How to Run an Instagram Giveaway: A Step-by-Step Guide

Running an Instagram giveaway can deliver more followers, better engagement, and more leads.

And at a low cost compared to other marketing tactics.

But how do you run Instagram giveaways that achieve these results?

That’s what I’ll show you in this guide.

You’ll see how to do an Instagram giveaway, how long your giveaway should run, and robust Instagram giveaway tools to manage your campaigns.

How to do an Instagram giveaway 

1. Set Instagram giveaway goals

While you want to make some followers happy, a giveaway should also achieve business results.

And this is where setting giveaway goals comes in.

Put simply, your Instagram giveaway goals are the results you want to achieve from a specific giveaway.

These goals include:

• Increase in followers
• Increase in engagement
• User-generated content (UGC) collection
• Lead generation
• Increase in brand awareness
• Increase in product awareness
• Increase in web traffic
• Increase in sales

Setting goals for your giveaway informs other aspects of your campaign like entry criteria, prize, and promotion tactics.

More importantly, it keeps you focused during your giveaway.

One common framework to set your goals is the SMART framework. This means your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

For example, a good goal may be to get 20 good UGC within 2 weeks of your Instagram contest if you run a small business.

So, set an Instagram giveaway goal to direct every aspect of your campaign.

2. Use giveaway types that align with your goals

Giveaway types are the formats your giveaways follow.

You want to consider multiple types of giveaways because some align better with your goals.

Here are common giveaway types:

• Instagram actions: These include actions like comments, like, tag, share, and follow. These let you achieve goals like an increase in followership and engagement.
• Hashtag contests: This type of giveaway involves participants publishing Instagram content and using a specific hashtag. This giveaway type is useful for collecting user-generated content (UGC).
• Refer a friend: For this giveaway, participants will earn points when they refer other people to enter the giveaway. It’s a great way to promote your contest to attract more participants.
• Photo upload contest: This giveaway involves participants uploading a photo. From their photos, you can judge to pick a winner. This is also great for collecting UGC.
• Instant win: In this type of giveaway, participants know immediately if they’ve won. It’s a good way to generate leads if participants enter their email before the giveaway. If you offer a coupon code to people who lose out on the prize, it can help increase sales.
• Photo gallery: To create a photo gallery, participants upload their photos. In most photo galleries, other people vote for their best entry. So, the person with the highest votes wins. This can help improve brand awareness and collect UGC.

Once you know your goals, settle on the best giveaway types to achieve them.

In some cases, use multiple giveaway types if they align with your goals.

3. Determine giveaway entry criteria

After settling on a giveaway type, your entry criteria will be the steps to execute that giveaway type.

What tasks do you want participants to perform to qualify for a chance to win your gift?

These are the entry criteria.

Your entry criteria for an Instagram giveaway include:

• Following an Instagram account
• Viewing an Instagram account
• Commenting on a post
• Liking a post
• Tagging a friend
• Sharing on Instagram Story
• Using a hashtag in an Instagram post

There are even more entry requirements outside Instagram. For example, participants may upload an image or video on your giveaway landing page for a photo voting contest.

Ensure you attach a number of points to each action based on how difficult it is.

Your entry criteria will inform participants on how to win the prize.

However, your entry criteria should be tied to your goals.

For example, if you want to collect user-generated content, photo/video upload should be part of the entry requirements. On the other hand, if you want to increase followers, every giveaway participant should be a follower.

Also, keep in mind that your entry criteria should make sense for the value of the prize.

Don’t expect people to create a video for a chance to win a $10 gift. The prize is not worth the effort for them.

Here’s a giveaway by Bambaw:

This giveaway clearly states what participants need to do for a chance to win.

Once you determine your entry criteria, your Instagram giveaway prize is next.

4. Use the right giveaway prize

Your giveaway prize is what encourages participants to enter your giveaway. 

It’s what stays in their head as they perform the contest actions.

While any good prize can attract everyone, the point of your giveaway is not to attract everyone. It’s to attract the right people and achieve your goal.

So, how do you find a prize that attracts your ideal audience?

Personally, I’ll advise you to offer your business product or service as the giveaway prize.

Why?

Using your product as the prize will likely attract people who actually need your products. These are people that can become your customers even after the giveaway.

So, pick one of your products that helps achieve your goals.

For example, if you want to collect UGC, offer a prize relevant to current customers. Meanwhile, to raise awareness for a new product, offer that product as the giveaway prize.

Here’s a giveaway by pH fragrances in collaboration with SunDrunk:

The giveaway prizes are products of both companies.

Your giveaway prize is one of the most important aspects of running an Instagram giveaway, and you should pick it carefully.

