One of the most frequent requests that we get is for sweepstakes. Sweepstakes definitely have a place in the social landscape, but one thing that we also noticed was that sweepstakes usually didn’t spread virally. Fans didn’t share them and it made perfect sense why not: they entered the sweepstakes hoping to win and sharing it with others would only reduce their chances of winning as more people entered.

We wanted to come up with a solution to solve this problem, and so we developed the Refer-a-Friend feature on Sweepstakes. With this feature, people that enter the sweepstakes will get another chance to win for each additional person that they refer that also enters. And we have made it super simple to share. Users can post to their Facebook Timeline, send directly to friends on Facebook, Tweet the sweepstakes or share via email. The links are tracked so that the extra entries can be recorded.

In some of our Refer-a-Friend Sweepstakes we have seen the sweepstakes get shared at a rate of nearly 2.5 times the number of regular entries, and over 15% of the total entries came from the referrals.

In addition to the Refer-a-Friend feature, Fan Appz has increased the design flexibility and customizability of the sweepstakes application. We have added the ability to integrate either standard graphics or custom html into the sweepstakes creative, customize the form fields and marketing opt-ins, and create a unique success page experience with either text, graphics, html or a custom redirect. The sweepstakes can also be white labeled for even greater custom branding.

Check out a screencast of a recent Refer-a-Friend Sweepstakes:

Click here to request more information on how you can get your own viral sweepstakes.