Spring break — also known as March break or reading break — typically lasts for a week or two (depending on where you are) and often involves throngs of students seeking beach-bound escapes, spring skiing and shopping galore.

According to Travelocity, spring break travel will likely cost more in 2014, but that provides ample opportunity for savvy companies to capitalize on deal-seekers, whether youthful audiences or parents trying to find ways to keep the kids occupied closer to home.

Why not drive those madding crowds to your products and services by launching a contest or sweepstakes? Here are five contest ideas that can help you engage your audience, drive traffic to your social media channels and entice people to sample your offerings.

Travel Contest Ideas

What college or university student wouldn’t want to escape North America’s slow spring thaw and jet off to a Mexican hotspot, best friend in tow?

Spring break is practically synonymous with student travel and the Breakaway Tours Presents: Acapulco Spring Break 2014 Contest tapped into this longstanding trend.

Students who created a profile on the Student Life Network earned a chance to win the randomly drawn grand prize, a trip for two to Acapulco during spring break, valued at $3,000. You can practically hear the shrieking.

To win additional prizes, students shared the contest info on social media sites and invited friends to join.

Health and Beauty Contest Ideas

Spring break essentials? Sunbathing and beach volleyball by day and singing karaoke late into the night. Sounds great, but too much of a good thing can wreak havoc on that youthful glow.

Spring break is an ideal time for health and beauty brands to introduce new products and reach out to a new audience with a contest or sweepstakes. For instance, for its $300 Clarins Spring Break Prize Pack sweepstakes, readers of lifestyle website 29secrets.com can sign up for a chance to win nine beauty products — six of them new, and earn more chances to win the random draw by entering daily. 29secrets.com promoted the contest on its site and Twitter.

Family Entertainment Events

All kids aspire to see their heroes in real life. And spring break is the ideal time for companies to help create a memorable family-friendly experience without the expensive plane trip.

That’s exactly what Toronto4Kids.com did when it launched its Disney on Ice: Let’s Party blog contest. It attracted 941 people who entered the contest by subscribing to the blog, and selected the lucky winner of a family four-pack of tickets at random.

TorontoDot.Com ran a similar sweepstakes with its March Break Ticket Giveaways. For a chance to win, entrants retweeted the contest details on Twitter, along with the hashtag #TDCMarchBreak. Winners of four tickets to a must-see event or attraction are selected every Friday for four weeks leading up to March break.

Food and Beverage Contest Ideas

Spring break celebrations are hardly known for their lineup of nutritional eats. But party-goers have got to keep up their energy. Problem? Not for food and beverage companies that can offer up a quick and portable pick-me-up.

8Hr Buzz Energy Shot, for instance, helped people gear up for spring break with its multi-platform 8HrBuzz Koozies and Energy Survival Kits contest, which it ran on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The first 250 participants to complete four specific actions receive a free sample and a chance to win one of 10 survival kits.

Student Sponsorship Contests

Lazy spring break days spent playing video games or watching Girls might sound appealing — for awhile. But some students want to put that precious free time to good use by running a volunteer charity project to help a community in need.

That was the idea behind the CengageBrain Alternative Spring Break Contest, which appealed to selfless students by offering them a chance to win up to $2,500 (one $500 VISA gift card per person; up to four students) to fund their own spring break community service project.

Students submitted details of their project on Facebook and encouraged friends and fellow students to vote for their favourite project daily, ultimately determining the winner.

Ready to launch your spring break promotion? We can help. Our social promotions platform can help you give your customers a spring break to remember. Contact us for more info.