When you are ready to post your giveaway, there are a few different action items you may ask your participants to accomplish in exchange for the opportunity to win.
Here is a list of some of the more common giveaway ideas:
- Like to win: Have followers like your post for an opportunity to win a free service or product. This helps you increase engagement.
- Tag a friend to win: Have followers tag one of their friends in the comments section for an opportunity to win. This permits your brand to reach new potential leads on Instagram and develop your audience.
- Like and share to win: You may ask fans to love your giveaway and repost it on their own channels for the opportunity to greatly broaden your brand’s reach — if ten followers with 100 followers every re-post, that is an opportunity to achieve 1,000 new people.
- Follow to win: Ask followers to follow your brand or a partner (or each) for the opportunity to win. It is a prevalent tactic because it’s a simple method to improve your follower count.
- Photo contest: Ask participants to add a photo of themselves utilizing your services or products. That is another simple chance to spread brand awareness since your participants’ posts will be seen by their own network of fans and friends. You need to ask participants to add your brand’s hashtag or tag your brand, for optimal visibility.
- Caption this: Some brands post photos and leave the caption section blank with a “Caption this for an opportunity to win” command. Your participants will enjoy the opportunity to offer creative captions for your picture, and you can add the caption to your post with credit to the winner once your giveaway ends.
Instagram Giveaway Picker Tools
When you have closed your giveaway contest, it is time to pick a winner — however, how could you do this and ensure fairness?
There are a few tools you could use to truly randomize your winner. Here are a few options:
1. Use a free number generator.
While admittedly tedious, particularly if you’ve lots of of entries, you may think about counting the total number of participants who engaged with your giveaway and then utilizing a number generator to choose your winner.
For example, you count 500 participants in your comments section. Go to Google and kind “random number generator” into the search box, and Google’s number generator will appear as a box in the search outcomes (you could also use another number generator device if you want).
Your minimum should stay 1, and your maximum needs to be the total number of participants. If you click on “Generate”, the tool will provide a random number. Now, simply return to your comments section and count till you land on the username that matches that number.
2. Use Easypromos’ Instagram Sweepstakes App.
You may consider using a tool such as Easypromos’ Instagram Sweepstakes App to organize your giveaway, which could help you make sure fairness and efficiency when selecting a winner.
With Easypromos’ app, you could filter finalists based on a number of mentioned friends. When you’ve got closed your giveaway, the tool could randomly choose between one and 1,000 winners, and alternate winners automatically. The tool gives a test run that you could try before the final draw.
Best of all, Easypromos’ gives a link to a certificate of validity that ensures the draw has been random, guaranteeing a level of transparency and honesty between you and your participants. You could customize the certificate for your brand.
3. Use a random name picker.
This last option is likely essentially the most tedious, but when your giveaway participant pool is comparatively small, you can think about using a random name picker to choose your winner by username instead of the number. Particularly when you have already compiled your list of names into a spreadsheet, this can be a great option for you.
To use a random name picker, go to a site such as Miniwebtool.com and input all usernames, each on a separate line, into the text field. Then click on the “Pick a name” button.
Instagram Giveaway Examples
1. Domino’s
One of the more impressive giveaways in this list, Domino’s provided the opportunity to win $10,000 for any participant who followed @Dominos, posted an image to prove they are a superfan and used the hashtag #PieceofthePieContest. With easy, clear instructions, I am willing to bet this was a successful giveaway as followers rapidly spread the word about their love for Dominos — and likely incentivized fans to order a pizza from the brand.
2. Ali Fedotowsky
Ali Fedotowsky, a lifestyle and fashion blogger and ex-Bachelorette, partnered with Sole Society to giveaway a pair of loafers and a purse. Since she is also well-known as an affordable fashion influencer, the partnership makes sense, and likely resulted in new followers for both Ali and Sole Society. Additionally, Ali wisely instructed participants to take a look at her blog for the final requirement, likely leading to an uptick in traffic.
3. Cakesmiths
Cakesmiths does a giveaway every Friday and uses the same hashtag, #FridayFavourite, to evoke loyalty and engagement from their Instagram fans. Cakesmiths is proof you do not need any outrageous prizes for a giveaway — sometimes, an easy treat will do.
4. Dig Local Asheville
Dig Local Asheville partnered with @findyourspiritfest to inspire people to go to distilleries in the local Asheville, N.C. area. It is a good example of how you may use your giveaway to boost awareness and excitement regarding one of your company’s upcoming events.
5. SojoS Vision
SojoS Vision cleverly asked members to love six of their pictures instead of just one, which likely helped them improve their Instagram engagement rates. Moreover, SojoS included ‘Giveaway’ text at the top of the picture — in case your followers do not usually stop to read captions, it is a good method to attract more attention to your giveaway.