When to run a contest on social media

Because of their very nature, social media platforms provide the perfect platform for your brand if you are looking to:

• Enhance brand visibility and create a buzz around your brand.
• Expand your social media presence and grow your follower base organically.
• Increase engagement and create meaningful exchanges between your brand and your audience.
• Promote your products and turn followers into brand ambassadors.

Let’s take a look at the kind of social media contest that you can launch to achieve these objectives.

Social media contest: Giveaways

A giveaway is the most popular kind of social media contest, and if done correctly and with the right tools, one of the easiest to create and manage too. In case you were wondering, by “the right tools” we mean a platform that uses the official API of the social network where you’re running the giveaway.

Running a giveaway on social media is straightforward and effective. It is also a good first step to grow your brand’s social media presence and reach before moving into more complex contests. It should also go without saying that the prize you offer should be both attractive and relevant to your target audience. The most logical option is to give away one of your products as it would naturally appeal to your audience and is a great way to promote your brand.

The next step is to decide the participation dynamics and requirements. Asking participants to comment on the giveaway post is simple and engaging. You can also ask them to tag someone in their comment to help your giveaway go viral but don’t overdo it. A short answer and one tag is enough. Finally, you should choose the social network to run your giveaway on. With Easypromos, you can organize giveaways on Instagram, Facebook, and X.

All the Easypromos giveaway apps provide random winner selection, winners and alternate management, and a certificate of validity to ensure fairness and transparency.

Social media contest to gather UGC and generate leads

As much as a social media contest is great for brand awareness and exposure, you might be looking into taking your social media contest a step further to collect user data and user-generated content. If this is your case, you will need a more comprehensive solution. Enter the “Mention + Hashtag” and the “Hashtag + Entry form” contests by Easypromos, which allow you to collect UGC and contact details respectively.

Collect UGC with a Mention + Hashtag social media contest

The Mention + Hashtag contest offers the dual benefit of collecting high-quality UGC that can be imported to the contest gallery and the option of enabling public voting for the audience to vote for their favorite, giving your social media contest greater reach and higher levels of engagement. Participants upload their participating content to their Instagram profiles with your campaign hashtag, and photos and videos from the feed will be automatically imported to the contest app.

In the example above, the ABB professional basketball team Girona Basket launched a Mention + Hashtag photo contest among its followers. Participants had to upload a photo of themselves in the teams fan zone and mention the team’s sponsor for the chance to win a prize.

Gather Participants data and UGC with a Hashtag + Entry form social media contest

If your objective is to gather user data, use the Hashtag + Entry Form application to organize an exclusive Instagram photo contest to enhance brand visibility on social media. Invite users to publish a photo on their profile with your campaign hashtag. Users enter the competition by filling in a registration form with their contact details, choosing which of their Instagram photos to use, and accepting the terms and conditions and content permissions.

Participating images will be displayed in a public photo gallery with a unique URL. Share the contest microsite with your audience and personalize it with your branding colors and logo. As an organizer, you can Ppre-moderate competition entries to control which images appear in the gallery.

Stand-alone contest shared on social media

Another option is to organize a stand-alone contest and share the link to access it on your social media accounts. The advantage of this modality is that you will not be restricted to gathering only the data allowed by each social network, as the contest itself will not be held directly on the social network but on its own microsite.

Entry Form Giveaway

The Entry Form Giveaway application allows you to run a giveaway with a fully customizable registration form that you can set up to include the user information that you’re interested in. After setting up your giveaway, simply create a post for your social media profiles and include the access link.

In this example, the car restoration supplies company Eastwood organized a Black Friday Giveaway and shared it on its socials with a link that directed participants to the giveaway’s registration for the chance to win over $10,000 in prizes.

Voting Contest shared on social media

This is the ideal solution to gather UGC and collect user data. Invite your audience to participate by uploading their own photos, videos, or texts and set up a public online voting process. The Voting Contest application features an anti-fraud system to guarantee reliable and fair voting. It’s perfect for engaging your followers and collecting user-generated content. It also allows you to display several options for the audience to choose their favorite videos, stories, designs, or projects.

Diving Special is company specializing in scuba diving trips. The company organized a photo contest directed at their female members. Participants had to submit a photo and the winners were chosen by popular vote. Users who sent their picture could then share the link to the gallery to get more votes, which gave the contest greater reach.

We hope you find this article useful when deciding which is he best option to launch your social media contest. If you have any additional questions, don’t hesitate to contact us via live-chat or request a personalized demos from our sales team. We will. be happy to help!

Coming up with ways to give out prizes randomly is easy if you know how to do it. You just have to dedicate some time to plan your online prize giveaway to make sure it will be successful. Don’t know where to start? We are some tips:

• Start by choosing the right online giveaway app. For instance, Easypromos allows you to raffle prizes in many different ways: on social media, through games, from a list, etc. Visit the Easypromos website to learn more and test the different kinds of applications. Create an account for free to set up your promotion, and if needed, contact our customer support team to get personalized guidance.
• Decide the kind of prize to give away depending on the interests of the audience you want to reach and the product you wish to promote.
• Determine where your prize giveaway will take place and which channels to promote it on. For instance, if your online prize giveaway will take place on social media or if you will create an entry form for participants to fill out.
• Set clear guidelines for your prize giveaway: how winners will be chosen, participation requirements, starting and finishing dates, how winners will be notified, prize delivery conditions, etc.
• Draft clear Terms and Conditions and make them easily accessible so participants can check them if they have doubts.
• Once the prize giveaway has taken place, don’t forget to announce the winner publicly along with the certificate of validity and contact the winners directly.

Available ways to give out prizes randomly

Once you’ve decided that a prize giveaway is the main way to attract, engage, and grow your online community, it’s time to consider the ways to give away prizes and coupons online.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Easypromos is a platform that provides you with fun ways to give away prizes in a quick, transparent, and reliable way. Here are the three most popular ways to do it:

Ways to give out prizes randomly: Entry Form Giveaway

With the entry form giveaway app, you can give away prizes randomly, and transparently among all those who have filled out a registration form. Additionally, you will gather the participants’ contact information as they will be required to fill out the information fields in the registration form.

In the following example, the car restoration products company Eastwood carried out a Black Friday prize giveaway. The company distributed over $10,000 in prizes among users who filled out the registration form.

Ways to give out prizes randomly: Raffle prize from an excel file list

Another one of the common ways give out prizes randomly is from a list of users. With the pick-a-winner app, you can upload an Excel or CSV file, or copy a text list to choose the winners in an automated way. As a final result, you will obtain a certificate of validity that assures participants that the giveaway has been carried out completely randomly.

Social Media Prize Giveaway

Carrying out a prize giveaway on social media is quite easy. Hence, it is one of the most widely used dynamics when done with a professional app. With our giveaway apps you will be able to randomly select users among participants that comment on your posts on Instagram, Facebook, or X (Twitter).

The restaurant reservation and review app The Fork, in collaboration with Whitcomb’s restaurant and The Londoner Hotel of a full dinning experience and a 5-star hotel stay. To participate, users had to follow the organizing brands, like the post, and tag a friend with whom they’d like to share the experience.

Ways to give out prizes randomly: Games

Another type of dynamic that is very appealing to users is challenges and interactive games. That’s why, if you want to gain visibility and brand recognition, creating games to raffle prizes is a great idea. Using the Easypromos platform, you can create the game and get a URL so you can share it digitally through several channels. Let’s take a look at four examples of games where the distribution of prizes is determined by chance.

Prize Giveaway with a digital prize wheel

Entertain your audience with a spin the wheel promotion where users can try their luck and win prizes. Capitalize on the excitement of the game and chance to collect contact information for future use and achieve greater brand exposure. When the participant spins the wheel, they will instantly know if they have won a prize and how to claim it.

Take a look at this Prize Wheel organized by medical uniform manufacturer Uniform Advantage. After filling out the registration form, participants got to spin the wheel for the chance to win a discount coupon that could be redeemed at any of their shops.

