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The right social media contest tool can improve your chances of hitting contest targets.
This is by managing every stage of your contests and ensuring hard-earned leads don’t slip through the cracks.
It helps host your giveaway page, collect entries, manage entries, and pick winners.
Beyond these, it can help you manage contests on multiple social media networks.
That said, which social media contest tool is best for you?
It depends on your unique needs.
In this guide, I’ll explore the 7 best social media contest tools and how they can manage your contests.
Let’s dive in.
What to look out for in a social media contest tool
When buying a social media contest tool, you need to consider your needs.
Because no tool will work for everybody.
That said, here are various features to consider when shopping for a giveaway tool:
- Ease of use: You don’t want to read documentation for an hour before setting up a contest. So, go for a tool that lets you set up a contest without adding a headache.
- Entry methods: Most social contest tools provide entry methods on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and other social platforms. But if you want to explore more ideas like photo contests, gallery, and instant win, ensure the tool provides these features.
- Templates: Unless you’re a designer, building a giveaway from scratch is like pulling a nail with your teeth. But with templates, you’ll have a foundation to build your contest page on.
- Editor: Do you want an easy-to-use editor or one that gives you design freedom? Look out for a tool that meets your preferences.
- Participant management: What information is available about participants? What actions can you take on each participant?
- Integrations: If you want to nurture leads in the future, you need a contest tool that integrates with your CRM and email software. With these, your contests can fit into your broader marketing strategy.
- Collaboration: If you run an agency or work for clients, you may need to add team members or clients to your account. Ensure you go for a tool with this capability.
- WordPress plugin: If you want to embed giveaways on your WordPress site, ensure the tool supports it. Most tools also provide codes to embed on your site.
- Pricing: How much do you have for your giveaway campaign? Note that your budget should also cover the cost of the giveaway prize. So, pick a tool that fits the budget.
Of course, some of these features will be more important to you than others.
So, look through these features and note which ones are important for your contests and giveaways.
Whatever features are important to you, use that lens to judge a social media giveaway tool before using it.
Let’s look at the 7 best tools that deliver these features.
Best social media contest tools
1. SweepWidget
SweepWidget is one of the best social media contest tools.
First, it’s easy to use. You can set up a giveaway in 5 minutes, even if you’re doing it for the first time.
Then, there are unlimited campaigns and entries on all plans.
In terms of the types of contests and giveaways, SweepWidget supports over 90 entry methods across over 30 social platforms.
However, while its giveaway builder is easy to use, it lacks the design capabilities of a tool like Shortstack.
After running a giveaway, you have the random winner picker to pick a winner.
And if you work with team members, SweepWidget lets you add them for easy collaboration.
If you want to host contests and giveaways on a WordPress site, the SweepWidget plugin makes it a breeze. Also, if you run a Shopify store, a SweepWidget app is available.
On top of these features, SweepWidget is affordable when compared to competitors.
Here’s a breakdown of some of SweepWidget’s features:
- Entry methods: SweepWidget provides entry methods on top social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and more. But you also have contest options like survey, feedback, leave a review, photo contest, and more.
- Participants management: Once people enter your giveaway, SweepWidget provides details about each participant, like emails and entry actions. Actions like disqualifying a participant or picking a winner are also available.
- Templates: If you’re running a contest for the first time, you’ll find the templates handy to begin. With over 30 templates, there are some good options.
- Analytics: SweepWidget provides metrics about participants and giveaway entries.
- Giveaway security: To prevent fraud, SweepWidget provides options like restricting an IP to a single entry and blocking suspicious email providers. Also, geo-targeting helps restrict your giveaway to a specific location.
- Integrations: SweepWidget integrates with over 30 tools, including CRM and email marketing software. These integrations let you process your leads and perform other tasks.
If you want more information about this tool, read my full SweepWidget review.
SweepWidget pricing
SweepWidget has a free plan. Then, the Pro plan comes with unlimited campaigns, unlimited user entries, 20+ social platforms, 20+ email integrations, and photo/video contests. It costs $29 monthly ($24.17 on an annual plan).
The Business plan comes with 2 brands, 30+ social platforms, leaderboards, instant coupons, instant prizes, and Zapier integration. It costs $59 monthly ($49.17 on an annual plan).
The Premium plan comes with 3 brands, white labeling, custom logo, custom CSS, custom URL for hosted landing page, geo-block entries, and email verification. It costs $119 monthly ($99.17 on an annual plan).
The Enterprise plan comes with 5 brands, API access, custom SMTP, custom HTML welcome email, and unlimited winners. It costs $249 monthly ($207.5 on an annual plan).
