Instagram Giveaways have become the ultimate baiting tool to lure people to your platform, get your followers, and reach up! If you have been at the receiving end of these giveaways, you’d agree how tempting they can be and regardless of the odds, you don’t hesitate to participate in them, because let’s be honest, who doesn’t love some freebies?
Now that we know how significant giveaways can be, let’s see how you can go by announcing a giveaway of your own to gain more prominence on your platform and to treat your existing audience!
Why do a Giveaway?
Before we move to your guide to doing a Instagram Giveaways, let us tell you why you should do one in the first place. A giveaway is the best opportunity to keep yourself out there, promote your profile, grow your followers, get more reach and viewership for your content, and establish yourself as an active influencer!
If you do it right, it’s the perfect snowball effect; you tempt people to grow your platform, make a name for yourself, partner with other influencers and brands, get gigs, and that’s how we roll in this enthralling era of influencer marketing.
Instagram Giveaway Instructions: A Step-by-Step Guide
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create an Instagram giveaway:
- Determine the goal of your giveaway: Before you start, it’s important to determine the goal of your giveaway. Do you want to increase your follower count, promote a new product or service, or engage with your audience? Knowing your goal will help you design your giveaway and set the rules.
- Choose a prize: The prize should be something valuable enough to attract your audience to participate in the giveaway. It could be a product, service, discount, or even a gift card. Make sure the prize is relevant to your brand and target audience.
- Set the rules: The rules of your giveaway should be clear and easy to understand. Decide on the entry requirements, such as following your account, tagging a friend, sharing your post, or using a specific hashtag. Make sure to state the start and end dates of the giveaway, and any restrictions or eligibility requirements, such as age or location.
- Create a post: Create a post announcing the giveaway and include a clear call-to-action for your audience to participate. Use eye-catching visuals and engaging captions to encourage participation. Make sure to also include the rules and the prize in the post.
- Promote the giveaway: Once you’ve posted the giveaway, promote it on your other social media channels and your website. You could also consider collaborating with other brands or influencers to increase the reach of your giveaway.
- Monitor the entries: Keep track of the entries and make sure they comply with the rules. You could use a tool like Gleam or Rafflecopter to manage the entries and select a winner randomly.
- Announce the winner: Once the giveaway has ended, announce the winner in a separate post or story. Make sure to also contact the winner directly to confirm their details and deliver the prize.
- Follow up: After the giveaway, follow up with the participants and thank them for participating. You could also consider offering them a discount or special offer to further engage with your brand.
How to Pick a Instagram Giveaway Winner on Instagram
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to pick a winner for your Instagram giveaway:
- Choose a method: There are several methods you can use to select a winner for your Instagram giveaway, such as using a random number generator, a third-party app, or selecting a winner manually.
- Review the entries: Before selecting a winner, review all the entries to ensure they comply with the giveaway rules. Make sure to exclude any invalid entries, such as duplicates or entries from ineligible participants.
- Randomly select a winner: If you’re using a random number generator or a third-party app, enter all the valid entries into the tool and let it randomly select a winner. Make sure to document the selection process for transparency.
- Announce the winner: Once you’ve selected a winner, announce it on your Instagram account in a separate post or story. Make sure to also contact the winner directly to confirm their details and deliver the prize.
- Follow up: After the giveaway, follow up with the participants and thank them for participating. You could also consider offering them a discount or special offer to further engage with your brand.
Remember to be transparent and fair in your selection process to maintain trust with your audience.
Wobb’s guide to organising your own Instagram Giveaways
Let’s move on to how to go about organising a Instagram giveaways for your platform. Here’s the primary thing, the key to a successful Instagram giveaways is to make it worth your audience’s while. And the best way to do that is to keep things less complicated and the prize worth the effort they put into the contest you organise.
Start by teasing your audience with the possibility of a giveaway; nothing gets people going on like some anticipation. Put up a story, asking them would like a giveaway, and regardless of which kind of content you do, your audience would love one!
Keeping them hooked is one thing you do wanna keep in mind, don’t delay things. Having teased them, announce the giveaway soon after instead of waiting for a few days. Wondering what you can do? There are a plethora of ideas out there for you to decide a prize for the winner of your giveaway.
Our suggestion? Keep a feasible contest, make the people follow you, tag a few people on the post’s comments and share the post on their story. Once all three are done, the person qualifies to be a candidate for the giveaway. This will definitely increase your reach and grow your audience.
But hey! what about the winners?
Now here is what you do about the Instagram Giveaways winners. First comes the prize; keep it exciting. Make sure what you are giving is worth the effort people will put into your giveaway. Then make sure it is something people actually would want, especially people who follow you. For instance, if you are a fitness influencer, for the most part, you have people following you who are invested in the idea of wellness and fitness. What can be the prize of your giveaway? Supplements and gym membership. Ar a self-care influencer? Then get your followers something that speaks self-care and self-love, a stay at home self-care package seems doable? A grooming kit? Honestly, the possibilities are endless when you know your audience!
Keep three winners, and more people are inclined to participate because their odds of winning are relatively better as compared to contests where there is only one winner. How do you decide on the winners? Well, get the usernames of the people who have successfully qualified the criteria mentioned by you, and use a random selection site. Add the names there and let the bot pick at random for you.
Things you don’t want to do
If you want your social media empire to grow with help of Instagram Giveaways, never take the decision of the winner in your hand unless it’s a creative contest. For the contests mentioned above, you should go with a bot selecting the winner for you because if you do it on your own, you can be biased. Even if you are not biased, the thousands of people following you and who participated in the giveaway may not think the same.
Another thing to keep in mind is not tangled things much and not ask too much of your audience. The idea of giveaways is getting something for free; if they have to work too much for it, they will lose interest. So keep the rules basic and straightforward, drop a disclaimer to avoid complications later.
Rules and disclaimer can be regarding age, allowing only people of legal age to participate. Another one can be targeting a specific region of people to participate. It could be a state if you are a micro-influencer, but if you are a class A influencer, you should go for a more extensive geographical area.
Some extra tips just for you
When talking about things you should do, you need to be direct and coherent for Instagram Giveaways. Do it for your audience more than for yourself. Giveaways are a great way to show your existing followers how appreciative are you of them, so keep it grand and be humble about it.
Don’t rush the process; take your time with announcing the winner. Let people participate over the given entry portal, but keep a deadline way earlier than your result announcement, so it’s hassle-free for you as well.
Be open to queries. Being hostile will not help you here, so if your audience has questions, answer them as humbly and directly as possible. Preferably, make a highlight of all the queries already answered so people can refer to them and you can save some time.
Nothing gets you trending and out there like a hashtag; make one! Keep it simple but creative, and make sure it has your platform’s essence, so it resonates with your audience. Ask your audience to use the hashtag.
Show your audience the process of how everything happens. If you have behind the scenes to the bot rolling the winners’ names, share them on the stories, so people know that you weren’t biased at all. This not only promotes authenticity and honesty but also makes the people feel involved.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to partner up. It’s always a plus if you partner up with another influencer or brand. A lot of Bookstagrammers out their organise giveaways with each other. This allows them to target more people and keep the prize of it grand as well. If it’s something you think you can do, go ahead and do it!
Well, we have come to an end to this brief and super-easy guide to organising Instagram giveaways. And while we are at partnering up, come and partner with Wobb because we make influencer marketing more effortless than ever! Let us worry about your campaign needs and give you the best ideas to grow your brand and platform!