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.

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! 

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.

How does phishing work in an Instagram giveaway?

We have observed that the most common way of doing this is through a fake brand account. When the real brand organizes a giveaway, the wrongdoer sets up a fake account that looks like the original. Afterward, they use this fake account to contact the participants that have commented on the post. They will often tell the participants that they have won the prize. Many times the promotion hasn’t even finished when they ask participants to submit their personal details so they can receive the prize. 

In the following example, we can see how a brand has detected that some fake accounts are trying to gather personal and bank details of the users participating in the brand’s giveaway. Commonly, the fake account contacts the users by replying to their comment. Also by following them and sending them a private message. This message usually contains an outgoing link that leads to a registry form. It is then that the users share their personal and bank details, leaving them at the mercy of the scammers. 

How can a brand protect itself from this wrongdoing and prevent damage to its reputation and the relationship with its audience? Here are 3 measures that you can implement to your business account on Instagram that will help your followers not fall for the trap.

Verify your brand’s Instagram account

Followers are becoming increasingly aware that there might be fake brand accounts trying to steal their data. You can help your followers by making sure they are following the real account by going through Instagram’s verification process.

As you probably already know, verified Instagram accounts display a blue tick icon next to the brand’s name. In the Settings>Account section you will find the option to request the verification of your brand’s account. Once there, you will have to fill out the form that Instagram provides and upload a file that proves the existence of the brand. After sending this information, Instagram will review your request within 30 days.

Here you can see two verified accounts of brands on Instagram that usually organize giveaways for the followers that comment on their posts. In the following examples, you can notice that this is a common and very recommendable characteristic for any brand with a presence on Instagram. Although it is true that in the past Instagram only made verification available to brands and influencers with a high volume of followers, nowadays, any brand can request it.

Brands used to include the word “official” in their name to show their followers that the account was the real thing, but that fell short of offering enough credibility. In this example of fraud, the official account of the Spanish influencer Maria Pombo was hijacked by a fake account that added “official” to its name, the same as in the real account. Without an external validation associated with Instagram, it is impossible to determine the authenticity of an account.

Clearly state in your giveaway post how the winners will be notified and contacted

This measure is a best practice that many brands are already using. And one that you should implement in your Instagram giveaways. Even if the terms and conditions of a giveaway include a clause that states how the winners will be chosen and contacted, the truth is that not many participants actually read them. Therefore, you should make it easy: state in the post itself how and when you will announce the winners and how you will contact them. 

The Stevie Jade Jewelry account clearly indicates in its Instagram giveaway post how they will notify the winners. As you can see in the image below, it states:

• The start and finish dates of the giveaway.
• That they will notify the winner on the post itself.
• A warning to look out for scams.

As you can see in the following example, every additional measure is a welcome one. This profile for the brand Scentsy has all the boxes checked, and more! The account is verified. It states the start and end dates. The way they will notify the winner. It warns participants about scams and it provides a link to the terms and conditions.

Another common way of communicating the winners is to edit the original giveaway post to announce the winners. This is what Mean Mule Distillery did to announce the winner of its pizza party giveaway.

Learn about the Instagram giveaway rules before launching your promotion.

Post reminders of how your will contact the winners periodically

Don’t wait until being victim of a scam to inform participants of how you will inform winners every time you run a giveaway on Instagram. As a preventive measure, you can periodically post messages and reminders on how the brand will contact the winners when the giveaway finishes. There are several ways to post these messages. Our recommendation is that you spread them along the duration of the promotion.

Fashion Contemporary Puzzles did this in their 12 Days of Christmas promotion. They advised participants about how they would contact the winners. They also advised them to be aware of possible fraudulent accounts asking for personal information.

Bloggers At Home with The Couplands include a text in their posts explaining their followers how they will contact them. They also mention that they will not ask their followers for additional information, bank details, or to follow any link.

Ecological wine producer Sea Change Wine also includes in its giveaway posts information on how winners will be chosen and notified. Furthermore, it warns its followers about possible scammers trying to impersonate them, and advises them not to follow external links.

Educational toys brand Galt Toys also includes a message in their giveaways to warn users about possible scammers. The brand clearly states how they will contact giveaway winners. And that they will only do so from the official Instagram account where the giveaway was posted.

The Spanish branch of Open Bank became aware that scammers where impersonating the bank and were contacting users in an attempt to steal their personal and bank details. In response, the bank warned its clients and followers on Instagram. Additionally, they included a list of instructions to help users how to identify fake accounts. Finally, they also asked users who identified fake accounts to contact the bank to denounce them to help the bank fight the scammers.