2. Shortstack
Shortstack is a great tool for creating contests, forms, and landing pages.
First, you have templates to start various types of contests.
Once you pick a template, edit it in the editor. Shortstack’s editor is one of its standout features, as it lets you customize contest pages to your taste.
You also have access to a hashtag app for Instagram and Twitter. This lets you create a hashtag feed for posts using a specific hashtag.
So, it’s great for hashtag contests and collecting user-generated content (UGC).
Shortstack also imports comments from Instagram and Facebook. This is great for comment-to-enter giveaways, as you can monitor comments in a place.
To reach out to giveaway participants, Shortstack has an email autoresponder that sends emails based on the conditions you set.
Then, add team members to collaborate with other people during your contests.
Here’s a breakdown of some of Shortstack’s features:
- Contests and landing pages: Shortstack lets you create various types of giveaways and contests on social media. Participants can take social actions, use hashtags, upload content for votes, upload content to a gallery, and more.
- Templates: Shortstack has over 100 templates for various use cases. You’ll find templates for contests, giveaways, popups, gallery, and more.
- Contest editor: With Shortstack’s editor, you can edit a template or build a page from scratch. This includes adding widgets, editing widgets, and setting up a page structure. Plus, edit colors, buttons, and popups.
- Random entry picker: If you’re running a giveaway, use the random entry picker to pick winners.
- Email autoresponder: Shortstack lets you send an email automatically when an entry is received. You can also send follow-up emails to participants and set up scheduled emails.
- Analytics: You get metrics for views, entries, and the number of email opens. But beyond that, there are views by device, traffic sources, views by country, and more.
To get more information about this tool, read my Shortstack review.
Shortstack pricing
The Startup plan comes with unlimited campaigns, 2,000 stored entry limit, random winner picker, comment to enter giveaways, story contest, and public voting contest. It costs $49 monthly ($39 on an annual plan).
The Business plan comes with 10,000 stored entry limit, photo contests, and instant win static prizes. It costs $99 monthly ($79 on an annual plan). In addition to what the Business plan offers, the Growth plan comes with 25,000 stored entry limit and costs $149 monthly ($119 on an annual plan).
The Pro plan comes with 50,000 stored entry limit, 1 team member, hashtag contests, video upload contests, and custom domain. It costs $249 monthly ($199 on an annual plan).
The Elite plan comes with 200,000 stored entry limit, 5 team members, fraud filter, country-based visibility settings, and an account manager. It costs $499 monthly ($399 on an annual plan).
For the Enterprise plan, you have to reach out to the Shortstack team.
3. Woorise
Woorise is a solid tool for creating contests, giveaways, and other lead generation campaigns.
So, if you run contests mainly to generate leads, Woorise is a great option since it has other lead generation tools like forms, quizzes, and surveys.
And with over 70 campaign templates, you have a good place to start your contest.
Woorise also has a WordPress-based campaign builder to edit campaigns. While the builder can be confusing the first time you use it, it’s easy to use once you understand how it works.
For giveaways, Woorise has a random winner picker to select winners.
If you’re an agency that runs social media giveaways for clients, Woorise lets you create workspaces. This means organizing contests for clients in separate workspaces.
You also get a WordPress plugin to embed Woorise giveaways on any of your website pages.
If you’re working on a tight budget, Woorise is an affordable tool. However, one gripe I have with Woorise is that the plans come with limited entries.
Here’s a breakdown of some of Woorise’s features:
- Templates: Woorise has over 70 templates for social media giveaways, lead pages, forms, surveys, quizzes, and other campaign types. This is a good way to kickstart your campaign.
- Campaign builder: The campaign builder lets you build a campaign from scratch or start with a template. And the over 50 WordPress blocks lets you add more functionality to your page. Then, add many entry methods to your contest by editing the form.
- Lead generation: Woorise provides many lead generation options, including contests, lead pages, forms, surveys, and other features.
- Giveaway management: Manage your entries during and after giveaways. Then, get more details about each participant through the View option and download files if participants uploaded files.
- Analytics: You get metrics like the number of users, entries, and conversion rate. In addition, location, devices, and sources of entries are available.
- Bio link: Woorise has a link in bio tool for platforms like Instagram and TikTok. This lets you create a link in bio page to drive your audience to important business pages.
- Team members: Woorise lets you add users to work with team members. Plus, set up a role for each user you add.
- Integrations: With over 30 integrations, you can extend Woorise’s capabilities and process leads.
To get more details about this tool, read my Woorise review.
