How To Set Up An Instagram Giveaway

There are few methods more reliable in growing an Instagram following than running a competition.

Instagram giveaways create interactions with your existing audience while drawing in countless new views and followers. They're a tried and true way to drive engagement in a way that Instagram'due south algorithm can't help simply observe.

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Why you should run an Instagram giveaway

Instagram giveaways can help y'all hit a few different Instagram KPIs. Here are the top reasons you should consider including Instagram contests in your strategy:

Grow your post-obit

Running a giveaway on your Instagram account is a swell way to grow your audition. Contests tend to bring in new viewers to your page.

In the example below, Impenetrable coffee asked contestants to tag a friend in a annotate to enter their giveaway:

Some of the tagged users went on to tag their friends, further extending the attain of the giveaway. Afterward all, who doesn't love a contest? The prospect of winning something draws users in and gives them a chance to familiarize themselves with your brand.

Engage your audience

Giveaways, by nature, requite your audience a chance to interact with your brand and your content. They can bring in algorithm-friendly engagement in the form of likes and comments, sure. But more chiefly, they can encourage the sort of date that can't be measured by statistics.

Contests and giveaways can allow authentic user engagement, bringing your audience closer to your page, brand, and ethos. Information technology gets people talking on and off social media well-nigh what your brand is doing and can increase overall make awareness of both web and brick and mortar retail.

They're too a great mode to let your audition know that their back up is appreciated.

Collect user-generated content

Contests can be a great opportunity to let your audience to generate (free and creative) content for your folio. Whether information technology'due south caption contests, photoshops, or art, it's a way to go the creative side of your followers going.

Plus, your followers will love to see information technology — UGC serves as social proof, showing your followers and first-time business relationship visitors that your brand is loved by the community.

How to set an Instagram giveaway

1. Plan your contest

Y'all'll want to start by outlining the plan for your contest. This will involve picking out what kind of competition yous want to run. Yous'll also need to ready time constraints. Make sure the fourth dimension and appointment the contest ends are clear and adhered to in selecting your winner.

Perhaps most importantly, you'll desire to set a goal. What are you aiming to get from this competition? More than followers? Increased sales numbers for a specific product or service? Any information technology may be, figure out early on what y'all desire to gain. That volition make tracking the success of the competition far easier.

2. Prepare the rules

Every contest has rules. Yours will exist no different. Whether it's entry deadlines or what your followers need to practise to enter, brand certain they are clear and legible.

When posting about the giveaway on Instagram, it may be best to include the guidelines in the caption (like in the case below). This will make them easy to find for your followers.

When sharing the contest on your website, a dedicated landing page, or other social media platforms it may be best to 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 data conspicuously.

3. Option a prize

This part should be fun! Decide what information technology is your followers will be competing for. Information technology could be a production or assortment of products, a gift menu, or something else. Just make certain yous cull a prize that makes your Instagram contest worthwhile.

It's also wise to make certain the prize is related to your brand. General prizes similar cash or Amazon souvenir cards will lure in random followers looking for a gamble to win a quick buck. Offering products and prizes related to what your page revolves around is more constructive. It ensures that anyone who enters and follows you for the contest is engaged with what information technology is yous do.

That will ensure enough of leads come up to your page – and that your current followers are rewarded for their loyalty!

4. Promote your competition

Now that you've decided what to give away, information technology's time to make certain people know you're giving it away, to brainstorm with! Promote your Instagram competition as widely as possible. You'll desire to share it on your Instagram Stories besides as whatever other social media platform your brand uses.

In this example, the Daily Hive promotes an Instagram feed post that outlines their giveaway with a matching Story:

If you lot're running a competition, you'll probably want to run into some concrete numbers when it comes to seeing how it helps your page's traffic.

Hootsuite is the perfect resource to assistance 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 tin can be tracked via Streams.

Larn more near how Hootsuite tin can assistance you with Instagram contests (and, well, all of your other social media efforts):

How to create Instagram giveaway rules

Before you launch your Instagram contest, y'all need to make certain you're following both the rules and the right communication. In that location are, after all, laws surrounding contests that you'll need to be certain y'all're post-obit.

Here are some dos and don'ts when it comes to Instagram giveaways.

DO follow the law

It might seem giddy but there actually are laws surrounding contests held by brands, even over Instagram. It is only farther complicated past the fact that those laws are oft specific to locations. They can vary state to state and get especially tricky when dealing with international entries.

There is no ane-size-fits-all approach to making sure you aren't breaking any laws by hosting your contest. You'll have to do the research on your own and may even find it worthwhile to take a lawyer help you out. Making sure you are covering all your legal bases can be vital in belongings a successful Instagram giveaway.

Practise arrive clear that Instagram is not involved in the contest

This one is important! Instagram has a set of guidelines for promotions of any kind being run on the app. Y'all must clarify that your giveaway, "is in no manner sponsored, endorsed or administered past, or associated with, Instagram."

DON'T ask Instagram for back up

Because of the to a higher place rule, Instagram is pretty easily-off when it comes to giveaways. They brand it clear that, "If y'all use our service to administer your promotion, y'all do then at your own risk." This is why it is vital to make sure you lot outline your rules in advance and that you lot have done your legal research. If bug with the giveaway ascend, they will be on you to set.

Instagram also won't answer any of your contest-related questions. Instagram's contest policy states that they, "will not assist you in the administration of your promotion and cannot advise you on whether consent is required for utilize of user content or on how to obtain any necessary consent."

