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11 Instagram giveaway ideas that will get you new followers
Find out why Instagram contests work wonders for growth on the platform and learn how to plan your own successful Instagram giveaway. The post 11 Instagram giveaway ideas that will get you new followers appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.
So you’re planning an Instagram giveaway—how generous!
Here’s a step-by-step guide to throwing a successful Instagram giveaway, complete with tips for laying down the contest rules, promoting your giveaway and picking a winner — plus 11 examples from brands that are doing it right.
Let’s get started, you selfless, noble giver, you.
Bonus: Download 4 free, customizable social media contest templates to help you get started promoting your contests on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
What is an Instagram giveaway?
An Instagram giveaway (or an Instagram contest) is a type of promotion involving a brand or creator gifting a product or service to an Instagram user. Users can enter the contest based on criteria defined by the giveaway organizer.
Here are some common reasons why brands throw giveaways on Instagram:
- To get new followers. Contests tend to bring in new viewers to your page.
- To engage their audience. Giveaways give your audience a chance to interact with your brand and your content—they bring in algorithm-friendly engagement in the form of likes and comments.
- To collect user-generated content (UGC). Contests can be a great opportunity to allow your audience to generate (free and creative) content for your page.
- To give back to their audience. Who would we be without our followers? Hosting an Instagram giveaway helps build your relationship with your audience and give them something in return for their support.
How to do an Instagram giveaway: 6 steps
1. Plan your contest goals
Start by deciding what the goal of your contest is. More followers? Increased sales numbers for a specific product or service?
Whatever it may be, figure out early on what you want to gain. That will make tracking the success of the contest far easier.
2. Set (and share) the contest rules
Clear rules are essential. When posting about the giveaway on Instagram, it may be best to include the deadlines and promotion guidelines in the caption. This will make them easy to find for your followers.
(@iamgracechoi)When sharing the contest on your website, a dedicated landing page, or other social networks, include any important rules upfront. If this isn’t possible, direct users to the giveaway post’s caption or wherever else the rules may be outlined.
If your contest is only open to certain geographic areas, be sure to include that information clearly.
3. Pick a giveaway prize
This part should be fun! Decide what it is your followers will be competing for. It could be a product or assortment of products, a gift card, a service, or something else.
It’s wise to make sure the prize is related to your brand. General prizes like cash or Amazon gift cards will lure in random followers looking for a chance to win a quick buck. Offering products and prizes related to what your page revolves around is more effective—it ensures that anyone who enters and follows you for the contest is engaged with what it is you do.
4. Publish your contest (at the right time)
And we’re live! Publish your contest using Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish feature to ensure that your giveaway is being seen by the maximum number of followers.
You can also use Hootsuite to see how well the giveaway is performing in analytics, and respond to questions in your DMs or comments using Hootsuite’s inbox
5. Promote your contest
Promote your Instagram giveaway as widely as possible. You’ll want to share it on your Instagram Stories, your Instagram feed, as well as any other social media platform your brand uses. Post about the giveaway multiple times (“One week left to enter,” “Last chance to enter,” etc.) to make sure that no one misses it.
6. Track entries with a social media management tool
If you’re running a contest, you’ll probably want to see some concrete numbers proving how it helps your page’s traffic.
Hootsuite is the perfect resource to help run and track contests. Contest posts can be scheduled with the Planner. Comments can be tracked and answered in the Inbox, and mentions/hashtag usage can be tracked via Streams.
Learn more about how Hootsuite can help you with Instagram marketing contests (and, well, all of your other social media efforts):
Instagram giveaway template
We’ve put together a free social media contest template that covers entry methods, terms of the giveaway, prize rules and disclosures about how winners will be selected. If you’re stuck on how to properly word your giveaway rules, start here.
Bonus: Download 4 free, customizable social media contest templates to help you get started promoting your contests on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
2 recommended Instagram giveaway pickers
Need a random comment picker to decide your Instagram contest winner? Try these.
1. Wask.co
Wask’s tool is for IG comments. It’s free to use once, and after that asks for a login (but offers a free plan).
2. IG Comment Picker
If you have less than 150 comments to choose from, this is a good tool to use (it’s free for 150 comments). You also don’t have to log in or sign up to use it.
11 Instagram contest examples
If you’re searching for inspiration for your next Instagram giveaway, hashtags are your best friend: try searching #contest, #giveaway, #instagramcontest, #iggiveaway, #contestalert, and other similar variations to find millions of examples of contests — or scroll down the list of inspiring examples below.
The following 11 giveaways demonstrate different contest strategies, contest ideas, entry methods, prize ideas and creative ways to promote your giveaway.
1. Like, comment, and/or share to enter
This is the simplest form of IG giveaway. Your audience enters by interacting with the post (through liking, commenting or sharing—and post importantly, following). This makes entering super easy; it’s low-effort, high-reward.
Your Instagram contest could ask followers to share a post to their story as a form of entry, or save the post…
…or even ask users to comment (and tag friends in the comments section, more on that later) to enter.
Steal this strategy
- Keep your digital marketing goals in mind when deciding your entry methods. Do you want to gain followers, get likes or comments, up your “share” stats, etc.?
- Try to keep entering as simple as possible—confusing entry methods are a recipe for low engagement. To boost engagement, make entering your contest a lazy person’s dream.
- Think about long-term growth when choosing entry methods. For example, “like to enter” only gets you likes on a single post, but “follow to enter” has the potential to earn you permanent supporters.
2. Tag a friend to enter
Asking users to tag their friends in the comments—and counting each of those comments as an entry—is basically an evil genius move. It means that the entrant’s friends will get notified when they’re tagged, encouraging them to also enter the contest.
If one user tags three friends, those three friends tag three more friends, and so on, pretty soon you’ll have taken over the world. Of course, not everyone will do this… we’re pretty certain that friendships have ended over serial tagging. Even so, it’s a very effective strategy for growth.
Tagging a friend is less of an evil genius move when it actually has something to do with your brand, or the giveaway itself. For example, if you’re giving away a spa package for two, you might ask folks to tag the person they’d bring with them if they won.
This contest for hotpot asks users to “TAG 1 friend in the comment section below (unlimited entries, must tag a different person each time)” in the comments. They’re giving away two $50 gift cards, likely one to the contest winner and one to the tagged friend.
Steal this strategy
- Make tagging a friend in the comments a method of entry to increase your giveaway’s reach.
- Think about how tagging a friend can provide value to the user, as well—for example, you can give away two prizes (so the tagged friend also gets a prize). Otherwise, you risk your contest simply annoying all the tagged friends.
3. Give away a new product
A new product launch is a great reason to host a contest—it helps create hype around the product and share news of the launch with your audience.
Plus, a fresh product automatically has more perceived value, even if the actual monetary value of the prize isn’t super high (for example, this giveaway of ready-to-eat boxed waffles).
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