, or else your channel will just become dead-weight to them and they will likely unfollow you later.
• What do you use the channel for? If the channel doesn't have its own strategic place within your funnel other than to reshare posts from other channels, then you might want to rethink its inclusion in your scavenger hunt (after all, you don't want to split your community's focus through duplicate content).
• A scavenger hunt on social media usually results in follower redistribution rather than following growth, which means you are more likely going to be spreading your current audience out over multiple channels rather than attracting new people. This is good, but does mean you may need to revisit your content strategy for each of your channels (give them a reason to be on more than one channel!)

Best Practices for Running a Branded Scavenger Hunt

Here are some basic tips and hints for running your own branded scavenger hunt on social media:

1. Stay authentic to your brand. Your community is going to feel excited about being able to participate in such a fun event regardless of the prize at the end – but they shouldn't feel like it's a gimmick or a schtick. They should feel like they are getting to know you, your brand, and what they can learn on each of your channels — not really what you sell.
2. Simplicity is key. Scavenger hunts across multiple channels are already complex by nature, and you're bound to lose some people along the way. Don't risk losing even more people because you made everything too complicated.
3. Decide on your goal. What is it you want to get out of the scavenger hunt (besides introducing your community to your other channels). Are you trying to grow one channel in particular? Strengthening your funnel? Make sure you define your goal before you start so you don't accidentally lose focus part-way through.
4. Know your audience insights. If you want as many people as possible to participate in your scavenger hunt, then you need to know when they're online and which channel they're on at the time. Start at your most popular channel at the time your audience is most likely to be there.
5. Map your channels strategically. If you are aiming to grow one channel in particular, make sure it is either the second channel people visit (right after kicking off at your most popular channel) or the very last channel people visit (where you will, presumably, be announcing the winners).
6. Choose your timing wisely. You're going to want to make sure you promote your scavenger hunt well ahead of time and separate from any other promotions. If you have other specials or promotions going on, your audience could get them tangled in their minds, which means they may miss out on both.
7. Think about your reward system from the point of view of your audience. What happens if you come across a giveaway or a contest and from the start it doesn't feel like you can win? Most people give up (or think about trying next time) if they don't think they can win for any reason. So you want to make sure that the reward you're planning feels attainable to everyone who participates to ensure maximum participation.

Most of all, remember to have fun yourself. Your scavenger hunt should help your community learn what an amazing and fun ray of sunshine you are – not stress you out. If you're starting to feel stressed out, you're probably overthinking.

#EmpowerSocial