Despite the fact that Facebook is still the most popular social media site for businesses, Instagram has more than one billion active users. A growing number of businesses are leveraging Instagram's user base to build relationships with their consumers and encourage them to return again and time again.
As an Instagram influencer or a huge company, organising freebies and contests is one of the most effective strategies to attract more followers, likes, and comments on the social media platform. Your contest should be more than just a way to get more people to follow you on social media. You want to increase the number of people who know about your brand and keep them interested.
Contests on Instagram are a lot of fun! Competitions on Instagram are more popular than regular posts, according to a Tailwind study On average, contest posts on Instagram receive 3.5 times the likes and 64 times the comments of regular posts.
You can quickly and easily build viral contests, giveaways, and other types of engagement with Woorise's drag-and-and-drop interface. More sales, more traffic, more social interaction, and more followers are all things you want to accomplish. The following are some examples.
But, how can you make an Instagram contest a success?
You can utilise Instagram contests to grow your following and boost your brand exposure, and we'll cover some of the finest techniques in this piece. Woorise uses a few easy Instagram tricks, and I'm going to share them with you today.
Decide where and what kind of contest you want to hold.
Choosing a location for your Instagram contest is a critical first step in creating a successful campaign. Although we're discussing Instagram giveaways, you have two options for hosting your giveaway or contest. To host the giveaway on Instagram, you may either post it as an Instagram post or you can host it on a website or blog, for example, a landing page. Both choices have their advantages and disadvantages.
On Instagram, you may hold a contest.
This is the easiest method, but it has drawbacks. Because you can't collect user email addresses or other contact information, this is one of the largest limitations. Additionally, Instagram does not permit the inclusion of links or other methods of sharing in Instagram posts. It's simple to conduct your giveaway on Instagram, and you can expect a lot of comments, likes, and more interaction as a result of this.
The entry rules for your Instagram contest should be clearly stated in your post, so that your audience knows exactly what they need to do to participate. A variety of methods exist for gaining new followers through participation in your giveaways. If you urge folks to do as little as possible, you'll get more submissions.
This will help you gain more followers and increase engagement by encouraging people to take action, like posting a picture and tagging your business. Take your pick from a variety of contests and don't be afraid to get creative!
Listed below are a few suggestions on how your target market can participate in your contest:
Encourage your audience to follow your Instagram account in order to be entered to win!
In order to win: Encourage your readers to "like" the post
Ask your audience to remark on a certain topic in order to win. "How many candies are in the jar?" is an example.
To be eligible for a prize, participants must include the hashtag #tagtowin while posting on social media.
Have your Instagram audience post a photo, selfie, or video with a specified hashtag and a specific theme in order to win a contest.
To get the most out of your contest, combine two or more of the contest options above. Instagram is a great platform because it doesn't have as many restrictions on advertising as other social media networks. As a result, you are free to be as imaginative as you wish while coming up with the concept for your contest.
Create a contest and post it to your website, blog, or specific landing page.
Because you have more control over your giveaway, this choice is more potent. Taking your audience out of Instagram is the sole drawback. Instagram has become a more familiar environment for many users. It's also difficult to drive users away from Instagram by limiting the ability to include a link to an external site in postings (check the secret tips on the bottom of the article for a solution on this).
If you host your Instagram contest on your website, blog, or landing page, here are several benefits:
Collect the user's e-mail address and other information.
Increase the number of people who visit your website.
You'll get more traffic and sales after this entry.
The design of the landing page is entirely up to you.
A message or an advertisement on Instagram is not disruptive to its users.
Boost the popularity of your company's name
When and where should I have a contest, and what kind of contest should I hold?
The best results can be achieved if you choose to host your giveaway on both platforms.
To let your followers know about your giveaway, first start a contest using a tool like Woorise, and then publish a picture of the giveaway on Instagram. In the Instagram post, you can ask for any of the following types of contests. There are a number of ways you can encourage your audience to participate in your contest.
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2. Determine the contest objectives on Instagram.
To get started, make a list of attainable goals that you can strive toward. What's your goal for your social media presence? What's more important: raising brand awareness or cultivating customer loyalty? How many mentions and how much user-generated content are you looking for? The more explicit your goals are, the more probable it is that you will succeed.
Instagram is the ideal platform to help you communicate your brand's story, and it's free to use. Your campaign should have measurable goals, whether it's growing the number of followers by 50% or gaining 100 new leads, so that you can see how well it went.