There are other ways to warn users about frauds besides the warning messages in the giveaway posts. For instance, you can use stories and reels. Does your brand often offer advice or inform its audience? If it does, you can create a thematic post or content on how to identify and denounce fake accounts. Just like ObenBank did in the previous example. If you are in the process of getting the blue tick verification, make sure you let your audience know as soon as you get it. Make a big announcement about it in a post and stories.

Demonstrate the reliability of your giveaway and learn how to spot a fake giveaway on Instagram to differentiate your brand from them.

Were you aware of these scams on Instagram? If you weren’t, or hadn’t given much thought to it, we recommend that you implement these measures to your promotional actions. Make sure you protect your brand. Denounce fake accounts when you spot them and ask your followers to do the same. Don’t let anybody damage the brand reputation you have worked so hard to build!

Do you have any questions on how to organize social network giveaways that are transparent and reliable? Contact us via live chat and we will be happy to help.

So why not launch an Instagram contest with an integrated registration form to collect UGC, leads and stay top of mind with customers whilst actively promoting your brand? In this blog post, we introduce you to a powerful tool that’ll help you organize a successful promotion; we also show you examples of Instagram photo contests with registration forms so that you leave from here full of ideas! 

The best tool for your contest with forms on Instagram

Before you launch your contest, think about the objectives that you want to achieve. Are you looking for leads, engagement or maybe attracting new followers? If you’re only just getting started with social media promotions, running a photo contest with a registration form might not be your go-to solution. However, if you’ve already engaged your followers with comment giveaways and got high participation numbers – it’s time for your UGC contest on Instagram. 

Instagram Contest is a powerful tool to promote participation within Instagram users. Broadly speaking, users participate by posting on their Instagram profile, using the campaign hashtag and mentioning the organizing brand. For example: #EasyPhotoContest @Easypromosapp

• In the case of participants with a public profile, their photo or reel is automatically imported when they post it, use the campaign hashtag, and mention the organizing brand.
• If the participant has a private profile, they first have to post their photo or reel, feel out the entry form, and link the content they wish to participate with from their Instagram feed.

Try our Instagram Contest DEMO to get a feel of the full user experience.

Instagram contests allow you to collect high-quality content submitted by your followers. These photos can function as social proof by adding them to your social media content calendar. Additionally, when users participate via an entry form, you get extra benefits, such as participants accepting the terms and conditions of your contest and collecting their contact information.

Promote your product with a contest with forms on Instagram

We’ve already established that one of the reasons consumers connect with brands on social media is to stay up to date with special offers and discounts. But what about brands? By regularly posting engaging content, brands stay top of mind with their target audience. They get to promote new and bestselling products while also differentiating from competitors. A well-planned social media strategy will also generate engagement – and hopefully, convert likes and comments into sales. Here’s what happens when you integrate an Instagram photo contest with a registration form into your marketing plan. 

Flor de Mayo – a beauty, cosmetic, and personal care brand – was planning a launch of their new online shop. The brand looked for a creative, yet powerful way, to raise awareness for their new e-commerce. Flor de Mayo opted for an Instagram photo contest with a registration form and… take a look for yourself! 

Flor de Mayo promoted their photo contest – and 1500 prizes up for grabs – in a series of Instagram posts. Apart from organic posts and ads, they posted a series of Instagram Stories to attract more participants to the promotion. 

Users interested in winning one of the 1500 prizes (a weekend getaway, fun experiences like yoga sessions, free products, discount codes, etc.) were invited to share a picture with a person that they love and describe what makes them special. In order to enter the photo contest, each entry had to include the campaign hashtag: #tuladomaswow. Then, the participants accessed the Hashtag + Entry Form app by following the link shared in Flor de Mayo’s link in bio and they registered through the entry form and connected their Instagram account to submit their photo to the contest. 

Flor de Mayo’s audience had two weeks to participate in the contest. However, to ensure that users didn’t forget about the competition, the brand reshared some of the user-submitted photos on their feed. It was a great opportunity to not only promote the contest but also foster customer loyalty and give visibility to the already existing relationships. 

All the prizes were distributed with winning moments, which means users received their prize after participating. However, you can also reward the entries with the most votes or organize a random giveaway for all participants. 

