Running a 30-day Facebook challenge may seem like a great way to inspire your audience and attract new clients, but it is not a strategy that fits all business models.

Facebook is an incredibly powerful social platform that many experts, coaches, and consultants use to attract new clients to their business.

In addition, running online challenges via Facebook has become a very trendy – and successful – marketing strategy.

Challenges can be a fantastic way to quickly attract qualified prospects and turn them into paying clients.

However, doing a challenge that’s 30 days long could do more harm than good.

Should You Create A 30-Day Facebook Challenge?

Online challenges, especially free Facebook challenges, can supercharge the way you do business.

They are great for attracting qualified prospects and creating an engaged audience that’s eager and ready to buy from you.

Why? Because whoever your ideal client is, chances are, they spend time on Facebook.

With over 2 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media platform out there.

If you could reach just a tiny portion of those users, how much would it mean for your business?

The beauty of online challenges is that you are simply helping people by sharing the gifts of knowledge you already have.

This allows you to build trust with potential clients in a real, authentic way.

While you can run a challenge on your blog, website, or other platforms, Facebook is one of the best places for connecting with your challenge participants.

You can post regular updates and challenge prompts, and keep your participants engaged through the entire process.

And best of all… You do not need to have a big Facebook group or following to launch a successful challenge!

However, despite their popularity, running a 30-day Facebook challenge may not be the best choice for your business.

Here are some of the risks of doing a 30-day challenge – and what you can do to avoid them.

3 Risks Of Doing a 30-Day Facebook Challenge

1. Your audience will lose steam

The biggest risk of running a challenge that’s 30 days long is that you will not be able to keep your participants engaged in the challenge.

How many times have you tried to make some type of change in your life, only to drop off at day 6, or 7, or 10?

A 30-day commitment is a lot to ask from someone, especially if they are a new prospect and know nothing about you or your company.

The longer the challenge, the more likely it is that they could have something that pulls them away.  For example, they might take on another project and need to cut their social media time.

If your participants don’t make it to the end of the challenge, you won’t get a chance to invite them to try your paid programs and services.

What’s more, if they fail, they will be less likely to give you a second chance.

2. You will overwork yourself

Your participants may not be the only ones that lose steam in the middle of the challenge.

There is a lot that goes into creating a challenge, from timing, to generating content, to keeping the engagement up.

Executing a 30-day challenge can be something you can do once you have experience with shorter challenges.

In fact, even a 10-day challenge may be too much if you’ve never done one before.

In addition to creating days of content and assignments, you will also need to do a lot of day-to-day communicating with your challenge participants.

Frankly, it might not be worth your time (if you are not charging for participation) – especially if there is a better, more efficient way to run an online challenge!

3. You may give away too much for free

With a full 30 days of content, your audience might feel like they’ve seen “enough” from you.

Remember, your challenge is meant to provide value, build trust, and show your potential clients that you’re the right person to help them.

Providing a 30-day challenge may be too much information which can overwhelm your members instead of leaving them wanting more.

If your goal is to get new clients, starting with a shorter challenge is much more effective.

What’s The Optimal Length for a Facebook Challenge?

I recommend doing free 5-day challenges.

Five days is long enough for your potential clients to develop a connection with you, yet short enough for them to stay engaged and focused on your message.

Any shorter than that, and they won’t get to know your business well enough to trust and buy from you.

Any longer and their excitement will fade – and you will keep struggling to make money and find your next client.

In summary, I recommend a shorter 5-day challenge at least to start.

However, I’m also going to go over some of the best practices for 30-day challenges, if your mind is set on that.

3 Tips for Executing a 30-Day Facebook Challenge

Still thinking about giving 30-day Facebook challenges a shot? Follow my tips below to make the most out of your 30-day challenge.

1. Figure out how you will keep people engaged for the full 30 days

If you want to keep your participants active and engaged for the full 30 days, a one-time commitment to the challenge goal isn’t going to cut it.

Break up the challenge into smaller chunks, vary the content, make weekly commitments to your challenge participants, and encourage them to find accountability buddies within your Facebook challenge group to keep engagement high.

Remember, if your participants don’t make it to the end of the challenge, you don’t get to share your paid offerings with them, so this should be your number one priority!

2. Charge for your challenge

An online challenge does not necessarily have to be free.

You could easily charge $100 for a Facebook challenge that lasts 30 days.

After all, you put a lot of time and effort into creating it – why shouldn’t you get paid for it?

And it adds an extra level of commitment for your challenge participants to see it through.

3. Provide a free challenge for the first 5 days

To attract more people to your 30-day challenge, make it free – but only for the first 5 days.

Then use those 5 days to get to know your challenge participants and turn them into paying customers for the remainder of the challenge!

Need Help?

There’s a lot that goes into creating a successful online challenge. Deciding on the optimal challenge length is just the beginning!

If you want to make sure your challenge is a huge success, I’ve got a free Profitable Online Challenge Checklist for you to download.

It will show you exactly what elements you need to include to ensure that you end up with a successful challenge – and avoid some of the most common mistakes that make challenges fail.

Want to know what makes a winning challenge? Download my FREE challenge checklist:

FREE Challenge Checklist
Alina Vincent on FacebookAlina Vincent on InstagramAlina Vincent on LinkedinAlina Vincent on Twitter
Alina Vincent
Business and Technology Strategist and CEO at Business Success Edge
Alina Vincent is a business strategist and the creator of a popular "Profitable Online Challenges" program. Alina is passionate about helping entrepreneurs package and monetize their knowledge and expertise to create a leveraged and scalable business. Experts hire her for strategic advise and simple step-by-step approach to creating successful online programs, engaged Facebook communities, and profitable online challenges. Finding her zone of genius by combining a strong analytical background, which includes advanced science degrees, with creative vision, Alina works at the intersection of logic and imagination, giving her clients everything from practical research-driven systems and strategies, to creative original and intuitive solutions.