To ensure the success of your contest, be sure to set a deadline and budget in advance, which will help you build a better event. Between 20 and 60 days is the ideal length of time to run your Instagram contest.
Look at other Instagram giveaways for ideas and motivation
To be eligible for an Instagram giveaway, you must either like the post or tag friends. Take a cue from other Instagram marketers and use their best practises into your own promotional efforts. There are a variety of ways to uncover Instagram competitions, prize draws and contests.
Here are some ideas to search for Instagram contests:
Try hashtags like #giveaway, #competition, #contest, #win, etc. on Instagram to find contest-related hashtags.
Platforms such as Brand24.com, Agorapulse.com, Hootsuite.com, and BrandWatch.com can be used for social media marketing.
You may use Twitter's advanced search to look for terms and hashtags associated with the contest you're hosting. We recommend using TweetDeck, a free Twitter programme, for better management.
You can find giveaways and competitions by performing a Google search for these terms. It is a good idea to use a variety of keywords and phrases when searching for Instagram contests, giveaways, etc.
Look up contests on websites that list them.
Follow and bookmark fellow competitors
Do a competitive analysis – Is your competition doing anything like this? What was the overarching concept? How well did it go over? Keep an eye out for contests hosted by your competitors and record what seems to work and what doesn't. I believe there is always room to improve.
Prizes that are relevant to your audience should be given away.
To get better outcomes, it's crucial to pay attention to the competition's reward. Make sure the rewards you're giving away are relevant to your target audience, your business, or at the very least your industry. Focus on giving away.
Freebie hunters who aren't interested in your company or products tend to be drawn to giveaways that offer generic prizes. Your Instagram giveaway should focus on giving away a reward that is related to your business, rather than a "huge" prize like an iPhone or cash, if you want to establish a strong customer base and increase sales.
Prizes costing $1,000 or more tend to get more attention than those worth less than $100. A cooperation with another business can be an option if you want to give away a high-value prize but lack the resources to do it on your own. With the correct incentives, you'll be able to consistently attract the right kind of followers and develop brand awareness among the ideal audience for your company.
5. Collaboration with businesses and influencers is essential.
An enjoyable method for increasing Instagram followers and engagement is this. For an Instagram contest, collaborate with a business that has a similar client base to yours. One of the best ways to reach two distinct but related audiences is through joint promotions. This allows you to populate your followings with folks from each other's follower bases..
Look around on Instagram for folks with similar aesthetic tastes to your own. Let them know you're interested in working together. In the event that you already have a specific brand or influencer in mind, you may want to conduct some research on potential sponsors.
Instagram influencers can be found using these marketing tools:
trendHERO.io
klear.com
buzzsumo.com
upfluence.com
brand24.com
ninjaoutreach.com
You can see this in trendHERO, where there is an option named '500 Similar Accounts,' for example. A list of accounts your audience follows might also be created using this tool, as well. With just two clicks, you can locate sponsors for a giveaway. It streamlines the process of discovering and comparing audiences. Here are some amazing recommendations from later.com on how to identify instagram influencers for your company.
Sponsorships are another sort of collaboration. Sponsoring or co-sponsoring your contest will help you gain more attention for your business or cause. It can also help you create strong ties with your colleagues and influencers in the business. For your Instagram contest, it's important to find a sponsor who is relevant to your audience and who will get as much out of the promotion of the contest as you will.
Set the rules and guidelines for your giveaway.
The rules for a successful Instagram contest must be clearly defined. You want to make it clear who can participate in the competition. Are there any restrictions on the ages of those who can enter the competition? How many people can participate in the competition? To minimise any confusion or potential issues when the winners are chosen, it is best to post the rules in advance.
Here are a few terms you'll want to familiarise yourself with:
Information on the brand, partners, and sponsors behind the promotion
A start and end date that is clearly defined
How many prize winners do you expect?
Any awards to be awarded, along with information on how they will be distributed, are included below.
Criteria to be met before being admitted
Restrictions, such as age or nationality, on participation.
GDPR and privacy regulations
The date and method by which you'll notify the winner
The campaign is not linked with or endorsed by Instagram in any way, shape, or form.
Check out Instagram's Promotion Rules and make sure you adhere to their restrictions as well!
7. Use inventive and popular hashtags in your posts.
Make sure you use an exclusive hashtag for your Instagram picture contests. With the help of hashtags, you can keep track of all of your posts. Your company's name, logo, campaign, or product can be prominently displayed. Encourage people to use your hashtag when posting images on social media. To determine a winner, all you have to do is conduct a hashtag search.