Convert shopping mall visitors into leads with a photo cocontest a registration form on Instagram

This second example shows a successful promotional action designed by Sunshine Nutrition. The brand looked to promote brand new vitamins for children. Sunshine Nutrition set up a stand in one of the Dubai malls and invited people to snap selfies with their mascot. Participants then uploaded the pictures to their Instagram profiles using Sunshine Nutrition’s campaign hashtag: #coolgummies. Next, each participant connected their Instagram account with the Instagram hashtag contest app and filled out a registration form. 

Each participant could then download a discount code for their next Cool Gummies purchase. And what did the organizing brand get out of it? New email subscribers, fun UGC, and more sales thanks to the discount code. 

Example of an Instagram contest with entry form that collected outstanding UGC

Odisseais regularly launches different types of campaigns aimed at gathering user-generated content. As an experience gifts distributor, the brand counts with shots produced by their customers – for social proof. Here’s an example of the promotion that gathered photographs promoting the best hidden gems in Portugal. 

The aim of the organizer was to inspire more people to discover Portugal. The Instagram Contest app brought all the entries together. It allowed Odisseias to display all participating submissions in a public gallery. This example of an Instagram photo contest with an entry form particularly shows how successful hashtag contests can be on Instagram. Apart from reaching new followers drawn in by the chance of winning experience gifts, the brand touched base with existing customers too. And the gallery makes us want to visit Portugal right about now!

Instagram photo contests with entry forms for different sectors

Some brands might think it’s better to steer away from photo contests but that doesn’t have to be the case. A well-thought-out promotion will work for brands from different sectors. The next example comes from Seri Pajam Development, a well-established development company from Malaysia. They looked for a way to further promote their services on Instagram, as well as expand their mailing list. Their Instagram photo contest with an integrated registration form turned out to be a great success.

The brand generated more than 150 pieces of user-generated content and also expanded their mailing list with new email addresses. They were able to boost brand visibility and awareness as participants posted on their social media with #rayasamaseripajam. 

Social media giveaways are great for engagement – but you end up with no information about the participants. By launching promotions with registration forms you convert anonymous Instagram followers into new sales leads. You can then target them with more personalized emails and campaigns.

We hope that all these examples of Instagram photo contests with entry forms have delivered enough inspiration for your own UGC campaign. Do you have any questions? Chat with us! 

But why is it important to follow certain Instagram giveaway rules? If you wish to win customer loyalty and position your brand as a market leader, your social media accounts must be professional. And hence your giveaways must comply with all Instagram rules.

We guarantee that if you keep an eye on the following Instagram giveaway rules, your account will see a spike in interactions and followers! And your brand will gain new loyal followers. Let’s dive in!

DO share terms and conditions

This is one of the most important and concurrently most overlooked Instagram giveaway rules; you must share terms and conditions with your giveaway participants. And not only to amuse the participants but also to protect yourself from potential problems or complaints from entrants. Make sure you mention the participation dates, age, and location restrictions, and it’s also worth mentioning clear guidelines on how to enter the promotion. Once you have your Instagram giveaway T&Cs, share them with your followers by adding the link to your Bio.

Not sure where to start with your terms and conditions? Use the free Easypromos Terms and Conditions tool.

Instagram also puts emphasis on highlighting that your giveaway is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administrated by, or associated with, Instagram.

DO use an automated tool to choose the winner

Make sure you use a trustworthy application to choose the winner of your giveaway, for example, the Easypromos Instagram winner picker app. This professional fully automatic tool will help you pull all the comments from your giveaway post (or posts if you promoted the sweepstakes in multiple publications and ads), not just the last 100. It will also allow you to specify how many friends each participant had to mention in the comments section, or whether they had to include a specific hashtag. You can even choose alternate winners in case you can’t contact the official winner. Additionally, our Instagram Giveaway app also generates a Certificate of Validity to prove the transparency of the winner selection process.

DO showcase the prize

Why do Instagrammers enter any sort of social media giveaway? Because of the chance of winning, of course, as incentives are the biggest motivation to participate in digital promotions. So if you really want to boost Instagram engagement by attracting as many participants as possible, make sure you announce your sweepstakes with an attention-grabbing image presenting the main prize. We also recommend you add the magic “giveaway” word to the image for extra visibility!

What would be the best prize though? There’s nothing better than raffling your own product or product bundles; you get to show your offer to the world and reach your target audience. Additionally, you also get to reactivate your community and even attract potential customers.

