How to Run a Successful Instagram Promotional Giveaway
by Leonida Hernandez on
Everyone loves free stuff. Everyone wants to get a free giveaway. Almost everybody loves the chance to snag some free swag whether it’s a buy-one-get-one offer on a certain item at the local supermarket or the chance to win a free European tour or a year supply of your favorite skincare products.
Instagram giveaways are limited-time promotions in which brands promise to give away a product or service to one (or more) lucky entrants according to a specified set of criteria.
Instagram giveaways can create a buzz about new product lines, reach new fans, grow the brand’s social followings, and attracts some potential new fans.
Reasons to Run an Instagram Giveaways
Do giveaways work to generate leads and grow your business? The answer is yes IF you’re offering the right prize.
Running your own giveaway will:
1. Attract followers faster.
Instagram accounts that hold a contest or giveaway grow 70% faster than those that don’t.
2. Entice both current followers and prospects to engage.
Increased engagement signals to Instagram that they should feature your content more regularly in the feed and acts as social proof for your brand.
3. Build stronger relationships with your existing audience.
When you give something away, it helps foster an emotional connection between you and your followers. A well-planned Instagram giveaway helps you grow your audience, boost engagement
with your posts, and increase loyalty in your customers. But that’s not all. Contests and giveaways can be used to tease an upcoming product or feature release and encourage followers to share and submit user-generated content (UGC).
Now that you know the reasons for running an Instagram giveaway, the next questions will be, how do you run a successful giveaway? The secret ingredient is offering the best prizes.
What are some good prizes to give away?
Good giveaway prizes need to be:
Relevant
You need to choose a prize that your target audience is interested in winning or you won’t attract the right leads.
Valuable
Note that value doesn’t necessarily mean expensive! Not every business can give away $25,000 or a brand new car. But even cheap giveaway prizes can offer value if they’re unique, useful, or just plain delightful.
Here are the examples of giveaway prize ideas for a general audience.
Gift Cards. Gift cards are one of the best contest prizes ever. You can give away something like a Visa gift card so the winner can spend it anywhere they please, or you can give a gift card from a popular store or service. You can also give away a gift card from your own products or services. It’s super easy, and the prize winner will shop at your business. It’s a win-win for both of you.
Popular Products. If there’s a really hot product on the market at the moment, I’m sure most of your customer base and your target audience will want to get their hands on it.
Money. Offering a cash prize is another great way to attract a wide range of people to your contest and get people talking about your business. If you’re going to offer a cash
prize though, it should be a larger amount. A $25 cash prize won’t wow people (though you could offer that amount in the form of a gift card instead).
Now that you understand the benefits a bit better, and what types of prizes to giveaway, the next thing you should know is how to run a successful Instagram promotional giveaways. Running a successful Instagram giveaway requires planning and a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish as a result.
Here are some of the tips on Creating Your Instagram Giveaway
1. Determine What You Want Out of Your Giveaway
If you don’t set a specific goal for your Instagram giveaway, you’re basically just giving something away for free. While that’s a nice thing to do for your followers, it doesn’t serve your business.
The goal you choose will impact every other decision you make, including your prize, the content you create, and how you promote your giveaway.
It also makes it easy for users to understand what they need to do to participate—and it ensures that they won’t run into any issues with Instagram’s content regulations.
2. Familiarize Yourself With Instagram’s Rules
There are a number of specific guidelines for creating a giveaway on their platform and you need to follow them to make sure that your giveaway runs smoothly and avoids the risk of it being shut down.
To be certain you’re not running awry of any of Instagram giveaway terms, don’t forget to incorporate the following information:
Your rules for the giveaway.
The terms of eligibility for participants.
Any relevant regulations related to your prize (age restrictions, etc.).
Acknowledgment of the fact that Instagram is not responsible for the giveaway.
All of this needs to be entered in the comment section of your giveaway post. If you’re unclear in any way, Instagram reserves the right to remove your content.
3. Choose a Prize That Your Audience Will Love
If your prize isn’t enticing to your target audience then you won’t see any engagement. Take a look at what your followers are interested in and think about how you can offer something that’s valuable and on-brand.
This is easy for consumer products and e-commerce sellers who sell specific products. But with a company with no tangible products, the company will need to do some additional research if they want to offer more than a discount or trial.
Your Instagram giveaway can be an opportunity to partner with other brands as well. That’s a great way to tap into an already engaged audience and boost brand awareness for everyone involved. Through this partnership, each brand is able to increase awareness of their products as well as their cause.
4. Write the Right Giveaway Caption
A great caption will not only promote the items you’re giving away; it will provide all the requisite information people need to find, learn about, and enter the contest.
This is where hashtags can be helpful. It’s also a good idea to include additional information and hashtags about your industry.
The “perfect” Instagram giveaway post will vary widely from one account to another.
However, there are a couple of elements that every Instagram giveaway post should include. These are:
A strong, color image to serve as the basis for the post
Efficient use of text announcing the giveaway
5. Launch and Promote Your Instagram Contest
Facebook and Instagram ads will also broadcast your Instagram contest and can boost awareness of the giveaway for a larger audience and potentially increase overall engagement.
6. Track the Results
Once you’ve chosen a winner for the giveaway, look at how the process impacted your original goal. This helps you see the ROI and create better-performing giveaways in the future.
The Discovery report is more useful if your goal was to increase brand awareness. It provides insight into how many potential new followers saw your post in their feeds.
Leverage the power of influencer marketing to grow your Instagram followers organically
What if you found an Instagram growth plan that could save thousands of hours of your precious time and still grow your account 10X—even 100X as fast—completely organically?
What if it was 100% safe—100% compliant with Instagram’s terms of service in 2021—and your growth was 100% guaranteed?
You’d probably say we’re 100% full of #$%*!
But as hundreds of our happy clients have already discovered, it’s one-hundred-and-fifty-percent possible. They’ve been watching thousands of real, location targeted followers pour into their accounts every month.
Month after month. No bots. No automation. 100% human hands. And each of them are enjoying their very own dedicated account manager who oversees their growth and works to help them reach their business goals.
Does that sound like some action you’d want in on?
Find out how Social Sensei can get you thousands of followers organically—give you powerful credibility—and drive massive amounts of exposure to your Instagram account. Just click the link below!
Having a huge follower base is definitely crucial to get your message out there; in front of your target audience. However, rather than invest in marketing strategies that will have you buying fake followers, why not invest in Social Sensei’s proven and tested Instagram celebrity marketing strategies instead?
At Social Sensei, we team up with big names in different industries to help you grow your Instagram followers organically. We’ve worked with hundreds of happy clients and have generated thousands of new followers for those who have signed up with us.
Will celebrity or influencer Instagram marketing get your account banned on Instagram? No. This type of Instagram marketing is a legitimate way for you to grow your Instagram followers organically, so you don’t have to worry about getting shadow banned or action blocked on the platform.
We guarantee account safety, so you never have to worry about your Instagram account being banned or action blocked. The best part? Your success is our success, so if you don’t see the numbers you expect for your followers list, we will continue working for you until you do.
Ready to take your Instagram account to the next level? Work with the experts at Social Sensei to help pair your business with the right growth plan to help you gain real Instagram followers, increase brand exposure, and boost your credibility. Sign up today to take your account to the next level or click here to schedule a FREE 15-minute consultation with us.