Prize Giveaway with a digital Scratch & Win

Recreate the excitement of a digital scratch card by setting up this type of game using the Easypromos Scratch & Win app. Users register and are presented with an image that they can scratch by swiping their finger across the screen to see if they’ve won a prize or if a “no prize” message appears.

New Year’s resolutions often include get in shape. In the following example the South African gym chain Edge launched a promotion to attract new users by offering discounts and vouchers through a Scratch & Win promotion.

Prize Giveaway with Instant Win

With an instant win promotion, you can distribute multiple prizes and capture data from your target audience. Users register to try their luck, and after completing the form, they instantly find out if they have won a prize.

In the example below, the food brand Knorr launched a promotion to promote their products among supermarket customers. User simply had to visit the brand’s booth and register to win a free sample of one of their products.

Reveal & Win prize giveaway

Capture the interest of users with a “reveal and win” type of dynamic. While playing, participants see a board with various elements that they must select randomly to find out if they have a prize. Yet another example of how you can carry out prize giveaways online.

Take a look at this Reveal & Win promotion that the running training app Coopah launched. The brand included a questionnaire in the registration form that provided valuable information on their target audience’s preferences and needs.

We hope you find these examples helpful and inspiring. If you have any questions or need further assistance, don’t hesitate to contact our customer support team via live chat.

More changes seem to loom on the horizon, such as renaming the “Tweets” as “Posts”. However, this is yet to be confirmed. Likewise, at Easypromos we are monitoring the performance of our Twitter Giveaway app and we will readily inform our users of any change.

Not the only brand to change the name

All of us in the marketing & advertising field are fully aware that we are bearing witness to an interesting moment for Twitter and the industry in general. Never before had a social network changed its name so radically. True, Instagram started as Burbn but only achieved notoriety under its current name.

What we have seen is plenty of changes in other brand assets, such as logos. For instance, Instagram has restyled its logo several times. Facebook has also gone through more than one change in its logo and has come under the umbrella of the Meta brand. Nonetheless, the social network chose to keep its name instead of adopting the parent company name.

Yet, brands in different sectors have gone through radical renamings such as:

• Google, one of the biggest brand names nowadays, was originally called BackRub.
• The Blue Ribbon Sports company changed its name to that of its most successful running shoe model at the time: Nike.
• The ground-breaking online buy-and-sell site AuctionWeb was rebranded as eBay.
• The game-changing dating app Tinder was originally called MatchBox.

Be what it may and for the time being, Easypromos will continue to use the product name Twitter Giveaway. In the upcoming weeks, we will decide if we get on the name-change bandwagon and move on to adapting to the new image, provided that this new image doesn’t change. The reason is that information is surfacing that the X brand name is already owned by several other companies, so it remains to be seen if Twitter will be able to keep its new name. 

Today we’re focusing on Facebook and looking into which KPIs you should use to assess whether your promotions are appropriate to your objectives. Later on, we’ll try some of the most interesting metrics for other social networks from which sweepstakes and contests can be run.

The key KPIs for your Facebook contests and sweepstakes

1. Number of participants. The first thing to look at is the number of participants you’ve had in your sweepstakes or contest. This figure will give you some clues. Especially if you compare it with your previous promotions or with similar contests run by other brands or competitors. The number of participants should be in line with the size of your community and with the segment you’re aiming your contest at. In other words, if you have a large Facebook community, your promotion will probably achieve high rates of participation, but you should also keep in mind what your promotion was designed to do. Perhaps your target audience is of a particular age for example, or perhaps it lives in a specific area (near an offline event). These factors will determine the number of people likely to participate in the promotion.
2. New fans gained each day that the campaign is active. Analyze the number of new fans you obtain each day of the campaign and compare this figure with previous campaigns. Keep in mind factors such as seasonality, other publications that you launch each day, and how you are supporting your promotion from other social networks, websites, etc.
3. Total number of fans gained during the campaign.
4. Reach achieved by the publication. By this stage you’ll have understood that your posts don’t reach all your followers. The more users interact with your post, the greater the reach it will have, so it’s a good sign when this figure increases.
5. Number of shares. As with the previous point, the higher the number of shares the more popular a promotion has proved to be. How much expectation has your promotion created? The number of shares generated by your promotion post indicates how many users have considered the campaign interesting enough to share it with contacts and invite them to participate.
6. Number of Likes. This KPI is even more unequivocal. If your community receives the promotion with open arms, this will be reflected in the number of likes obtained. It’s an excellent statistic for assessing how successful a promotion has been.
7. Comments on the post and positive reactions. You should value both positive comments and negative ones. Obviously, it’s always encouraging to get positive feedback, but negative comments can help you see what you might have done wrong and how you can improve.
8. Number of clicks on your promotion link. It’s a good idea to use URL shorteners that enable you to measure clicks and see how many were converted into conversions. Use UTM to carry out monitoring from Google Analytics for example.
9. Return on Investment (ROI). How much money have you spent promoting the contest, design, prize, and so on? And what has been the true rate of conversion and return generated?

So, by now it’s all crystal clear, right? When it comes to Digital Marketing… monitor and measure and you will prevail! All our promotions provide tools for measuring results and statistics, facilitating your work and helping you achieve your KPIs. Set your KPIs and create your promotion now!

Terms and conditions are a vital part of any online promotion. This is where the contest organizer can specify all entry requirements, rules, as well as restrictions of their promotion and prize details. Sweepstakes that come with T&Cs generate more trust and credibility, which leads to increased customer loyalty, but they also protect you – the organizer. In case your promotion is won by a user that didn’t comply with the entry requirements, i.e., your terms and conditions, you can disqualify them and proceed to choose another winner. Therefore, the lack of terms and conditions might bring you extra problems and headaches. Luckily for you, all active Easypromos accounts include a terms and conditions generator. And if you still don’t have an active account, you can always download our terms and conditions templates for free!

How to access the Terms and Conditions generator

The Terms and Conditions generator tool is included in all active Easypromos accounts. The first step is to create an Easypromos account, it’s free and no billing information is required until you activate your first promotion. To access the Terms and Conditions generator, go to the control panel and click on Settings. In the “Utilities” menu, click on the “Terms and Conditions” button to access the editor. Then, simply copy paste and edit your terms and conditions or download the template by clicking in the download link.

Once you have created your Easypromos account, it’s important to keep the following in mind:

• The Terms and Conditions templates are free resource within the generator and are available for download to anyone with an Easypromos account.
• To access the Terms and Conditions editor to draft and host Terms and Conditions in a dedicated URL is a resource available to active Easypromos accounts.

Giveaway and contest template

The Easypromos Terms & Conditions tool is very simple and easy to use. Once you create your T&Cs, the tool automatically creates a shareable microsite.

Our Terms and Conditions tool comes with a T&C template that will help you get started. But you’re free to edit the text as much as necessary, change the order of points, etc. You can even add details, like bold or italic text, to make the terms and conditions easier to read.

Here’s what the terms and conditions editor looks like:

You can add a direct link to your giveaway terms and conditions to your Link in Bio, the giveaway post, newsletter, website, etc:

Users just click the link to view the terms and conditions in full. In case of Instagram giveaways where users can’t click on the link in a post, we strongly recommend sharing your T&Cs in the link in bio.

Top tips for using the giveaway terms and conditions generator

• Essential information. Explain the start and end dates of the promotion, participation requirements, how the winner is selected, and which prizes are on offer.
• Save your template to re-use. Once you’ve edited the model terms and conditions with your brand details, be sure to save the template. You can use it again for your next online promotion or giveaway.

Ready to get started with your giveaway terms and conditions? Head to our terms and conditions generator and start working on your T&Cs. You only need an active Easypromos account.

Need help? Chat live with us!

• Accessing the internet.
• Entertainment (especially taking photos or recording videos).
• Taking part in social networks.

These three changes in trends provide us with the perfect environment to ensure that contests, sweepstakes or promotions that contain videos now work better than ever. Additionally, most-viewed videos are not those produced by professionals, but those created by ordinary internet users.

