How to Create a Refer-A-Friend Contest

About

The Refer-a-Friend feature rewards contest entrants when the friends they refer to the contest enter as well. For a contest with voting, bonus points are added to the referring friend’s vote total. For a giveaway without voting, you can use the points to award bonus entries (see Pick Random Entry). Here’s how it works for the end user:

1. He or she submits an entry to the form.
   
   
2. Upon submission, a popup appears that explains the Refer-a-Friend bonus (you can customize this text), along with a Share button.
   
   
3. The visitor clicks Share to see the usual Facebook Share dialog, then shares to his or her Timeline.
   
   
4. A unique link is included with the share. When one of the referrer’s friends sees the post in his or her News Feed, clicks on the link to visit the Campaign, and submits an entry, the referring user receives bonus points (you determine the amount).
   
   
5. If you display entries in a Voting Widget with sharing enabled, sharing an entry will also credit that entry with bonus points should anyone enter the contest from the shared entry.
   
   

Enabling Refer-a-Friend

To enable Refer-a-Friend:

1. Create or edit a Form in the Form Designer.
   
   
2. Click Form Settings.
   
   
3. In the Refer-a-Friend section, check the Entrants get extra points for referring friends box, and then enter the number of bonus points to award the user for each referral. 
   
   
4. Save the form.
   
   

Configure Sharing

1. Add a Share Widget to your Campaign, configure it, and then click Save & Exit.
   
   
2. Edit the Campaign's Form Widget.
   
   
3. Use the Connected Share Widget drop-down menu to select the Share Widget. 
   
   
4. Click Save & Exit. 

Note: For Refer-a-Friend to work, Sharing must be configured to Share the Campaign's URL. However, in order to enable Sharing for an embedded Campaign, you must use code to override the Share URL so that Shares link to the website the Campaign is embedded in. Therefore, Refer-a-Friend is not supported for embedded Campaigns.