Woorise pricing
The Basic plan comes with unlimited campaigns, 1,000 entries monthly, instant win, fraud detection, random winner picker, link in bio, and country restriction. It costs $29 monthly ($23 on an annual plan).
The Grow plan comes with 2,000 entries monthly, 5 team users, surveys & quizzes, integrations, and payments. It costs $49 monthly ($39 on an annual plan).
The Pro plan comes with at least 10,000 entries monthly, 10 team users, file uploads, photo voting contests, CSS customization, and custom domain. It starts from $99 monthly ($79 on an annual plan).
4. ViralSweep
ViralSweep is another great social media contest tool.
First, you have the sweepstakes and contests apps. With these, running contests on the popular social media networks is easy.
But more, executing other giveaway ideas like photo, video, and gallery contests is easy.
ViralSweep provides templates to use as a base for your campaign.
Of course, you can edit these templates to get a unique giveaway landing page for your business. Plus, ViralSweep allows you to save your designs as templates for future use.
Once you finish creating a giveaway, ViralSweep lets you embed it on multiple content management systems (CMSs) like WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, and Wix.
Also, A/B test page elements to optimize performance and add white-label branding.
Here’s a breakdown of some of ViralSweep’s features:
- Sweepstakes and contests apps: These apps let you run campaigns like social actions, leave a review, photo contests, video contests, and gallery contests. These provide numerous options for your contests.
- Contest builder: In the builder, set up description, contest duration, and the number of winners. Beyond that, design styles and colors, and add prize images. Then, ViralSweep lets you add actions for multiple social networks and generate contest rules.
- Hashtag apps: These apps let you pull content from X (Twitter) and Instagram. So, whenever participants use your specified hashtag, ViralSweep will add their entry to a gallery.
- Manage entries: Once participants enter your giveaway, their email address, location, number of entries, and status will be available in the dashboard. You can also export the data for other uses.
- Email notifications: This feature lets you send emails automatically to participants when they enter your giveaway. ViralSweep’s email integrations also open up more functionality.
- Giveaway security: ViralSweep provides security features like spam filter, verification codes to confirm entry, entry limit, and block or allow IP addresses. Plus, use geo-targeting to restrict your contest to specific locations.
- Integrations: ViralSweep integrates with over 60 tools, including CMSs, CRMs, and email marketing software.
ViralSweep pricing
The Starter plan comes with unlimited promotions and entries, 1 brand, contest app, instant win app, comments app, gallery app, form builder, and email notifications. It costs $49 monthly ($41 on an annual plan).
The Business plan comes with 2 brands and users, leaderboards, hashtags app, white label branding, geo-targeting, and premium integrations. It costs $199 monthly ($166 on an annual plan).
The Premium plan comes with 4 brands and additional users, contest video uploads, payments, audience segments, bulk import entrants, A/B testing, and ViralSweep API. It costs $399 monthly ($333 on an annual plan).
The Elite plan comes with 6 brands and additional users, 1 promotion built for you per month, and strategy consulting. It costs $999 monthly ($833 on an annual plan). You get a 7-day trial to check the plans out.
5. Easypromos
With over 40 apps, Easypromos lets you run giveaways, contests, and multi-stage contests.
To make your campaigns easier, use Easypromos’s many templates. These templates provide giveaway ideas for Instagram, TikTok, and other social platforms.
After your giveaway, you have a random winner picker to select winners.
If you run contests for brands, the Organize Brands feature lets you group contests for brands separately.
Here’s a breakdown of some of Easypromos’s features:
- Giveaways and contests: Easypromos lets you run Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and multi-network giveaways. Even more, photo contests, video contests, and mentions + hashtag contests are available.
- Templates: With over 300 templates, Easypromos has templates for most use cases. Easypromos also educates you on the type of marketing goals achievable with each template.
- Email autoresponder: Easypromos lets you send emails to participants based on conditions like entering a giveaway. Also, you can segment participants based on age, gender, country, and other traits.
- Team and agents: If you need to collaborate with people during campaigns, Easypromos allows you to add users.
- Statistics: This section provides metrics about participants, visits, shares, and sources.
- Integrations: Easypromos integrates with CRM, email marketing, and analytics tools. These integrations let you extend Easypromos’s capabilities.
To learn more, read my Easypromos review.
Easypromos pricing
The Basic plan comes with entry form giveaway, Instagram giveaway, Facebook giveaway, and pick-a-winner app. It costs $29 monthly ($24.17 on an annual plan).
The Basic Pro plan comes with 8 apps, including Instagram story giveaway, Twitter giveaway, and multi-network giveaway. It costs $49 monthly ($40.83 on an annual plan).
