Instagram giveaways are a quick and dirty way to drive up your follower count, reach and engagement with your audience. However, there’s nothing bad about the technique. It is completely a white-hat technique that allows you to engage with your followers (and to-be followers) on a more personal level.

Do it right – and your Instagram follower count will ramp up overnight. However, do it wrong, and you’ll just waste a ton of money and effort without even a trickle of boost in either your followers count, or engagement with your audience.

However, I am not an Instagram expert. And, that’s why, we dug deep and asked experts in this niche to share their experience as to how they ensured that their Instagram giveaway got them the biggest impact.

Here’s what they shared-

How to Make Your Instagram Giveaway a Complete Success!

#1. Niall Harbison, Founder of Happy Doggo who had founded the social media agency Simply Zesty and sold it to UTV plc –

“1. Rather than an expensive prize make it something that money can’t buy, if you can get your hands on that. Exclusive tickets to events or getting to meet someone famous would be examples.

2. Don’t rule out really small prizes as these often see huge engagement as people find they are in with a better chance of winning. A T Shirt or a gift voucher are simple quick examples.

3. Get creative with how you create the content. If you can do something different to just the standard picture post that is best as everybody does that. It could be an Instagram story a quick reel or ideally even a personal video.”

#2. Adam Wood, Co-Founder of RevenueGeeks –

“Is there a method to increase Instagram interaction and get followers?

While freebies appear to be simple and uncomplicated, putting up a good giveaway campaign is not. You must make certain that your giveaway notification reaches its intended audience. You must also exercise caution to avoid getting into legal difficulties as a result of the gift.

The first step in organizing a giveaway is to post about it on your Instagram account.

This necessitates the creation of a detailed description that includes the following:

Mode of entry – Make it clear what a user must do in order to enter the contest.
Set a deadline for the offer to generate a feeling of urgency and motivate more people to participate.

Eligibility requirements and restrictions — If you wish to draw submissions from a certain geographic area or a specific age range, make sure you include it in your announcement.”

#3. Matt Richmond, Marketing Specialist at Buy Moldavite –

“Instagram is a good platform to increase brand awareness and giveaways are the process to achieve this. Most marketing strategies use a giveaway of the company’s high-end products through a raffle draw.

A good way to ROI the giveaways is to include a guideline that requires each participant to tag 5 Instagram users for one entry in the raffle draw. So if users will want more than one entry, they have to tag many users.

Hiring influencers will also help amp the giveaway strategy so it will make the ROI faster.”

#4. Matthew Paxton, founder of Hypernia –

“Picking a relevant price is an important aspect of ensuring that your Instagram giveaway becomes a success.

Some people just tend to pick a lavish prize and while that tends to attract attention, if it doesn’t click with your target audience then it won’t interest your target audience.”

#5. Dan McCormick, Director of Partnerships and Senior Content Strategist for Perfect Brew –

“Pick a contest prize that is relevant to your existing target audience.

When you give away something that everybody wants, what might end up happening is that you’ll get a bunch of new followers that don’t really care about your business that’ll leave once the contest is over.

My advice, make the prize something that’s already related to your brand that your target audience will value – like exclusive discount vouchers or giving them the chance to win your products/services for free. This will net you more quality participants that will actually benefit your business.”

#6. Nicolas Holand, Content Manager at GooseSmurfs –

“Conduct a paid per slot giveaway. This is a new form of giveaway wherein interested folks will pay for their slot to join the giveaway and gain the chance of winning a relevant prize.

To attract a large audience, make sure that the prize is super extra and worth the value of the slot.

Here’s an example: The prize would be a brand new iPhone and the slot only costs $50.

Many people would be very interested since $50 is a very cheap and fair deal to have a chance of winning a new iPhone that would cost way more when you buy it directly. By doing this strategy, you’ll be able to gain followers and at the same time improve and even increase your ROI.

#7. Martina Cooper, Co-Founder & Writer at Brutally Honest Marketing Reviews –

“Make sure that you use a platform that ensures that the people applying have engaged with the profile that you’re trying to grow like gleam.io

This will also help people that are entering the giveaway to have more confidence that your giveaway isn’t a lie or a scam.”

#8. Diana Dupu, marketing and PR specialist at Creative Navy UX Agency | Creative Navy Instagram–

“There are a few simple steps a marketer should go through in order to maximize the ROI of their instagram giveaway:

Tease the giveaway for a set period of time in advance using stories or creative posts that will pique followers’ interest;
Establish the giveaway mechanics. What do you want followers to do in order to be eligible for a prize?
Optimize the text of the giveaway post: be clear, concise, and use a friendly tone. Decide on the calls to action which will be used within the body of text and place them strategically;
Use relevant giveaway related hashtags in order to gain traction and exposure from the people that scour the app to look for such competitions regularly;
Choose visuals which entice followers: showcase the prize in an appealing manner;
After posting the giveaway, sound off about it on all social channels. Enter it on sweepstakes websites if relevant;
Tag people in the comments if appropriate.”