Again, this is why you need to make certain yous have your rules figured out before launching the giveaway.

vii Instagram competition ideas

Now that you've gotten the boring part done, the fun can begin! Instagram contests and giveaways can exist an heady style to engage with your target audience. Here are some of the best and near reliable giveaways to run.

1. Similar and/or comment to win

There's no need to overcomplicate things.

One of the most common forms of Instagram giveaways is pretty simple: you instruct your entrants to similar and/or annotate on the mail to enter. This contest format is piece of cake for everyone involved. Entrants don't accept to do much to become their name in the mix. Plus, you don't have to track Instagram hashtags or annihilation like that to continue track of entries.

Film Companion'south contest is a simple and effective form of fan date. All any of their nearly 300K followers demand to do to enter is like the postal service and drop a favorite Bollywood movie quote in the comments.

The addition of calculation a comment to the requirements is a good way to weed out Instagram bots and everyone simply entering random contests in mass. Any requirement for a specific sort of comment similar the above Bollywood film will do merely fine. Information technology also drives appointment with the post which assists in the algorithm favoring your content.

2. Photo caption contest

Caption contests are perfect for creating direct engagement with your audition. They're simple: mail a pic and inquire your users to add the perfect explanation.

Because the winner is oft decided based on quality, it brings out the all-time in the entrants. Y'all tin judge the winner yourself or tell the users to similar for their favorite caption, with the winner being the person with the most likes.

Explanation contests also encourage date between users. Yous'll oftentimes see your followers replying to captions they enjoyed, which can serve to build a community effectually your folio.

This caption contest held by Pokey (an Instagram-famous Boston Terrier) is an first-class example. Information technology yielded smashing engagement with the page's community. It brought out a ton of artistic content in the comments. That's really all y'all can inquire for from an Instagram giveaway – this one was clearly a success!

3. Tag a friend

Ultimately the aim of Instagram giveaways is to bring new viewers to your page. Why not have your followers do it for you? All you take to practice is tell people to tag a friend (or ii, or three) in the comments to enter your contest.

Doing this gives the tagged friends a notification, leading them to the comment they're tagged in as well as your post. Oftentimes it will lead to the tagged friend following your page – and maybe fifty-fifty tagging some new friends of their ain as an entry.

It's worth noting that tagging is oftentimes incorporated into other types of contests equally well. The above case from Pokey required friends to exist tagged to enter in add-on to a funny caption. That'due south the beauty of using this method in your giveaway. It'southward versatile and can be integrated into any existing contest.

four. User-generated content

Whether you're asking for photos or text, a user-generated content giveaway is a great way to create community engagement. It volition also give yous lots of unique content to postal service to your folio moving forrard.

If your page advertises products you can ask entrants to post a photograph with your wares. You lot can also encourage your followers to mail a photo that simply adheres to a theme.

Contests like these are also a great mode to collect testimonials. You can ask users to share their favorite personal stories surrounding the brand, product, or ones that relate to your page's ethos. The choice is yours, just make sure it's fabricated clear in the rules that you have the right to repost any of the entries.

Animal Magnetic's photo contest is one of the more than unique ones you're likely to see. Even so, it'south kind of a perfect example of one of these contests. It engages with a very specific community. It asks for user-generated content that falls under that community's cyberspace of interests. And the entries are pretty entertaining on their ain.

5. Trivia

People have been running trivia contests offline for ages. There's no reason you tin't take something that is tried and true and use it on your page!

Instagram trivia giveaways let your followers to show their skills. Y'all could have them answer questions about your page and brand or even a current trending topic like sports or pop culture.

Generally, yous'll want to format information technology so that the winner is a randomly selected correct answer. Giving the prize to the first person who answers correctly shortens the window of time in which your postal service is effective.

N Shore Kia's contempo trivia contest is brusk and sugariness — the perfect accessible trivia contest. It tests its audience's cognition of the Kia make and draws new eyes to the page past adding a "tag your friends" requirement.

When someone shares a post via the repost app or to their stories y'all're notified of information technology on Instagram. Information technology provides a savvy way to run an Instagram giveaway. Create a contest post and tell your followers to share it via Repost or to their stories.

It's super piece of cake to track entries and choice a winner. More chiefly, information technology gets your post shared effectually in massive quantities. This puts more eyes on your contest and therefore your page.

Venmo has recently fabricated waves with semi-regular cash giveaways. All they require is that you share the contest post and drop your tag in the comments.

seven. Hashtag competition

Similar many social media platforms, Instagram's algorithm and user interface apply hashtags.

Given how easily they compile posts that autumn under similar topics, they make for a groovy style to host giveaways. Like a user-generated content competition, hashtag giveaways crave entrants to post to their page or stories under a specific hashtag (you determine what that is yourself).

Ideally what yous'll end up with is a hashtag with sizeable traffic. This format does not just allow you to easily keep runway of entries. It besides drives date with a specific hashtag, which the algorithm tends to take notation of. A well-performing hashtag will bulldoze traffic back to your mail service and your page.

Destify Weddings did it correct with this contest. They branded the contest with a unique hashtag, #WhereDidYouWed. Posts under the hashtag shared some dandy UGC that the brand took advantage of on their page. They even used some of the entries to further promote the contest.

The one thing to keep in listen when planning a hashtag contest is that there are a LOT of hashtags out there. Make sure the hashtag you apply for your contest is unique to yous. You'll have a lot more trouble keeping up with entries if you lot don't. Plus you want to make sure the traffic your giveaway's hashtag generates leads back to you.

Use Hootsuite to run your Instagram giveaway. From a single dashboard, you lot can schedule your posts, answer comments and DMs, and monitor engagement in real-fourth dimension. Effort information technology gratuitous today.

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