The Premium plan comes with 42 apps, including photo and video contests, Instagram hashtag contests, quizzes, instant wins, and coupon management. It costs $199 monthly ($166.58 on an annual plan)
The White Label plan comes with 48 apps, including multi-stage promotions. You also have CSS customization and multi-language contests. It costs $399 monthly ($333.25 on an annual plan). For the Corporate plan, you have to reach out to the Easypromos team.
Easypromos app also allows you to pay for a single promotion if that’s all you need.
6. Vyper
Vyper.io is another great tool that lets you run viral contests and giveaways.
First, participants enter your giveaway by entering details such as their name and email address.
Then, once they enter, they can take actions on social media networks for more bonus entries.
You’ll find most of Vyper’s features in the contest builder.
Vyper also provides neat features to promote your contests.
For example, you can add a leaderboard to the thank you page. This will encourage participants to take more actions to top the rankings.
The referral entry method also lets you reward participants who refer other people to your giveaway. Those participants get extra points for referrals.
Before launching your giveaway, Vyper lets you edit the display modes (landing page, embed form, popup widget). Then, use the random winner picker to select giveaway winners.
Here’s a breakdown of some of Vyper’s features:
- Contest builder: Here, you can set up your contests in a few pages. First, design a sign-up page where participants will enter their details. On the thank you page, add social actions on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more.
- Templates: Vyper has 10 templates, which is limited compared to competitors. But these templates cover most of the use cases you need a giveaway tool for.
- Email: Set up automated emails, which trigger when participants unlock a prize in your giveaway. This lets you deliver important information about redeeming their prizes.
- Results: On this page, you’ll see the name, email address, and the number of points a participant has. Click on their name to get more details about a participant’s actions. Vyper also tells you if the participant is likely a cheater.
- Integrations: Vyper integrates with CRM and email marketing tools to help process your leads.
Vyper pricing
The Enterprise plan comes with up to 30,000 participants per month if you connect your SMTP (15,000 without), and you can track up to $30,000 revenue per month generated by Vyper. It costs $149 monthly.
The Agency plan lets you have up to 120,000 participants if you connect your SMTP (60,000 without) and track up to $120,000 revenue per month generated by Vyper. You also get 10 sub-accounts for different clients. It costs $299 monthly.
Luckily, Vyper offers a massive 50% discount on both plans if you pay annually.
But before you pay, try its features to see if they fit your needs.
7. Gleam
Gleam is a social media giveaway tool that lets you run various types of giveaways.
First, you can set up actions on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and other social networks. But beyond that, you get access to platforms like Twitch, Discord, and other entry methods.
Gleam.io provides over 60 entry methods to attract participants.
Then, edit your giveaway landing page in the contest builder. Here, edit style, font, background, prize image, and other page elements.
Gleam also lets you embed your giveaway on popular CMSs like WordPress and Shopify.
To prevent cheating, use Gleam’s fraud detection feature.
You also have a random winner picker to select winners after your giveaway.
Here’s a breakdown of some of Gleam’s features:
- Templates: Here, you get templates for social media platforms, photo contests, refer-a-friend contests, email signups, etc.
- Smart popup: This helps collect leads on your website. All you need to do is set up the conditions to trigger the popup.
- Manage entries: During your giveaways, see details about participants, such as their names, actions, and locations. Then, see suspicious participants in terms of fraud.
- Email: Gleam allows you to set up automatic emails that are triggered when a participant enters your giveaway.
- Team member: If you want to collaborate with other people during campaigns, Gleam lets you add team members.
- Integrations: Gleam lets you connect with CRM and email marketing tools to process your leads.
Gleam pricing
The Gleam Pro plan includes unlimited campaigns, unlimited entries, 2 team members, photo gallery, random draw, viral share, and fraud detection. It costs $97 monthly ($79 on an annual plan).
The Business plan comes with 5 team members, file upload, social post import, smart popup, custom emails, custom CSS, and custom tracking API. It costs $379 monthly ($299 on an annual plan).
The Premium plan comes with 10 team members, custom social apps, leaderboard embed, multi-gallery import, API, and custom SMTP. It costs $997 monthly ($749 on an annual plan).
Conclusion
Does any of these social media giveaway tools look like what you need?
Sign up for a free trial to see how the tool works.
Then, decide if the tool can be your partner in running successful social media contests.
Samuel writes long-form guides to help businesses and entrepreneurs achieve better results from their marketing activities. He also writes for marketing and SaaS companies that want more leads and customers. Get in touch with him to discuss your content needs.