#9. Mollie Newton, Editor & Founder of PetMeTwice –

“Understand where they are in the decision making process.

Let’s look at this from a customer perspective. An online giveaway is a fun, easy way to engage with a brand – unless of course, it isn’t.

The majority of traction on giveaways come from someone looking to win a freebie easily. That’s not to say that those clicks can’t be turned into engagement later or that you can’t target a specific demographic, but it’s important to understand at which point in the purchase process they are in.

Do not use your giveaway as an opportunity to do anything more than bolster traffic for later engagement.

Keep the entry process short and easy to do, so that you can maximize return later. If you are looking for a quick return, giveaways may not be the best option for you.”

#10. Georgi Todorov, Founder of ThriveMyWay –

“The key to holding an Instagram giveaway that brings ROI is to set a desirable prize that promotes your business. Don’t give away a smartphone, unless you’re promoting an electronics store.

Choose something directly related to your products or services. It might be giving away a voucher, some of your most sought-after or limited edition products, a free service, etc.

Another important thing is to make entering the giveaway a breeze. If your rules are many or complicated, this will discourage users from participation. Ask people to complete one to two actions for a change to win.”

#11. Amber Reed-Johnson, Copywriting Assistant at Giraffe Social Media | Instagram Account of GSM –

“As a social media agency, we have conducted many Instagram giveaways on behalf of our clients. Influencer marketing is huge on Instagram and giveaways are a great way to increase brand awareness and engagement.

If you want to generate sales and make a return on the giveaway investment, you could ask for newsletter sign-ups or even a purchase to qualify for the giveaway.

Requiring a purchase may reduce the overall number of entrants to your giveaway, but can build a good relationship with current customers and brand enthusiasts (if they’re going to buy from you regardless, being entered into a giveaway is a big bonus).”

#12. Megha Gadke, Founder at KetoConnect | Instagram Account of KetoConnect –

“There are a few strategies that can help improve the ROI of your giveaway. One way is to promote lesser-known hashtags or to create your own for followers for you to follow.

Another way is to increase engagement by asking people to tag their friends in the post, retweet for more entries, and leaving comments. Try doing one giveaway per week, or strategically plan giveaways to coincide with holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas.

You can exchange prizes for reviews with influencers or your loyal customers. You can also combine giveaways with commission-only affiliate programs that the winner must join after winning the giveaway prize.

The number of prizes you offer also affects the ROI. The more valuable the award, the higher your engagement will be! However, this may increase the cost of promotion.

An Instagram giveaway is not just an effective way to create new relationships with consumers; it’s also a great way to engage with your current customers and improve loyalty. Most importantly, a giveaway is a great way to grow your following by incentivizing followers to engage with you.”

#13. Ella Hao, Head of Marketing at WellPCB –

“The first thing you can do is offer something of equal or greater value to the giveaway winner. The more valuable your prize, the more people will be interested in winning it.

Next, offer the opportunity to win the giveaway more times for free by referring friends to take part. This also increases your chance of being retweeted or engaged on Facebook, which can lead to even more followers on Instagram.

Finally, keep the giveaway going for a longer period to provide more opportunities to win. The longer the giveaway lasts, the more people will follow and share your Instagram account.

Last but not least, always provide a deadline for the participants to complete all steps. This is to ensure that everyone finds time to participate within the timeline. A good rule of thumb is to keep the giveaway going for 2-4 weeks or until you reach the targeted percentage of your following.”

#14. Gabriel Mays, CEO at Popsmash Instagram Giveaways –

“After running thousands of giveaways, we learned there are some key things to maximize success:

Don’t post 24-48hrs before posting the giveaway to maximize reach.
If you only want to attract high-quality, relevant followers, use a prize that only appeals to your target audience. Also, avoid using generic hashtags like #giveaway to minimize attracting low-quality entries.
Overlay the text ‘Giveaway’ in the post image to get more attention
Use tried and true giveaway rules. We recommend: 1) like this post, 2) follow me, and 3) tag 3 friends for bonus entries.
Pick winners fairly and randomly. Use a free Instagram giveaway app like Popsmash to make it fast and easy. Just remember to only use giveaway apps that are approved by Instagram to protect your account.
Announce the winner at the end of your giveaway in a post or story.

Across thousands of giveaways, we’ve seen these tips perform consistently well, though feel free to tweak them for your industry and audience.”

#15. Jameson Rodgers, the cofounder of CBDfx –

“ROI cannot and should not be strictly measured by financial gain. Indeed, for Instagram giveaways, consider measuring (1) engagement + impression increases, (2) sales numbers, and (3) followers. In order to gain maximum ROI for all three KPIs, consider mandating story reposts as a stipulation.

