Staiir Social Media Marketing

Wondering how to run an Instagram contest? Looking for Instagram giveaway ideas you can adapt?

In this blog, you’ll discover tips and motivation to assist you with planning a successful Instagram competition that helps your marketing goals.

Everyone loves getting something for free. Actually, one of the primary reasons that individuals “Like” a brands Facebook page is with the goal that they can either get a discount or win something.The rise of social media allows businesses to easily create their own contests and giveaways that can:
  • Build links to your website (great for SEO)
  • Increase traffic
  • Create social engagement
  • Increase followers

What Are Instagram’s Rules for Contests?

When it comes to Instagram contests, a dominant rule to adhere to, and which most people are unaware of, is the statement of release. The below explanation (or a comparable one) MUST be included for all giveaway posts shared on Instagram.As per Instagram rules, this promotion is in no way sponsored, administered, or associated with Instagram, Inc. By entering, entrants confirm that they are 13+ years of age, release Instagram of responsibility, and agree to Instagram’s terms of use.Make certain to embed this announcement toward the finish of your Instagram contest section.Now that you know the restrictions and requirements for running a contest, here are the steps to take to run a contest on Instagram.

1. Decide on a goal for the giveaway

Facilitating an Instagram giveaway isn’t just amazing for your supporters, it can likewise be an immense advantage to you in the event that you plan it right! By picking an objective for your giveaway you can rapidly and effectively grow your  Instagram / Facebook / YouTube / Twitter Followers   Likes & comments   Email subscribers   Blog readers   Website visitors, etc 

2. Pick a relevant prize

What’s a giveaway without a prize?! Ensure the prize you pick is something your objective market (or current crowd) needs. The idea is that by choosing a prize that appeals to your target market, the more of those people you will attract.Some people will go all out and give away a lavish prize and while that does attract people, it won’t necessarily attract your target market, and it certainly won’t create any customersSo don’t go crazy – pick something reasonable and interesting to your ideal audience. 

3. Define Contest Rules or Conditions

Going beyond the information listed in the previous section, do participants have to be a certain age or are there certain restrictions (like Indian residents only)?Additionally choose to what extent the giveaway will run, just as the beginning date and end date. Will the crusade be 1 day, various days, weeks, or fourteen days? Numerous studies have shown that for large-scale campaigns, 1-2 weeks is the optimal length of time.If the condition to enter include users sharing a post or other additional tedious activities which takes more time, the giveaway may need to run longer.How to host an Instagram Giveaway

4. Launch Your Instagram Contest

In your giveaway post, you can impart your challenge or giveaway with content in the picture or graphics. This way, it will be clearly noticeable when users are going through their Instagram feed.Choose an image that’s related to the theme/content of the campaign. In your giveaway post caption, add terms & condition of registration and lawful disclaimers as discussed previously. 

5. Promote, Promote, Promote!

Simply creating a post for your Instagram giveaway may attract some entrants but if you really want it to reach the widest range of people you have to get serious about promotion! Here’s a few things to consider:
  1. Your post will not reach to bigger audience automatically. Engagement is the only key, you need to interact with users in your niche. But who would ever spend their whole day & night interacting with people?? Now here we come in. Our Instagram Automation service will help you in reaching to 100,000+ users in a month, it will interact just like a human being would. This will give a double boost to your profile’s followers, visits, impressions and reach.
  2. Utilize Stories before, during, and after the contest to keep your audience aware and interested.
  1. Share the giveaway to any other social platforms you’re active on, such as your Facebook page or Twitter, and ask them to come to Instagram.

6. Evaluate Instagram Contest Results

Track the results of your contests to measure the participation, increase in followers, clicks to your website, and other criteria.You can start to compare the information from each giveaway contest with figure out which kinds of prizes, timing, the content, and the sorts of participation that drive the best outcomes for your business, in view of your individual goals.When the contest gets over, I suggest that you should edit your caption to “GIVEAWAY CLOSED” at the starting of post. This will make sure that visitors who view the post after the giveaway has expired will not attempt to join the contest.When the contest wraps up, edit your post caption to read

7. Choose a winner fair & square

Once a winner is selected, verify that they’ve followed all the rules and contact them to arrange delivery of their prize!Then you should announce the winner – if you fail to do this people may think that no one actually won and that can reflect poorly on you, so don’t forget this step!Our Automation Service can help you in reaching out people who have interacted with your giveaway post, and let them know the results. Everyone who have interacted on your giveaway post will receive a DM about the result.

Extra Tip:

Stay away from loop giveaways

Loops giveaways are a popular method for quickly gaining followers on Instagram… but I don’t suggest you use them! While it can add more followers, the rate of un-following will be very high, once the giveaway ends.So what are loop giveaways? Loop giveaways typically consist of several accounts (I’ve seen giveaways with 30+!) that team up to purchase a lavish prize (like a drone or designer purse). They then lead the giveaway entrants through a “loop” by having them follow each user, one after the other.This method is very time consuming and often the user doesn’t even know how many accounts are in the loop, making it feel never-ending.In fact, plenty of users will actually quit part-way through the loop.Once the giveaway commences, users find themselves following so many accounts that they don’t actually have interest in, and end up unfollowing.So, like I said, it’s a method to avoid if you value the time and sanity of your followers! The idea can be replicated on a much smaller scale if you wish, just make sure to stick to no more than three accounts to keep things simple for your audience. 

About the author

Harshil is founder of Staiir Social Media Marketing agency. He started his career as a software engineer in 2014 and moved to digital marketing to help small & mid sized businesses grow.
Find him on Twitter @harshil240.