Below we suggest a series of ideas to help you run successful video contests:

Talent video contest

Video is the perfect form of media for staging a talent contest, enabling users to upload videos of themselves performing acrobatics, dancing ballet, singing, doing impressions and so on. There are plenty of people out there who are eager to share their talent with the world, especially if there is a prize at the end of it as well as fame to be found.

In the example below, the Weekend Beach Festival Torre del Mar organized a Video Contest to promote and support young talent. Participants had to upload their set directly to the contest app using a YouTube or Vimeo link and share their participation to get votes. The winning DJ got to play on the 2023 edition of the festival and a scholarship for a master in music production, mixing, and mastering.

Sporting events video contest

Make the most of any sporting event. Sport can capture the public’s imagination. Use an appropriate “call to action” that encourages people to show their support for their favorite team or sports personality.

We’re not referring only to the Olympics, the World Cup, Wimbledon or Formula One, which are international events. If you wish to capture the attention of people in a specific geographic location, you can also take advantage of events such as marathons, smaller tennis tournaments or minor soccer league games with local teams.

You can propose a dynamic in which participants have to celebrate a goal in the most original way they can think of; or shout out words of support to their team; upload a video of themselves crossing the finishing line of a local marathon; or simply film themselves showing what tricks they can do with a soccer ball.

“Say it with a video” contest

Video is the only media in which images and sound can be combined with text. Without a doubt it’s the form of media which can best move or thrill people. This kind of video contest is an easy way of encouraging people to really get involved. Ask them to participate with a message to a family member who lives far away. The message could include a song too. Suggest actions that include a second person; for example, create a dynamic that involves the entrant naming someone in the video (challenging a friend to do something). This person will almost certainly take part, but they will also share the video, boosting the virality and helping the contest to work better.

“Holiday Greetings” video contest

Similar to “Say it with a video” contest, but focused on specific holidays celebrated all over the world. Organize a contest asking entrants to provide gift ideas for Fathers’ or Mothers’ Day. How about a Christmas decoration contest or a tree decorating contest? An option for Easter could be to ask users to submit the most original Easter egg design. If you would like to limit these contests to a specific area you could use local festivals such as Fallas in Valencia, Spain; or country-specific ones like Bonfire Night in the UK or Diwali in India. For these types of contests you could ask participants to make a video showing their favorite aspects of their festival.

Seasons

A common practice in traditional marketing is that known as “seasonal strategies.” This is an effective technique which encourages you to create contests which make the most of the current season.

Some examples: You can carry out a social media video contest at the start of summer in which users must offer tips for taking care of the skin in the sun. This could be a good way for a sun cream manufacturer to boost interest in their product. While a Cava producer could find a date near December for promoting their product by organizing a contest in which users upload photos of themselves raising a glass of cava at parties or family gatherings.

Keep up with the trends

Keeping up with trends ensures a greater level of virality. Users filming themselves dancing or singing along to the latest hit song can become viral. It’s also fashionable to post positive quotes. Another option could be to take advantage of the blogger movement by encouraging users to create a video of this summer’s latest fashion trends.

Raise awareness through a video contest

Campaigns to raise awareness are a good way to rally the community and increase engagement around a positive objective. These campaigns also provide a setting for your brand to “give back” to the community and to promote your corporate social responsibility. With topics ranging from environment to support groups, it shouldn’t be too hard to fin one that aligns with your brand’s values.

Learn about the International Osteoporosis Foundation organized a successful video contest to raise awareness about the disease, educate the public, and give patients a voice to share their experience.

Hobbies and interests

It’s also possible to organize a contest related to hobbies and interests or to entertainment generally. Without a doubt, the success of certain YouTube users stems from their sharing of experiences with other people who have the same interests. Create a contest in which users propose season endings for a successful TV series; or one in which contestants film themselves playing their favorite videogame. Another option could be a video contest of pets showing their abilities.

Video contest as part of a conference or seminar

Social networks are changing the way we communicate. Thanks to them we are capable of interacting instantly with people from all over the world. This means we can give an event both national and international visibility.

Do you want to broadcast an event in real time? Find a hashtag and encourage everyone attending the event to promote it by uploading a video of the event, or of themselves explaining one of the themes of the lecture or summing up the conclusions of the speakers. In this way, the information can reach people who are interested in the subject but weren’t able to come to the event.

In the following example, the California based University program MESA organized a video contest as part of their 2021 Leadership conference. Participating students had to upload a video outlining their engineering project. The participating videos were displayed in a gallery and the winning projects chosen by popular vote.

Use a video contest to promote your product or service

Make the most of these types of actions for promoting your products or services by encouraging people to come to your online or brick-and-mortar shop. You can organize am unboxing video contest or ask users to share a video using your product for a chance to win a credit voucher for your shop.

You can also take advantage of visits to your restaurant or hotel by incentivizing customers to record videos of themselves recommending your establishment to others.

Video Contest to build customer loyalty and promote your brand

Nowadays, customer loyalty is very important. With so many brands on the market and online shopping, the competition is higher than ever, and it’s harder to keep customers coming back to your business. Your occasional clients become loyal customers as a result of positive customer experience and satisfaction. So why don’t you look up to Quark Expeditions that organized a Video Contest as a customer retention idea, and target your previous clients?

The company launched a promotion targeting past passengers of one of their expeditions to Antarctica. The participants were asked to share their footage from the trip for a chance to win another voyage for two… This time to East Greenland!

Advantages of using video

Gather User-Generated Content.

UCG has become the most reliable and valuable content to promote your brand as the internet community trusts it more than professionally produced content.

Accessibility and immediacy.

Almost everyone now has the knowledge and resources to film a video. As we’ve already mentioned, the use of smartphones allows users to record high-quality videos. More and more apps for editing and adding filters to videos are coming on to the market, giving the videos an ever more professional finish. Contests carried out with Easypromos are totally responsive, meaning that taking part in contests with a smartphone is both quick and convenient.

Virality.

Social networks are a great ally of videos. Images and videos are the most-shared and most-commented type of content on the social networks. And it is often the more spontaneous and least-professional videos that achieve the greatest level of virality.

Versatility.

It is the only type of media capable of combining texts, images and sound, allowing for a wide range of possibilities and permitting more creative actions.

Convenience and simplicity.

It’s far more convenient to watch a video than to read a text, especially from a smartphone. The same is true when taking part in a contest: it’s easier to upload a video than to type in a text even if a user has a computer in front of him or her. Who hasn’t looked for a video with instructions for using a product to avoid having to read the manual?

Effectiveness.

Online videos generate approximately twice the impact of other formats. 80% of Internet users would rather click on a video than any other type of link. Video is also the form of media that connects with the public best; it enables emotions to be conveyed simply and directly to the public.

Build trust.

If it is the participants themselves who present the videos, the perception of the viewers will be more likely to be one of trust. The less professional videos will give a greater impression of truth and reality.

The giveaway dynamic will determine the best way to promote it

Easypromos offers two kinds of Instagram Stories giveaway and the best strategy to achieve a high participation level is different for each one.

Story Mention Giveaway dynamic:

• Winners are selected from among users that mention the organizing brand in their stories.
• Allows gathering all the mentions to the brand made by users with public profiles. Improves brand awareness, visibility, and collects UGC related to the brand.
• Ideal to engage event attendees and to get them to share their experience online.

Replies to the brand stories’ dynamic.

• Winners are selected from among the users that reply to the brand’s stories.
• Enables interaction between the brand and users.
• Increases engagement with the brand’s profile and pushes the brand’s stories on the users’ feeds.

Why is it important to choose the right dynamic? Because the way to communicate the participation requirements changes considerably. So keep reading to learn more about this.

Effective ways to communicate a Story Mentions giveaway

The Story Mention Giveaway is proving to be an effective way to boost brand visibility through brand lovers. The objective is to get customers and followers to publicly share their link to the brand. Consequently, a giveaway is likely to nudge users to share and participate. This has shown to be a very efficient strategy. Furthermore, it brings down participation barriers, as users are more willing to participate and post a story due to the fact that stories are only visible for 24 hours.

