If you already have an online presence on Instagram and would like to take advantage of multiple social media marketing strategies to promote brand growth, then you have come to the right place. Instagram contests are effective in achieving brand awareness, increasing its reach, and generating engagement. Just so you know, influencers who promote Instagram contests grow followership 70% faster than those who don’t. Giveaways are rewarding to the audience and brand owner when they are done the right way.
In this guide, you will learn how to create and launch an effective Instagram contest to increase your brand visibility and yield revenue. Everyone loves free goodies. The thrill and excitement that come with getting something for nothing are priceless. Taking advantage of this psychological trait via contests and giveaways can give your business an outstanding result. However, IG giveaways are like a double-edged sword – it can either grow or ruin your brand, depending on its implementation. It is important that you don’t misuse its power.
Creating Your Giveaway
There is always the first step to everything, including IG contests. Successful contests hinge on “effective” planning. Poor or no planning can ruin the success of a contest. How do you plan an IG giveaway? Come up with a goal. What do you want to achieve from this giveaway? Do you want to increase followership, increase engagement or introduce a new product into the system? This precise goal becomes the foundation on which you can launch your contest.
What Are Instagram Giveaways?
Instagram giveaways are time-based promotional offers in which brands engage online audiences in performing certain tasks according to specific requirements, with prizes (products and services) up for grabs for lucky entrants.
Types Of Instagram Giveaways
Instagram promotions are of two types: contests and sweepstakes. IG brands use both offers interchangeably at any time, depending on their goals. With giveaways, winners are selected based on the highest level of performance (activity), which may include having the highest number of likes or shares, creating the best caption and hashtag, or submitting the right answer to a question before others. On the other hand, with sweepstakes, winners are randomly selected.
There are no limitations to what you can do with IG contests, provided that you implement this Instagram giveaway guide. Each strategy will generate a unique result for your brand.
What Type Of Prize Should I Select?
Here is where it gets interesting. As stated earlier on, IG giveaways can be compared to a double-edged sword. When used wrongly, this marketing strategy can be a dead weight on your brand growth. One area of growth is increasing brand following. However, the amount of followership is less significant to its quality. In simpler terms, you need to know who your followers are. Are they within your niche?
Having the wrong audience can be detrimental to your brand’s growth and engagement – some brands fall victim of this trap. People love free stuff and will mostly react to promotions like contests and sweepstakes. Shortly afterwards, their engagement grows cold, leaving the brand with “ghost” following. The demerit to this effect is that over time, Instagram will display contents to fewer people, thereby hampering engagement rate and visibility.
To increase engagement levels, brands offer more giveaways to online users, who sadly are not meant for the brand. The brand’s followership increases, but engagement rates are at an all-time low. So, how do you deal with this problem? You can filter your following to mainly include those interested in your offers – products and services. Remember, people love free items or services that are in line with their interests. Inasmuch as your prize should be attractive and substantial, they should only revolve around your niche. Occasionally, you can offer a generic prize to establish more visibility outside your niche.
Why is it important to pick a price related to your brand? It helps you engage your audience (those who are interested in your products or services) more. This strategy does not only help you build a huge following, but it also increases engagement rates.
How Do Your Audience Relate To Your Giveaways?
You may want to take a break and ponder over this important question. Having the right giveaway for your audience is vital to the success of your marketing campaign. A fashion brand will not be successful in hosting a contest with auto part collections or a professional baking set as its focal point. Hence, your giveaway should be in line with the needs of your target audience and your brand.
Steps To Launching A Successful Giveaway
Now you have understood what Instagram giveaways are, its types, and how to pick the ideal giveaway prize for your brand and audience, here are some steps that will guide you in launching your promotion.
Create A Short, Catchy Text
Your caption accompanying the contest image must be brief and explanatory. Include appropriate hashtags and detailed instructions on how to participate in the promotion. For complex or lengthy information, services like Bit.ly is your go-to platform for creating concise, recollective, custom URLs.
Advertise Your Giveaway
Having created your giveaway, you can launch it by uploading the text and image on Instagram. However, this procedure is not enough. You need to promote your contest to increase participation. There are Instagram giveaway tools that help you accomplish this task, some of which include Woobox, Easypromos, Gleam, Wishpond, Shortstack, Vyper, Heyo, Woorise, and Votigo.
Do not limit promotions to Instagram. You can publicize your contests on other online platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, email lists, blogs, and websites. Additionally, there are several media outlets and influencers that are willing to promote your contests to their followers. With their input, contest participation levels will increase significantly.
Promote The Winner On Your Page
Once the contest is over and you have found that lucky winner, reach out to such individuals notifying them on their success in the contest. You need their personal details, including name, location, occupation, among others. This information helps you build a compelling story to share in a press release and send to other promoters like bloggers, influencers, and websites for coverage.
Ensure that the winner gets noticed by a wide audience, one of which includes using contest hashtags. This strategy helps brands get more participation in their next contests.
