A proper contest is one that involves a concept and a deadline. A short-term contest will run for one week, while a long-term contest could run for several months. Short-term contests are easy to create and cost less money than their long-term counterparts, but they can lose steam if they don’t get enough attention from participants or if there isn’t enough time for participants to submit content before the deadline arrives. However, what works for one social media contest type, doesn't work for others, so you need to decide based on what you ask your community to do to enter. If you are simply asking people to share, follow, write captions, etc., to enter, you can have a short-term social media contest. On the other hand, if you organize a photo, story, design your product, etc., contest, you must give people time to get creative and submit their best work. Whatever you decide, remember to plan ahead and include rules in your contest description so that people know the terms from the beginning.