Clear instructions are fundamental when communicating this kind of giveaway. In this example from Kinder Bueno’s Instagram profile, the giveaway is communicated with posts in their feed as well as with stories and reels. It is also important to repost stories as much as possible. E.g, if someone mentions your brand, it’s a good idea to repost that mention in your Stories, giving the giveaway a wider reach and in turn, bringing in more participants.

It’s of paramount importance to promote the giveaway with daily stories for as long as the giveaway is active. This can be done either by sharing the story with the participation requirements or with a new story every day. Also, remember to clearly state what the prize is as well as the participation requirements. Finally, highlight these stories to make it easy for users to find the giveaway information.

The recommended steps for this giveaway are:

1. Post a story on a public profile
2. Mention the organizing brand

Remember to make it perfectly clear that the participants’ profiles must be set to public. Otherwise, the organizer won’t be able to collect the participating stories. Additionally, it’s important to clearly state the story’s theme. Many brands choose to ask for photos that show their product. Other brands ask for images that are easy to produce, either taking them directly from their gallery or with a screenshot. You can find more examples of Instagram Stories Mentions giveaways here. In the following example, an Ice-Cream brand launched and new products and asked its customers to post a photo in their shop to enter the giveaway. 

This kind of giveaway calls for good planning prior to launch. It is necessary to determine the timing and channels that you will use to communicate it.

• Make a post on the brand’s Instagram feed with the most relevant information about the giveaway.
• Advertise the giveaway with posters in the brick-and-mortar shops in case you require participants to take a picture of themselves with your product.
• Advertise on all your social media accounts to give your giveaway the highest possible reach.
• Use your newsletter to communicate the promotion to all your subscribers and/or post a banner on your website.

The Story Mention Giveaway dynamic is also a good tool for offline events, as it creates engagement with the attendees and motivates them to share their experience on Instagram. In the following example, the Worten’s TecnoCon congress gave away a PlayStation 5 among the attendees. The organizers created an Instagram Story filter and anyone who used it and posted a Story mentioning the brand entered the giveaway. In a case like this one, communicating the giveaway on social media is as important as communicating it at the venue itself with roll-ups, brochures in the welcome pack, and having the event’s host informing attendees of the giveaway and how to participate.

Make the most of one of the benefits of the Story Mention Giveaway mode: gathering UCG, make sure you repost the stories that mention your brand!

The Story Mention giveaway is also a very good option for parties and popular events like the one in the following example. This dynamic took place among the visitors to the Valencia Fallas, a hugely popular and spectacular tradition in the Spanish city of Valencia. El Manisero is a local nuts and snacks brand that decided to participate in the party by giving away an electric scooter among the people that posted a story showing their product and mentioning the brand during the celebration.

How to promote a “Reply to a Story” giveaway

The promotion of a giveaway in which participants hate to reply to a Story of the brand is quite different from the Story Mention Giveaway dynamic. The main objective is to direct users toward the stories of your brand.

In case you haven’t noticed, when you promote a Story with Facebook Ads, the “reply” dialogue box at the bottom disappears. Even if the option to reply to your stories is activated in your brand’s Instagram account settings, if you promote it with Ads, this option becomes unavailable.

Ads on Stories do not allow users to reply to the brand. Hence, you need to find alternative and easy ways to channel potential participants to your brand’s Stories.

This means that if you choose this dynamic, there is a limitation on how you can get participants. Instead of using Stories promoted with Ads, take advantage of other available channels to funnel participants to your Stories.

• Make a post on your feed explaining how to participate and promote it with Ads.
• Share it on other social networks and redirect users to your Instagram account.
• Send a newsletter to turn your subscribers into followers and increase engagement.

As you will see in the following example, these two brands launched reply-based Instagram Stories giveaways, but they based the promotion of the giveaway on a post on their feed. This makes it much easier to promote and it’s clear to users where they have to participate.

However, don’t neglect communication via Stories. It’s fundamental to have active Stories in your profile while the giveaway is active. Post several different Stories to show the prize, explain the giveaway, and highlight where participants have to reply.

This is exactly how we did it at Easypromos when this product was launched. The best way to efficiently communicate this kind of giveaway is to post several stories a day that include giveaway-related content. It’s always a good idea that users can participate in any of the Stories’ reply boxes. Additionally, ask users to include the campaign’s hashtag to make sure that their intention is to participate. Finally, to ensure that your giveaway has the widest possible reach, you should:

• Promote a post on your feed explaining the giveaway on Ads.
• Post short videos explaining the participation requirements and mechanics.

Overall, it is very important to channel the audience to your profile’s Stories. Once they are there, you can easily deliver the participation requirements to the users.

Key content that should be communicated for Instagram Stories Giveaways

Let’s summarize the key information that should be communicated for this kind of giveaway, which is characterized by its ephemeral nature.

• A step-by-step explanation of the participation requirements.
• The prize or prizes available.
• Terms & Conditions of the giveaway.
• Participation dates. Keep in mind that these giveaways are typically short, from one to four days. The tool allows you to gather stories and replies for up to seven days, but no longer than that.
• The date and way that winners will be communicated.

Independently of these considerations, the graphic image of the giveaway is fundamental to make sure users see it and understand the participation requirements.

So, what are you waiting for to launch an Instagram Stories Giveaway? It might seem that you have to put in a little more work than in a traditional comment giveaway the first time but bear in mind that it allows you to achieve other marketing objectives. Namely, increased levels of engagement and interaction with your community. If you have any questions or would like to know more about it, get in touch with our customer support team via live chat or by opening a ticket. We will be happy to help!

Let’s begin by looking at the two kinds of giveaways that you can organize with the “Instagram Stories Giveaway” app. This will also help to better understand how the app works.

1. “Reply to a Story” Giveaway. Carry out a giveaway among the users that have replied to a Story on your Instagram profile during 7 days. Whatsmore, you can filter participation by including a predefined hashtag.
2. “Mention in a story” Giveaway. Carry out a giveaway among users that mention your brand in a Story on their Instagram profile within 7 days.

Now that we’ve gone over the two possible giveaway dynamics, let’s take a look at some real-life examples.

Reply to a Story giveaway by Casa del Libro

Casa del Libro is one of Spain’s biggest bookstore chains and an early adopter of this giveaway dynamic. When the latest book of Spanish author Albert Espinosa came out, the bookstore launched an Instagram Stories giveaway to promote it.

Participants had to reply to the bookstore’s story with the hashtag #albertespinosa for the chance to win a hard copy of the book. Setting a hashtag as a participation requirement allows the organizers to filter only the participants that use it in their replies. Hence, this is a best practice that makes participation more reliable and trustworthy among users.

Did you know? When a user interacts with your stories, the next stories you post will come up first in the user’s profile. That’s why it’s so important to get users’ interactions on Stories, it increases brand visibility.

Reply to an Instagram Story giveaway by Coviran

Coviran, one of Spain’s largest cooperative supermarkets and food distributors, organized an Instagram Stories giveaway. And they turned it up a notch… Besides including the preset hashtag to participate, users also had to mention which was their favorite horror movie. Hence, the brand celebrated Halloween with its community as well as featuring its followers’ likes and opinions.

One best practice by Coviran, worth mentioning, is to communicate the 5 winners through a Story post and create a highlighted story with all the information regarding the giveaway. Furthermore, the Easypromos app allows organizers to send winners a private message easily from the winners’ list itself.

Let’s move on to the second giveaway dynamic: the Mention in a Story giveaway.

Instagram Story Mention Giveaway by Adolfo Dominguez

Our next example takes us to the Mention in a Story giveaway that the Spanish fashion brand Adolfo Dominguez organized. It is worth mentioning that the brand promoted the giveaway and explained the participation dynamics in their feed and included a link in the BIO with the terms and conditions.

The idea behind the giveaway was to encourage people to wear the same outfit to work every Monday as a way to reduce decision anxiety. Participants had to post a story with a photo of their outfit, mentioning the brand. The brand repeated the giveaway on a weekly basis and rewarded the users who followed the trend.

