Giveaways on Instagram are a great way to build excitement for your brand partner with other businesses or influencers on the app.
First, understand the ground rules of hosting a giveaway.
Don’t use giveaways as your sole strategy to build engagement. Many brands who rely solely on giveaways actually lose more followers than they gain since people immediately unfollow after a contest closes.
Don’t give away a prize or partner with a company that is unrelated or irrelevant to your brand or business.
Do use giveaways to thank your followers for the success and support they’ve given you.
Do use giveaways to help build your community on Instagram and to build brand loyalty.
Do use giveaways as a chance to partner with and nurture your relationship with other brands and influencers.
Choose Your Type of Giveaway
Like-To-Win
This type of contest is what you’ll most commonly see on Instagram. The like-to-win contests require that entrants follow whichever Instagram accounts that are involved with the giveaway. Then the entry is simply liking the giveaway post(s). Some giveaways only require entrants to like any of the giveaway posts while others require liking every sponsor’s giveaway post.
To clarify: If there are 3 sponsors involved in the giveaway, entrants either have to A) like any one of the sponsors’ giveaway posts or B) like all three of the sponsors’ giveaway posts.
Tag-A-Friend
The tag-a-friend contests require an additional step to the like-to-win. It requires that entrants tag a friend in the comment section of the giveaway post. This can be a helpful, added step for two reasons.
- Some people scroll through their news feeds, double-tapping (a.k.a. liking) every post without reading any of the captions. They may unintentionally enter a like-to-win contest.
- By tagging a friend, you’re at least doubling the amount of people to see the post. When people tag a friend, they bring more views to the giveaway’s post. This helps you increase exposure of your Instagram account and will likely increase the amount of entrants in the contest.
Photo Challenge
A photo challenge giveaway requires that entrants use a designated hashtag to enter. Typically, there are other requirements for what type of content is posted.
Repost
Repost giveaways require entrants to post the giveaway post to their own accounts and either tag the sponsor in their repost or use a designated hashtag.
Note: If requiring entrants to use a hashtag as their entry, their personal profiles cannot be private since private posts do not show up in hashtag search pages. This may limit the amount of entries you receive.
Clearly Post the Rules
As of now, Instagram doesn’t have many promotion rules (at least not as many as Facebook). Instagram primarily only requires that you mention that the giveaway isn’t associated with the app.
In addition to clearly stating the rules as how to enter the giveaway, post the following at the end of your giveaway post:
Per Instagram rules, we must mention this is in no way sponsored, administered, or associated with Instagram, Inc. By entering, entrants confirm they are 13+ years of age, release Instagram of responsibility, and agree to Instagram’s term of use.
How To Choose Your Winner(s)
To determine your winner(s), open your Instagram post on desktop. Copy all of the entry comments in an Excel document. This will assign each entry with a number.
Google “random number generator,” which will bring up a tool (shown below).
Type in the number of entries, and then generate a random number. Go back to your spreadsheet and look at which account it chose. You can check if the chosen account followed the rules.
Then feel free to DM the winner to gather their contact information, and announce the chosen winner, either in Instagram Stories or in a new post.
Live video opportunity: For more authenticity that the giveaway was chosen fairly, go live on Instagram Stories. It will also help increase engagement and have your followers more involved with your brand.