5. Spell out Instagram giveaway rules

Instagram giveaway rules provide information to guide participants.

These rules include:

• Entry criteria
• Duration of the giveaway
• Location eligible to enter
• How winners will be picked
• How many winners will be picked
• How the gift will be delivered 

Spelling out the Instagram giveaway rules ensures you’re on the same page with participants.

It’s also easy to disqualify participants who fail to follow the rules.

So, create a short text with all the details mentioned above.

Alternatively, use the contest rule generator in your contest tool. The tool will ask for some details about your business to create the rule.

With your Instagram giveaway rules, participants will understand the guidelines for your campaign.

6. Promote Instagram giveaway

Promoting Instagram giveaways means getting your giveaways in front of more people before and during your campaigns. 

After all, people can only enter your giveaway if they’re aware of it.

With great promotion, it’s easy to attract more participants and increase the chances of achieving your goals.

How do you achieve great promotion?

Here are some ways to promote your contests:

• Create an Instagram post about it
• Send emails to subscribers
• Collaborate with influencers or complementary brands
• Use referrals as an entry method
• Use tag friends as an entry method
• Create a blog post
• Promote contest on Reddit

That said, contest promotion should start long before the contest starts.

This way, you’ll create awareness and anticipation in potential participants.

While promotion is good before your contest, it’s also important during the contest. You have to keep attracting more people to the giveaway until the end date.

Here’s a post promoting an Instagram contest by Stan Winston School of Character Arts:

However, this is not the original contest post. Instead, it shows one of the entries. 

The school also has a few other Instagram posts showing entries and promoting the contest. This can attract even more people to enter the contest. 

With contest promotion, you can maximize participation. To learn more, read my guide about contest promotion.

7. Add necessary details to the giveaway post

Your Instagram giveaway post should signal the beginning of your giveaway.

First, it provides entry criteria for participants. For example, participants will know if they’ll perform tasks on Instagram or visit a giveaway landing page for point-based entries.

Second, it provides other information that guides the contest campaign.

And all these details are for good reasons. 

It helps people decide whether to enter the giveaway or not. Then, they know what to expect after entering the giveaway.

To create a great Instagram giveaway post, add these details:

• Entry criteria
• Gift to be won
• The number of winners
• Duration of giveaway
• How winners will be picked
• Dissociation of the giveaway from Instagram 
• Compelling image/video of the giveaway prize

Your giveaway post is also a part of your contest promotion. So, make it compelling to attract more entries to your campaign.

Here’s a great Instagram giveaway post by Enrique Alejandro:

This post contains most details that participants need.

Remember to write at the end of your post that the giveaway is not affiliated with Instagram.

Once you add all these details to your giveaway post, expect participants to troop in for a chance to win the gift.

8. Pick and announce winners

Now that your giveaway has ended, participants expect you to announce the winners.

Doing this will end the giveaway, at least on the participants’ side.

Then, it’s a good way to keep people satisfied and expect your next giveaway.

To pick a winner, follow the guidelines in the contest rules. 

Picking winners randomly is probably the easiest method for marketers.

But if you’re running a contest, it’s more complicated. Other people can determine the winner through the number of votes.

Alternatively, have judges determine winners from entries. However, in this case, the judges should explain how they picked winners to maintain transparency.

After picking winners, reach out to them before the announcement.

This can be in their Instagram DMs. If participants registered with their email addresses, you can reach them through email.

Apart from informing winners about their win, collect information like their shipping address to send the gift.

Then, announce the winners to your Instagram audience.

Doing this shows participants that you ran a real Instagram giveaway. It also builds trust with your audience and encourages them to enter future giveaways.

Here’s a giveaway winner announcement by Meelie Mobile:

The company also tags the winner’s Instagram account for any participant who wants to check it out. 

But even more, I’ll advise that you get an image/video evidence of the winners with their prize. Then, post the evidence on your Instagram account to attract more people to future giveaways.

Picking and announcing giveaway winners can build trust with your audience and boost your brand image.

9. Analyze Instagram giveaway performance

Your Instagram giveaway performance is determined by metrics relevant to your goals.

So, after the giveaway, look at your giveaway metrics and compare them to your goals.

Doing this lets you determine how successful the giveaway has been.

From your metrics, you also get insights to improve future giveaways.

To analyze performance, you can get metrics from different sources.

Let me explain 3 of them.

First, dive into your Instagram analytics. If the giveaway tasks were performed on Instagram, find numbers like comments and followers in Instagram analytics.

Second, find metrics in your giveaway tool. If participants visited a giveaway landing page to perform tasks, the tool will provide metrics about their actions.