Mention in a Story Giveaway by Hai Swimwear

Hai is a Taiwanese fashion brand that has recently reached the 10,000 followers milestone. To celebrate such a memorable feat, they organized a Mention in a Story giveaway. The participation dynamic is one to really take a look at.

To participate, users had to select a swimsuit model from the brand’s feed, repost it in a Story mentioning the brand, and comment why they liked it. One lucky winner was chosen every week for several weeks. The brand communicated the giveaway through a story and it actually included in it a video showing participants exactly what to do to participate. Talk about making it Easy for their followers!

There are several remarkable aspects to point out about this campaign. Firstly, asking participants to choose a post from the brand’s feed that shows one of their products is a great way to get them promoted to an even greater audience, as participants themselves promote the brand’s products. Secondly, asking followers to comment on what they like about the product they chose, provides the brand with valuable insight into what their customers like and want. Big thumbs to Hai Swimwear!

In a giveaway like this, participants mentioning the brand in their Story is a necessary requirement so that the brand can carry out an automated giveaway. Having said this, there are two options:

1. Only import the mentions to the brand made after activation of the giveaway. Users that have mentioned your brand before the activation will not be included.
2. Import past mentions. Once the participation period has finished, you can import all the mentions of your brand made up to seven days before.

Instagram does not allow external developers such as Easypromos to store images that mention your brand. However, you can monitor the mentions of your brand every day to make sure they comply with the participation requirements.

Instagram Story Mention Giveaway by Bebang Halo Halo

Our last example comes from Bebang HaloHalo restaurant in Phillippines. The giveaway’s dynamic is worth mentioning. Participants had to post a story with a picture of a Halo Halo (a Phillipine shaved ice dessert drink) on their Instagram profile. This turned every participant into a brand ambassador through their Instagram profiles. Finally, the brand shared participating stories on its profile and also announced the winners in a post on their feed.

Important! The “Mention in Stories” participation dynamic requires participants’ Instagram profiles to be set as public. Otherwise, it will be impossible for the organizer to import the participants’ stories. Make sure you make this very clear in the instructions and requirements to participate.

Useful insights from these examples of Instagram Stories Giveaways

• There are two ways of monitoring the giveaway to gather participants automatically: activating the live monitoring to gather participants in real-time or creating the giveaway on your Easypromos account and importing participations up to 7 days old.
• We strongly recommend including a hashtag as a participation requirement. This will automatically filter the users that are participating in the giveaway.
• If you organize a “Mention in Stories” giveaway, recommend users highlighting their participating stories. This will allow the giveaway organizer to see them.
• Make sure the terms and conditions of your giveaway include all the information about the giveaway. I.e., prizes, dates, requirements, and be clear about how the winning image will be used and make sure participants grant their permission to use it.
• Post more than one story during the 7 days that the giveaway will be active. This will give it more visibility and attract more participants.
• Instagram Stories are ephemeral. Hence, the recommended length of the giveaways is between 1 and 5 days. Additionally, engagement is higher on weekdays, celebrate your giveaway then.
• A best practice is to use a highlighted story to share the giveaway’s information. It should explain the participation dynamic, where to find the terms and conditions, and announce the winners at the end of the giveaway.

Now you are ready to create your first Instagram Stories Giveaway! If you have any doubt, or want to know more about how to do it, check out our tutorial on how to create an Instagram Stories giveaway.

Drawing clients into a Sports Bar is no easy feat these days, but there are ways to do it if you use the right tools. Integrating online promotions with the offline experience is fundamental for your business’ success. Keep on reading and discover 5 promotion dynamics that you can create with Easypromos to draw more customers into your bar and increase loyalty. 

Instagram or Twitter giveaways to promote your Sports Bar on Game Day

Social Media has become the main tool to attract customers as they allow sharing any kind of information for free. Use your business’ social network accounts to bring people into your bar and turn them into loyal customers. You can achieve this by organizing weekly giveaways on game days. You could also offer a drink on the house to users that guess the final score of the game on a comment on the post. Here’s an example of a giveaway in s Sports Bar.

Another option is to carry out a giveaway among the users that mention your establishment on an Instagram Story. A requirement might be to upload a photo of themselves watching the game in your bar, or a picture of the snacks they ordered to watch the game. With Easypromos you can now run fully automated giveaways on Instagram Stories among the users that mention your Instagram account on their stories. You could offer discounts or free meals as a prize.

Entry Form Giveaways to draw more clients into your bar

Entry forms giveaways are other kinds of giveaways that can be shared through social media and messaging apps to promote your sports bar. Offering prizes such as free meals or drinks to people who register for the giveaway will help you draw customers to your bar. Furthermore, you will be able to gather the participants’ contact details and keep them updated on future events and promotions. People will always be more willing to participate and share their contact details if there is the possibility of winning a prize. Here’s an example of an Entry Form Giveaway organized by a Sushi Bar.

Want to learn more about how an entry form giveaway works? Give this DEMO a try and if you like it, download the template to create your own giveaway in no time.

Online games to entertain your audience and build customer loyalty

Let’s move on to other promotional dynamics that will entertain your clientele as well as attract new customers into your sports bar. We’re talking about creating online games offering a prize or the chance to enter a giveaway.

With Easypromos you can easily create games such as puzzles or word search. All you have to do is sign up to our platform, choose the game you want to create, and configure it with the images and texts you want to include. For example, you could create a puzzle with an image of a beer and reward the users that solve it in the shortest time possible or do a prize draw among the users that solve it within a certain time.

You can also come up with a digital Scratch & Win (scratch card) to reward customers. Distribute participation codes among your patrons or display QR codes around the bar. Every time customers order a drink they receive a promotional code with it, they can then scan the QR code with their smartphones and introduce the code to access the digital scratch card and find out then and there if they have won a prize. Take a look at this example of an online Scratch & Win promotion.

Display promotional QR codes in hotel rooms to reward customers in the bar

Digital promotions can also be useful for channeling customers’ attention to a specific place or activity. In the case of hotels, promotional codes can be useful to prompt guests to go to the bar whenever a sports event or competition is taking place.

As an example, a promotional QR code could be displayed in the hotel’s rooms which can then be scanned by the guests to get information about upcoming matches or sporting events that can be watched at the bar. Additionally, the promotion could include a code that would later be redeemed for a drink at the bar. This dynamic will motivate guests to visit the hotel bar and other facilities.

Weekly discount Prize Wheel to attract customers to your bar.

In our last example, we propose organizing a digital Prize Wheel to give away merchandising or discounts at your bar. Take advantage of the excitement of game day and sporting events to give your bar more visibility. Set up a weekly Prize Wheel and give your patrons a chance to spin it while they are watching the game or during half-time.

If you want to see an example or configure a prize wheel yourself, just check out how easy we make it for you with our pre-configured Prize Wheel templates.

We hope you find these ideas useful to promote your bar and bring in more customers. If you have any questions or doubts, don’t hesitate to contact us via live chat. We will be happy to help.

Comment giveaways on Instagram have been booming for some time now, and we’ve been here to help you make the most of the opportunity. Many customers had been asking us for an automatic way to run giveaways on Instagram Stories; they wanted to further engage users, generate visibility, and boost the brand. However, until not long ago, this wasn’t possible, as Facebook didn’t allow third-party tools to pull information from Instagram Stories. Luckily for everyone, this has now changed, and the recent Instagram API update now makes it possible to organize automatic giveaways on Instagram Stories. The Easypromos app has been verified by Facebook and authorized as an Instagram Story giveaway picker tool! Our tools guarantee the transparent and proper use of data, for both the competition organizer and users. 

You can now find our Instagram Story Giveaway tool in our giveaway apps. 

It’s now possible to organize automatic giveaways on Instagram Stories!
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Until now, Stories have been one of the most important sources of traffic for any online promotion or giveaway. For sure you’ve come across your favorite brand promoting their sweepstakes on Stories. 

Stories will definitely continue to be one of the most effective giveaway promotion tactics but now they have also become a new way to generate engagement and visibility for your brand.