Hashtags aren't simply for keeping track of people's posts. As a result, they assist you get your content in front of the right audience. It's important to use the correct hashtags for your contest to get the attention it requires to succeed. Using hashtags relating to your contest in conjunction with other widely used Instagram hashtags will help your contest gain even more traction.
You can use the following hashtags to promote your giveaways, contests, and other promotions:
#contest
#giveaway
There is #competition in everything (best for targeting United Kingdom and Australian audience)
#sweepstakes
#win
#promotion
#contestalert
#Instagramcontest
#Instagramgiveaway
#instagood
Promote and spread the word about your competition on Instagram.
You need a strategy in place before you can think about promoting your product. Obviously, you'd like to get your contest in front of more people. In order for people to take part in your Instagram contest, they need to know about it.
Using a high-quality and eye-catching image while promoting the photo contest on your Instagram account will help you gain more followers and produce more entries. The word "Giveaway," "Contest," "Competition," or the actual contest hashtag can also help. If you want.
Here are a few additional places to spread the word about your contest besides Instagram:
Using a hello bar or popup on your website with a link to your Instagram giveaway is a great method to spread the word about your giveaway.
A creative email announcement of the Instagram contest, together with an entry link, should be sent to your subscriber list.
Post your contest on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and any other social media outlet you can think of.
You can market your contest on big advertising networks like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Reddit Ads, etc. by creating an advertisement.
Submit your Instagram contest to well-known directories for prizes and competitions.
Check read our in-depth article on 10+ Ways to Promote Your Giveaway & Contest as well!
Make a list of winners and award everyone who competed.
Finally, the winner has been chosen. You'll have to figure out who the winner is based on the type and rules of your giveaway. Your terms and conditions should guide your review of submissions so that you can be completely objective.
You may choose the winner(s) of your Instagram contest with a single click if you used an app like Woorise. If you're running a contest on Instagram that requires likes, comments, etc., you'll need to manually pick winners or use an external application to draw winners.
In order to select the lucky winners of your Instagram contest, you may use the following tools:
It's free to use random.org to pick the winners manually.
commentpicker.com
(free to choose the winners from the comments)
It's a random picker (paid service)
You can either use Instagram's direct message tool to get in touch with the winner, or post an image announcing the winner and ask them to do so. With an app like Woorise, you can also directly email the winner of your giveaway.
The winner of the grand prize should be congratulated, but don't forget about everyone else. Send an email to all entrants thanking them for their participation and offering them a prize. It doesn't have to be a tangible reward. It doesn't even have to be a big deal if you give everyone who enters a special discount or coupon.
Make a post about the winner on Instagram if you hosted your giveaway on Instagram and didn't gather any emails.
Plan your next freebie based on the results of this one.
When the contest is over and the winner has been announced, it's time to evaluate the campaign's success. Were the objectives you set for yourself met?
What questions should you answer depending on the nature of your giveaway?
It's a "like-to-win" game: Have you seen a spike in the number of likes on your Instagram post after entering the contest?
Comment-to-win: The giveaway post has gotten a lot of attention from your followers. Compared to your prior freebies, was this one more popular?
Is your Instagram follower count increasing? The more followers you have, the more impressive this figure will be.
Make the most of the information you've gleaned from your competition. Send a thank-you email to everyone who participated, and don't forget to keep in touch with your new fans by writing about and posting photos of the winner on your site.
Conclusion
It is possible for your Instagram contest to be more than a way to give away free items if it is executed right. As a marketing tool, it can help you grow your brand and build a loyal following on Instagram. Instagram contests are one of the most effective ways to boost participation, as evidenced by the data. Instagram contests work.
In any industry, Instagram freebies are a great way to reach new customers, increase your social media following, and connect with your current customers. Once you've figured out the logistics, you can ramp up your efforts and run more complex contests that elicit real enthusiasm from your audience.
Instagram giveaways can be organised in a variety of ways, from the simplest to the most sophisticated. Moreover, because they're so simple to administer, you may experiment with a few various types of contests with smaller prizes in order to discover what your audience likes the most. Increase the value of the prizes and mix and match the rules to maximise participation after you find a winning formula.
Some businesses are better suited to Instagram giveaways than others, but hopefully this piece has provided you with some ideas for your next (or first) giveaway on the platform.
Author Bio:
Creator Advertise is an advertising agency that provides one stop solution for brand’s online and offline advertising.