LONDON, December 15, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Punch Communications, a leading PR, Social Media and SEO agency (http://www.punchcomms.com/seo-agency.html) is advising brands that are looking to increase their engagement with online fans that social media competitions prove a great means of improving engagement and acquisition.

With social media becoming ever-more prominent in brand-led marketing campaigns, brands having trouble increasing their rate of user engagement are advised that looking towards user competitions is a great method of increasing followers. Although brands are beginning to wake up to the opportunities of utilising social media, but the methods many brands use in reaching out to these prospective fans needs to be looked at.

To try to garner as much success as possible from a competition, a brand needs to ensure the competition is social in its nature. A social competition is likely to reap success, as users will be happy to share the competition with their online friends.

Further to this, encouraging entrants to be creative and inventive can assist in producing a successful competition. When users are encouraged to generate their own content, be it images, videos or similar styles of rich media, it is much more appealing than a standard question-and-answer format. This again helps encourage the entrant into sharing their content or creations, thereby spreading the word about the competition across social channels. User content shared through a brand's social profile is likely to be prove pleasing to the followers, and more will be willing to submit content in the hope of having it promoted by the brand.

Pete Goold, Managing Director at Punch Communications, said: "Competitions provide a great opportunity for brands to increase fan figures on social networks. A successful competition helps promote the brand whilst maintaining user engagement to a high level. A brand that implements a series of engaging, social competitions could soon find followers dramatically increasing, thereby offering the brand an increased online fan base to target for future campaigns."

Social media agency (http://www.punchcomms.com/social-media-agency.html) Punch Communications helps brands wishing to gain a suitable presence on leading social networks. Coupled with its skills in SEO PR ( http://www.punchcomms.com/seo-pr.html), Punch has the skill set to help a brand produce a strong online presence with which to target potential customers and fans. For more information, visit punchcomms.com or call +44(0)1858-411600.