In this blog post, we take a look at different ways to run Instagram Story Giveaways. We share real examples and take a look at all the possibilities that Story giveaways bring for brands and influencers. 

Important: Please note, that in order to participate in Instagram Story giveaways with mentions, Instagram users must have public accounts. Story mentions from private accounts won’t be included in the final prize draw.

How to organize an Instagram Story giveaway?

Let us start by pointing out that Instagram Story giveaways are short-term visibility-generating actions that normally last 24 hours, just like a typical Story. However, it is possible for an Instagram Story giveaway to go on for a maximum duration of seven days, although this is not always recommended (it all depends on your brand size). If you run a small brand with little social media interaction, making your Story giveaway last more than one day can be a great idea to boost your brand and attract more followers. All you have to do is publish various Stories promoting the giveaway. However, Instagram is an important part of your customer support, a Story giveaway might make it difficult to identify user messages, questions, and inquiries not related to the giveaway. In this case, we would recommend organizing a flash giveaway lasting between 24 and 48 hours. 

The whole point of Instagram Story giveaways is to generate buzz and visibility for your brand. Users participate in your Story giveaway by:

• mentioning your brand in their Story: by tagging your brand in their Stories, participants automatically spread the word about your giveaway among their followers. This is the most important aspect as it’ll definitely result in new participants, as well as viewers and followers for your brand. 
• replying to your Story: if you’re rather looking to simply reward your audience by giving them a chance to win prizes, simply ask them to reply to your Story. You can ask them to use a specific hashtag. Using hashtags will also help you filter giveaway participations from other messages or inquiries sent by your followers via private messages so that they’re not entered into your prize draw.

When using Easypromos to select a random winner of your Instagram Story giveaway, choose from two different dynamics:

But why organize an Instagram Story giveaway?

As we’ve already explained, Story giveaways are fantastic for generating visibility and engagement for your brand over a short period of time. But how does it benefit your brand and its followers?

Flash giveaways are popular with social media users as they discover if they’re one of the winners within a few hours. Such giveaways also bring about excitement and buzz for your brand, encouraging participants to find out more about the organizer or its products. This means that your brand generates potential new customers, as well as boosts loyalty and trust on social media, especially if it uses a reliable tool for choosing the winner of the Instagram Story giveaway. 

To further reinforce customer loyalty, make sure you enable the auto-reply message option available with Easypromos. Each user that mentions your brand or replies to your Instagram Story Giveaway, will receive an automatic reply confirming their entry into your prize draw.

For the best results and distribution of your giveaway, publish the giveaway on your Instagram Story and then immediately access the Instagram Story Giveaway application to start real-time monitoring right from the beginning. 

And to encourage participation, highlight the giveaway on your feed by publishing a post that will direct users to your Story. You can also create a series of Stories that you can post over a few days prior to publishing the giveaway; it will generate expectations as users will be looking out for the special promotion. Don’t forget to cross-promote your Story giveaway on other social media channels – that’s if you’re looking to attract as many participants as possible!

Examples and ideas for Instagram Story giveaways

So… Are you ready to launch your first automatic Instagram Story giveaway? We understand if you’re not exactly sure where to start… This is why we’re here to help! 

Take a look at the following examples of Instagram Story giveaways. In the first illustration, you can see how a handbag brand asked users to reply to the Story to simply explain why they wanted to win a new bag, while the second giveaway organizer asked participants to reply to the Story to explain which season is their favorite. In return, all participants had a chance to win a free spa session. The last example shows the other Instagram Story giveaway dynamic; an ice cream brand asked its audience to publish a picture of their favorite ice cream and mention the ice cream brand. 

The first two examples show clearly how giveaways on Instagram Stories can be used to generate engagement and user interaction; the last giveaway example presents the possibility of generating visibility and buzz for your product, in this case, ice creams. 

What are the aims of Instagram Story giveaways?

• Better visibility. By interacting with your Stories, your followers show interest in your content. This means that Instagram will then highlight your Stories to those followers by placing them in a better position in the feed.
• Boosting engagement. There are lots of benefits of users interacting with your brand. You can learn about the tastes and preferences of your brand’s community. Result: increased reach and better brand recognition, while you can offer your users the products they like best.
• Building brand loyalty. The followers of your brand will feel rewarded by the giveaway. As a result, they’ll have a positive image of the brand. This then creates new interactions and conversions.
• Improving communication. A happy customer is a perfect ambassador for your brand. Your giveaway will quickly go viral and you’ll gain new followers too.

Things to bear in mind when running Instagram Story giveaways

• The Story image announcing your giveaway should be clearly identified. You don’t want it to get lost among other Stories. 
• Make it clear that you’re running a giveaway, and what the prize is too.
• Use .gifs, music, and bright colors to attract attention. Make sure your Story isn’t overlooked!
• Stories only stay up for a short time (24 hours); make sure you share various Stories if your giveaway is running for more than 24 hours. Remind users of when the contest closes, too!
• Highlight the giveaway Stories on your profile. Then they’ll always be there for users who want to know a bit more about you and your brand.

Don’t have a graphic designer? Limited design skills? Then use Canva to create the perfect image for your story.

Are you ready to get the most out of your Stories and accomplish the objectives set in your marketing plan? But in case of any questions, don’t hesitate to chat with our Support Team. They’re here to help and inspire!

Choose an Instagram winner generator that imports all comments and doesn’t have a comment limit

Depending on the size of your brand or the number of followers, you might get more participants than initially thought. This is why it’s so important to be able to import all the comments left on your giveaway post so that everyone gets an equal chance to win. There are tools that pull only the last, for example, 100 comments, which makes it impossible to run a transparent and trustworthy prize draw. 

Another important aspect to bear in mind is the maximum number of comments that the tool you choose can import. For example, the Easypromos Basic Pro Plan allows you to run giveaways with unlimited comments. 

Instagram winner generator: specify participation requirements and choose an automatic tool

What are the recommended Instagram winner generator criteria?

• Comment
• Tag a friend
• Follow my account 

You can also ask participants to like the giveaway post but remember that Instagram is removing likes in some countries. Also, a person double-tapping your post does not necessarily mean that they want to participate in the giveaway. 

However, it’s important to make sure that the giveaway winner followed all the necessary steps to participate in your promotion. This is why the Instagram winner generator gives you the opportunity to filter the comments by your participation criteria. You can decide what is the minimum number of characters that participating comments should have; specify how many users each entrant should have mentioned in the comment; exclude comments left after the participation period previously specified by you; exclude blacklisted users or previous winners. 

This is why it’s so important to use an automatic Instagram winner generator. Imagine having to go through hundreds of comments, checking if each user complied with the criteria. Instead, an automatic giveaway tool does it all for you.

Choose a giveaway app that allows you to choose alternates and contact the winners

Imagine running a great giveaway to then find out that the winner didn’t follow all the participation rules. And what about facing difficulties when contacting the winners? This is why it’s so important to opt for an Instagram winner generator that gives you an option to choose alternate winners and contact the prizewinners. 

Easypromos gives you the opportunity to specify how many winners and alternates you wish to choose, with a maximum number of 1000 winners and alternate winners in total. 

So what happens if the original winner didn’t comply with entry requirements or they don’t respond to you? This is when you move on to the first alternate winner. All the changes will be then displayed on the Certificate of Validity which proves that the giveaway was conducted automatically and transparently. 

You can also facilitate a Claim Your Prize page in which winners identify by logging into their account; they fill out the information about their address so that you can easily deliver the prize. 

Make the news public and announce who the lucky winners are

The giveaway itself is always exciting but it’s also a great feeling to share the happy news with your audience. Announce the giveaway winner in style with a video to show the winners that you can fully customize with your logo and corporate colors. Share the video on social media channels as posts or Stories to further engage your audience and increase brand visibility.

Are you ready to use the Easypromos Instagram winner generator? Or maybe you still have some questions? If the answer is yes, make sure you contact our Customer Support team! 

How do Instagram giveaways work?