Third, look into your website analytics. If you hosted the giveaway landing page on your website or have website-related entry requirements, your website analytics tool (e.g. Google Analytics) can provide the needed metrics.

Analyze your Instagram giveaway performance to get insights to improve future giveaways.

How long should you run an Instagram giveaway?

Most giveaways run between 1 and 2 weeks. But some can run for as long as 4 weeks.

The duration of your giveaway depends on some factors.

• Value of your gift: If you’re giving away a car, participants won’t mind waiting for a month, and this can help you get as many participants as possible. However, participants won’t wait for a month to win colored pencils.
• Time needed to achieve giveaway goals: When setting your goals, think of the time needed to achieve them. So, bigger goals can require that your giveaways run for longer than two weeks and vice versa.
• Competitive analysis: Consider other brands in your industry that run giveaways. How long they run their giveaways can be a benchmark to follow.

Whatever duration you decide on for your giveaways, ensure you do a lot of promotion before the giveaway to have as many participants as possible.

Why you should run Instagram giveaways

Here are 6 reasons why running Instagram giveaways can be a good idea for your brand:

• Increase followers: Most giveaways help increase Instagram followers. This is because most brands require that giveaway participants follow the brand on Instagram. So, non-followers have an incentive to follow your account.
• Increase engagement: By running Instagram giveaways that require participants to comment or tag their friends in the comments, you’ll directly increase engagement. 
• Deliver more content: Giveaways are a good Instagram post idea if you’re looking for what to post. They’re also a great way to optimize your Instagram profile to keep visitors longer.
• Acquire leads: If participants use their email addresses to register for your giveaway, this is a good way to generate more leads. Luckily, some Instagram giveaway tools integrate with email marketing software to process your leads.
• Improve product awareness: If you use a new product as your Instagram giveaway prize, you can build more awareness for the product. This is a great way to promote products on Instagram.
• Improve brand awareness: As your account shows up to more eyeballs during your giveaways, more people will know your brand and products.
• Increase sales: For instant win contests, offer coupons to participants who lose out on the prize. This can lead to more sales if you’ve attracted your ideal audience to the contest.

So, these are some of the reasons to run Instagram giveaways. And you’ll find that running a giveaway is a low-cost and effective marketing strategy.

Excellent Instagram giveaway tools to use

Once you have hundreds or thousands of Instagram followers, running a giveaway manually is a bad idea.

Unless you want to miss out on many participants.

But even more, the types of giveaways and contests you can run manually are limited.

This is where Instagram giveaway tools come in.

Instagram giveaway tools can host various types of giveaways, manage participants, pick winners, and provide giveaway analytics.

Here are 3 robust tools to run Instagram giveaways:

SweepWidget 

SweepWidget is one of the best giveaway tools in terms of extensive features and ease of use.

First, you get access to 7 Instagram entry methods.

But beyond that, you can run giveaways on over 30 social platforms. With giveaway templates, you can create a giveaway landing page in a few minutes.

After running giveaways, SweepWidget lets you pick winners randomly or manually. If you want to run contests, you can have a leaderboard for participants.

You also get giveaway analytics to understand your campaign performance.

For more information about this tool, read my SweepWidget review.

Shortstack

Shortstack helps you run contests and create landing pages.

Shortstack has over 80 templates to create various types of contests and giveaways. You also get a drag-and-drop editor to edit giveaway landing pages to your taste.

Shortstack also helps you run comment-to-enter, hashtag, and mention giveaways on Instagram.

You can import comments into Shortstack to see entries. Also, create a hashtag gallery for hashtag contests.

Then, Shortstack has an autoresponder to communicate with contest participants.

For giveaways, you have a random entry picker to pick winners.

To analyze your contest performance, visit the contest analytics section. 

To learn more about this tool, check out my Shortstack review.

Woorise

Woorise is a giveaway and lead generation tool.

In the tool, you get over 70 templates for giveaways and other lead generation categories.

Then, there’s a campaign builder to edit your giveaway landing page to your needs.

You can run giveaways on Instagram and other social media platforms. Beyond that, run contests like photo vote contests, refer a friend, instant win, media upload, and multiple actions.

Woorise lets you use a random winner picker or pick winners manually.

During your giveaway, track performance through the Woorise analytics report.

To know more about this tool, read my Woorise review.

To see even more tools, check out the best Instagram giveaway tools.

Conclusion

Running an Instagram giveaway goes beyond just gifting an interesting product you saw at the mall.

It’s a marketing tactic that can deliver great results.

So, plan your next Instagram giveaway with this guide.

Then, analyze your giveaways to improve future campaigns.

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