This will not only increase the reach of the post, but also encourage organic follows + clicks from non-followers.”

#16. Cari Casas, Social Media Coordinator, Herrman and Herrman PLLC | Instagram Account of H&H PLLC –

“Tip one, Have a goal in mind. We typically decide our primary goal is to boost our followers and profile engagement.

However, you can also use giveaways to increase engagement with a survey or increase subscribers to a newsletter. After deciding on this goal, it is easier to determine the best requirements for users to join the giveaway.

Tip two, keep it simple. A prevalent difficulty with giveaways is businesses requiring too many steps to join the giveaway. Giveaways should only ask to follow the profile, like the photo, and tag a friend in the comments.

Users can have short attention spans and be picky about how their feed looks. Asking them to post on their story or timeline should be optional at best.

Tip three, make the giveaway urgent. Giveaways available for longer do not mean it will get more entries. A shorter time to join a giveaway creates a sense of urgency for the audience. A longer time to join gives users a larger window and may lead them to forget about the giveaway before entering.”

#17. Mitchell Stern, owner of SideHustle.Tips –

“Influencers. Partnering with influencers helps evaluate your message by broadcasting it to an established audience. Partnering with an influencer who is already speaking to your target audience is a reliable strategy.

Also, make sure you are giving away something of real value otherwise people won’t care.”

#18. Stephanie Gutierrez, Social Media Strategist at Online Optimism, a full service marketing agency in New Orleans –

“One way to assure you see an ROI improvement on an Instagram giveaway is to not skimp on the prize. It can be tempting to give away a cheaper or underselling product, since the financial loss would be minimal.

However, most followers will be able to tell when a company is trying to cut costs this way. There’s a chance they’ll see this more as an insult, and you risk losing followers. Make sure the giveaway prize is for a new, popular product. This will give instagram goers more incentive to participate.

Also consider increasing giveaway frequency; If not bi-weekly, then monthly.

If your potential audience knows there will be more chances to win free stuff after this initial post, they are more likely to follow to get in on the action. Optimize the rules of the contest to give your brand the best chance at growth.

Require users to follow the account in order to be eligible for the giveaway, have followers repost a certain picture, tag your instagram page, and use a custom hashtag to associate with the giveaway. Every new post for the giveaway will drive traffic to your page.

Followers posting to their own pages leads to free exposure to their audience. Whether their follower account is 20 or 20K, every eye will be on your brand, and interest in the giveaway and your company will grow.

The amount of buzz a contest can generate for a page is well worth the cost of the prize. Get the item to the prize winner ASAP to squeeze as much publicity as possible out of your investment. You’re sure to get additional traffic once they receive their prize in the mail.”

#19. Syed M. Rizvi, Online Medical Educator on Social Media | Instagram: @rev.med –

“Strategies + Tips that improve ROI of Giveaway on Instagram:

When conducting a giveaway it is important to establish hype around the giveaway prior to actually creating the giveaway post on Instagram.

This should be in the form of Instagram stories 5 days prior to the actual giveaway announcement/launch, for example: create Instagram stories engaging your audience to ‘save the date’ for a special giveaway.

On this story add an Instagram countdown sticker for the official ‘launch & announcement’ date for the giveaway. Using the countdown sticker will allow for your audience to receive a notification from Instagram to return on the day you post your official giveaway.

Doing this for 5 days leading up to the official date of your giveaway – will attract your audience to engage and participate.

Once the giveaway is live:

Now each day the giveaway is live it is key to continue using Instagram stories to have people participate in the giveaway. Here you should use a new countdown sticker for the ‘winner announcement’ or ‘deadline for giveaway’.

This will encourage people to further participate and also lead them to feel the urgency to participate before it becomes a missed opportunity.

Pro tips:

It is also critical to post 2-3 Instagram reels about the giveaway while the giveaway is live. This will attract users across the platform to land on your profile and view your story or your targeted post for the giveaway.

Worried these Reels don’t really resonate with your feed or flow of content? Just post it because these reels can be easily deleted after the giveaway is over.

What’s important is the reach that Instagram reels will offer, which will convert to more views and in turn more participants.

Giveaways should always be carousel style posts on Instagram with multiple ‘slides’ of the product/service being given away and the rules to enter for the giveaway should be one of these ‘slides’ as a visual post.

This is in addition to the rules that you will add in the caption – you are essentially maximizing your potential reach and participation (some users actually don’t read the caption and rather view the post).

Please also add arrows and the text ‘next’ for your audience to slide through the post to see the next slide (when direction is given – most users follow suit).”

Well then, that’s all.

Hope you found this article useful. If the article helps make your Instagram giveaway a success, make sure to give this article a share!

For any queries or help with your startup, feel free to book a free consultation with us. You may also check out our list of services if you need any help with your business efforts.

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