The concept of running social media promotions might scare off some marketers or small business owners as sweepstakes sometimes seem like a complicated type of campaign. But let us tell you that Instagram giveaways are easy to set up, run, and finalize! They’re also cheap and don’t require many visual assets. All you have to do is follow some simple steps and Instagram giveaway rules and you’re likely to attract loyal followers and potential customers.

Instagram giveaways are limited-time promotions in which brands give away a prize in exchange for interacting with the giveaway post or brand. Organizing brands reward one or more users that followed all participation criteria. Prizes tend to range from gift cards, through product samples, to a year’s supply of a specific product or service. However, it’s important to ensure that the incentive appeals to the audience, otherwise, the giveaway won’t generate buzz around your product, nor will it attract new customers. 

Comment giveaways are the most popular type of giveaways on Instagram. They’re easy to automate, which allows you to save valuable time. It also means that the winner selection process is transparent. And transparency is important for any brand looking to generate customer loyalty and trust. 

Users participate in Instagram giveaways by commenting on a giveaway post. You can ask them to answer an open question, tag a friend, or post a series of emojis, for example, describing their current mood. However, open-ended questions are the best engagement generators; they encourage real conversations and persuade users to interact with one another, further creating positive perceptions about the brand. In the above Instagram giveaway example, you can see that the online cosmetics and beauty shop asked entrants to explain how they take care of their hair during monsoon. 

Are you looking for an Instagram giveaway post template? We have more than 60 ready-made templates with images and editable giveaway captions that you can use for your brand.

Use the Easypromos Instagram giveaway app once the participation period is over and you’re ready to choose a winner. All you have to do is connect your Instagram account, specify how many winners and alternates you want to pick and… you’re ready to announce the winner!

Giveaway ideas for Instagram: ask participants to follow your account

In the above section, we explained how Instagram giveaways work best: with comments. However, Instagram sweepstakes can also be based on likes and followers but these requirements cannot be checked automatically. Why is that?

The Instagram API doesn’t allow external third-party tools to access all the information about user interactions on Instagram. However, comments are the most accessible piece of information, therefore, we always recommend running your giveaways based on comments.  However, if you ask your giveaway participants to like the giveaway post or follow your account, you will have to manually check if they have done so, after first choosing the winners from the comments.  

So here are the steps you must take when choosing a winner if you asked participants to follow your account or like the giveaway post:

• Use an automatic tool to choose a winner from among the users that commented on your post.
• Did you ask them to tag friends in the comments? The Easypromos giveaway apps let you specify how many users participants had to tag. Only those that comply with the requirement will be added to the final prize draw.
• Choose how many winners and alternates you wish to pick. 
• Did you get your winners? Check manually if each of the winners liked the post and followed your or your collaborator’s account. 
• One of the winners is not a follower? Move on to the first alternate winner. 

Not sure how to check if a user follows you? Here’s a quick explanation of how to do it:

If you’re still not sure whether Instagram giveaways would work for your brand, we recommend you take a look at real social media giveaway examples. Why don’t you head to Instagram in type in #giveaway in the search bar? You will see lots of giveaway ideas, as well as giveaway captions examples. 

More things to keep in mind about your Instagram giveaways

In order for your Instagram giveaway to work, it’s important to follow Instagram guidelines, as well as local and federal laws. Another most important aspect of Instagram giveaways is picking the winners and then making the news official. Don’t forget to communicate the prizewinners with other participants, for example, by editing the original post, or sharing a new publication with the username of the winner. You can also take it to Instagram Stories to inform your audience of who the lucky participant is. Why don’t you find out more about protecting your Instagram giveaway from phishing?

Do you now understand how Instagram giveaways work? Make sure to use our giveaway post templates to get a head start. And don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions about giveaway captions or rules – we’re always here to help!

This is why it’s so important to create and share inviting content that keeps followers engaged with your brand. Social media giveaways drive engagement and increase brand awareness but they also reward your followers. But how do you find an Instagram follower picker?

Effective Tools for Instagram Giveaway Winner Picker

Currently, Instagram doesn’t allow any third-party tools or applications to access the list of your followers and automatically choose an Instagram winner. Therefore, it’s impossible to run a giveaway among all the users that follow you. Besides, if it were possible, inactive followers could end up winning your giveaways and the whole point of running social media promotions is to reward active followers.

However, there is a different and better way to grow your account and reward your followers.

Take a look at the above example from Company Chophouse. The restaurant wanted to give back to its community by giving away a $100 gift card. The brand asked users to follow them, comment on the post with their favorite summer drink, and like the publication. Can you see the trick here?

Apart from gaining followers, the Company Chophouse boosted engagement by driving interactions. Additionally, they asked users to answer an open question, which further generates engagement, as open-ended questions encourage real conversations. Once the brand was ready to pick an Instagram winner, they used the Easypromos Instagram Giveaway to import all the comments left on the giveaway post. The application chose one random winner that interacted with the publication by commenting on their favorite drink. Then, the brand manually checked whether the winner is also a follower. You can also manually check if the random winner liked your post if that was one of the entry requirements. However, we don’t recommend asking participants to like the publications, as Instagram is removing likes in certain countries. 

Here’s another example of a fun giveaway organized by a popular podcast We Got the Chocolates. The organizers asked participants to follow their account and mention a friend in the comment section. 

The above image shows you where to check whether your giveaway winner is also your follower. 

For a detailed overview of available tools, check out our giveaway winner picker article, where we explore our tools and share best practices for running fair and effective Instagram giveaways.

What if a giveaway winner picked is not your follower?

Imagine that the giveaway application chooses a random winner but then, while conducting the manual check, you discover that they don’t follow your account. If following your brand was one of the entry requirements, you can discard the winner who didn’t comply with the rules and move on to the first alternate winner. 

The Easypromos giveaway applications allow you to choose up to 1000 users as winners or alternate winners. 1000 winners will be too many in most cases, however, it’s a good idea to always choose a minimum of ten alternate winners for your giveaway. It’s one of the best ways to run a transparent and reliable promotion, in case the original winner didn’t comply with the entry requirements or if you get in touch with them. Our giveaway applications generate a certificate of validity for each giveaway, outlining the winner and all the alternates so that nobody can accuse you of any wrongdoings. 

Note that you must choose at least one alternate winner when running giveaways with Easypromos. 

So what happens if you can’t contact the original winner or they don’t comply with entry requirements? It’s time to give the prize to the first alternate winner. The Easypromos giveaway apps allow you to manage winners. In this section, you can replace the winner with an alternate winner and provide a reason for doing so. Make sure to provide detailed information as this change will be visible on the certificate of validity for further transparency. 

Find out more about replacing your giveaway winner with an alternate. 

Running giveaways in collaboration with other brands

Have you been thinking to run a giveaway in collaboration with another brand? You can do that for your followers too! All you have to do is team up with another like-minded brand, offer an attractive prize, and come up with entry requirements. Here’s an example of an Instagram giveaway organized by three different brands. Note that participants had to follow all three brands in order to participate in the promotion. 

Remember that in such a case, the organizers must check if the winner follows all three accounts. In order to save time, decide between the brands who will be responsible for reviewing the following requirement. One of the administrators can visit all three organizing accounts, head to ‘followers’, and type in the username of the winner. 

So… Are you now ready to run a giveaway for your followers? Make sure you ask them to leave a comment on your giveaway post too! You can even ask them to tag friends so that your giveaway gets more visibility, reach, and participants. And in case of questions, make sure to contact us! 

The micro-blogging platform also gives brands a variety of tools so that they can engage and interact with their target audience and communities by following, liking, commenting, or retweeting each other’s messages. Different organizations will have various views on the importance of each of these interactions but we can slip them into two categories:

• Generating engagement: likes and comments
• Growing your account: follows and retweets

So how do you get users to willingly interact with your brand? 

Social media users visit Twitter for updates on topics of their interest, to look for information on certain subjects, or simply to take their minds off other things while scrolling through the feed. However, many Twitter users follow their favorite brands so that they can be up to date with new products, promotions, and special deals. As a brand, you must come up with effective ways to attract followers and engage them with your content. One way to do this is by organizing retweet giveaways. 

Twitter giveaway picker: use it to engage your audience while building your brand

Social media giveaways are extremely effective and popular with online communities. They require minimum effort and offer a chance of winning prizes that appeal to the audience, therefore generating high levels of engagement and visibility for your brand. And while it’s possible to organize different types of giveaways on all platforms, Twitter gives the most flexibility, as other channels don’t allow brands to ask users to reshare the promotional post in order to gain more visibility.

This is why we recommend using our Twitter giveaway app to run giveaways on X; apart from generating visibility and reaching more users, you also ensure that the winner-selection process will be easy and effortless. 

The popular brand Funko has become an expert in Twitter giveaways. They regularly run retweet promotions in which users follow the account and retweet the giveaway post for a chance to win one of their pop culture collectibles. 

Celebrate popular events or join in the fun with Twitter giveaway picker

Your customer base is what makes your company thrive. Your brand wouldn’t exist without your clients and this is why it’s so important to reward their loyalty or simply give back to the community for their ongoing support. Twitter giveaway picker is easy to use but many marketers still think that they need a good enough reason to organize an online raffle. But the truth is that any excuse is good, even the Queen’s Jubilee! 

Mavala UK used the retweet picker app to choose a random winner from among the followers that retweeted the giveaway post. The nail products company gave away three Jubilee Nail sets that came in the Union Jack colors. Remember, any bank holiday, popular event, or company anniversary is a fantastic reason to give back to your community and generate engagement for your brand. 

We all know that sports and physical activity have a great impact on our physical and mental well-being. And not being directly connected to sports doesn’t mean that you can’t encourage your audience to practice yoga – and this is what The Range UK knows very well. With the International Day of Yoga coming up, the British brand organized a Twitter giveaway in which they raffled a yoga set. They asked followers to like the giveaway post and retweet it. Then, they chose one random winner with the retweet picker app. 

Why use the Easypromos Twitter Giveaway Picker

As you might have seen, there are many retweet picker tools on the market and you might be wondering which one to choose. If one of your marketing goals is to work on customer loyalty and trust, you might want to make sure that you use a reliable, transparent, and fully automatic tool so that no one can accuse you of tampering with the giveaway results. The Easypromos Twitter Giveaway Picker is not only the most complete tool out there but it’s also trustworthy. 

After choosing a random winner, our retweet picker generates a certificate of validity, which proves that the prizewinner was chosen in an automatic and random way. The certificate also shows a list of alternate winners, in case the original winner cannot be contacted. This valuable piece of information can be shared with social media followers so that everyone can access the giveaway results. 

In this example, you can see that giveaway organizers chose one winner and ten alternates in case there were problems with contacting the original lucky participant.

Another important aspect of transparent Twitter giveaways is terms and conditions where you outline all the entry requirements and rules. It’s especially important in giveaways that attract a lot of entrants and gain lots of visibility, like in the case of Cupra, an automobile manufacturer. 

Cupra raffled a trip to Barcelona that came with two tickets to the FC Barcelona football match and a test drive around the city. To make sure that all the entry requirements were loud and clear, the brand shared a direct link to terms and conditions, which they prepared with the free Easypromos tool. 

Are you now ready to use our retweet picker? Make sure you contact our customer support team in case of questions or doubts! 

Instagram giveaways are one of the most used—and useful—tools for gaining followers and maintaining engagement with your audience. Organizing a comment-based giveaway is simple and can even be managed manually if participation is low. But if you run giveaways regularly, you’ll already have found yourself in situations like those outlined in the previous paragraph. In such cases, a specially-designed tool like that offered by Easypromos becomes essential.

Whether you’re an online marketing agency, a community manager with multiple accounts, or a brand with lots of promotional activity, this article will show you how to take a step forward in managing your Instagram giveaways.

Managing multiple prizewinners in Instagram giveaways

If there’s only one winner of your giveaway, this won’t be hard to manage. You can simply send them a direct message, carrying out all communication through Instagram. But what if you need to distribute multiple prizes, such as 50 free tickets to see a movie premiere? You could send 50 separate messages, but this wouldn’t be a very efficient way of doing things. The Easypromos app enables you to activate the “Claim Your Prize” module. This way, all prizewinners are published to a webpage where the winners themselves can leave their contact information so you can contact them using your email marketing software (like Mailchimp or HubSpot). If you need to send out physical prizes, you can collect the winners’ postal addresses, as well as any other relevant information to help you segment and incorporate them into your CRM.

Instagram giveaways with sponsored posts 

When you promote a post on Instagram, Facebook’s ad manager clones the post and uses the copy to display it to the audience defined for the ad. In other words, there are two separate posts: the original profile post, and the clone which is used for ads. 

For this reason, to retrieve all the comments generated by the post you need to combine the comments left under the original profile post with the comments left under the ad. With the Multi-Network Giveaway app, you can add together comments left on both types of posts and carry out a single giveaway among all participants.

Collaborative giveaways with influencers and other brands on Instagram

As well as the typical Instagram Collabs, there are times when you’ll want to run a giveaway with influencers or brands. In these kinds of scenarios, you need to consider all participants: those who interact with your brand’s profile, as well as those who interact with the profile of the collaborating influencer or brand. With Easypromos you don’t need to ask the influencer to let you into their account to collect participants who have commented on their post. Instead, Easypromos’ distributed collaboration system will send a collaboration invitation to the influencer. When the influencer clicks on the link in the invitation, the system will retrieve all the participants who have commented on their post, and you can include them in the prize draw.

This invitation process is fully automated. Once you’ve reached an agreement with the influencer or collaborating brand, the rest of the management is carried out by Easypromos.

Templates for managing Instagram giveaways

After organizing a giveaway on Instagram and seeing how much your followers and engagement numbers have increased, you will probably be keen to run more giveaways. From experience, we know that brands with a consolidated and regular giveaway strategy generate stronger connections with their audience. By carrying out these kinds of actions, brands spend longer in the “top of mind” of Instagram users. 

Easypromos has identified the most common organizational tasks and created reusable templates to minimize management time. Easypromos provides templates for creating legal bases, and templates for customizing prizewinner management. The Show Mode template is particularly useful for this. The Show Mode enables you to generate a video of the moment the winners are picked. The video can be fully customized with the brand image and logo. 

Once the template is set up, it can be reused for all giveaways carried out by, or for, that brand. For example, if a marketing agency manages giveaways for 30 different client brands, it can use a different set of templates for each client.

Transparency and prompt attention via chat for brands organizing Instagram giveaways

One of the complaints that giveaway organizers must contend with most often is that the results are somehow rigged. Complaints of cheating can be a real nightmare and can ruin an otherwise impeccably managed giveaway.

In Easypromos, we’re well aware that the success of a chance-based promotional action depends on demonstrating maximum transparency and integrity. For this reason, we always issue a Certificate of Validity guaranteeing that the giveaway has been carried out using a random Winner Picker algorithm (validated by a notary) and that there has been no manipulation in the assignment of winners and alternates. Everything is recorded on the certificate, which is public and can be viewed by everyone. 

However, even if you’ve planned your promotion perfectly, we know that the moment of the prize draw can be quite stressful. At that point, there can be no turning back. With that in mind, Easypromos offers a live chat for agencies and community managers to help them resolve any doubts they may have about the prize draw. 

And when we talk about prompt attention, we don’t mean chatbots or data request forms. We don’t use these things: in our chat, you’ll be attended to directly by a real person from the Easypromos customer service team, who will either solve your problem or refer it to the technical department. In Easypromos, we combine technology and personalized attention to provide security and peace of mind in the management of all types of Instagram giveaways.

Would you like to professionalize and optimize the management of your giveaways on social media? We recommend our Basic Pro plan for €49/month or €490/year, with no obligation to remain and zero cancellation costs. Discover everything that the Easypromos plans can offer you. Or get in touch and we’ll happily give you a demonstration and share some best practices for your promotional campaigns.