Are you ready to launch an Instagram giveaway but you’re not sure where to start? Choose from more than 50 ready-made Instagram giveaway templates to get a head start.

DO ask people to comment

Instagram giveaways are all about product promotion and increased social media engagement. Participants interact with the brand’s post-generating engagement which leads to the brand gaining better visibility. But let us point out the most important aspect of organizing Instagram comment promotions:

If you want to boost customer loyalty and trust, make sure you choose the winners in an automatic way. Currently, all the automatic winner selection tools available on the market can only pull comments from Instagram posts – it’s impossible to choose a random winner based on followers or likes. 

So make sure your Instagram giveaway is all about comments. Ask users to participate in your Instagram giveaway by leaving a comment or an answer to a question – our favorite is open questions! They persuade participants to share their opinions, views, and stories. They help participants create an emotional bond with your brand which leads to nothing but increased loyalty and trust. Open-ended questions also encourage real conversations; you can reply to the comments to further boost engagement but chances are that users will engage in conversations with other participants. 

Apart from asking questions, you can also require that interested participants tag their friends in the giveaway post – between one and five mentions is the recommended number. You can even ask users to follow your account and give a like to the giveaway post. However, once an automatic winner selection tool chooses a winning comment, you will have to manually check if the lucky participant followed you and left a like. Bear in mind that Instagram is removing likes in some countries, therefore you might want to give that requirement a miss.

DO collaborate with other brands and influencers

Are you looking to grow your Instagram audience? Or maybe you want to reach a specific online community? This is where Instagram collaborations come in handy and they totally comply with Instagram giveaway rules.

Teaming up with like-minded brands is a fantastic opportunity for augmenting your Instagram reach and growing off of each other’s backs. Two brands organizing a sweepstakes can also offer a much more attractive prize – great product bundles are especially popular! Another way to increase your Instagram scope is to hook up with influencers that have the power to drive traffic to your brand and products. 

The Easypromos Instagram comment picker allows you to pick random winners from among users that commented on various posts – and on different accounts. Learn more about Instagram giveaway Collabs.

DO cross-promote your Instagram giveaway

What happens when you organize an Instagram giveaway and decide not to promote it on any other social media channel? You’re limiting yourself. Drive traffic from your Facebook, Twitter, TikTok or YouTube accounts to your Instagram giveaway. Chances are you will attract more participants than you would have if you focused your efforts simply on Instagram. And if you’re lucky you might hugely increase the number of your Instagram followers. Because if someone follows you on Twitter, why wouldn’t they follow you on Instagram, too?

But don’t limit yourself just to social media – add a pop-up to your website or blog and re-engage your newsletter subscribers because the more the merrier! Oh, and have we mentioned running social ads for your giveaways?

Did you know that Easypromos has the only tool in the market that allows you to run a fully automated and reliable Instagram Stories Giveaway?

DO run giveaways on Instagram Reels

You might know by now that static content is not as engaging as interactive audiovisual content. This is why running your Instagram giveaways on videos and Reels is a great idea for anyone looking to reach more users, generate visibility, and build the brand in the meantime. Ask users to comment on your videos or Reels and then choose a random winner from among all the users. You can ask participants to tag their friends, too.

Find out more about running comment giveaways on Reels.

DON’T encourage spamming

The Instagram algorithm doesn’t like spam, and rightly so. And that’s probably our most concrete reason for why your giveaways shouldn’t promote spamming. What do you think is more important, 50 comments from one user or 10 comments from 10 different people? We would definitely go for the second one! The popular “1 comment = 1 entry, comment more for more entries” requirement is against Instagram giveaway rules as it encourages spamming. Not sure if you trust us on this one? Instagram community guidelines ask to “foster meaningful and genuine interactions”.

Demonstrate the reliability of your giveaway and learn how to spot a fake giveaway on Instagram to differentiate your brand from them.

DON’T offer extra entries for sharing in Stories

This one’s a no-no for us. Let’s agree it’s acceptable if you’re expecting no more than 50 participants. You can sit with your face glued to the screen, writing down every single user that reshares your giveaway and mentions your brand in their Stories. But once you’re expecting hundreds or even thousands of entrants… It will be literally impossible to track and then give those extra entries in the prize draw. As we previously mentioned, Instagram doesn’t allow external tools to pull any information apart from comments – so it’s impossible to automatically import all the users that shared your giveaway or mentioned you in Stories. So simply don’t make your life harder than it has to be!

However, you can encourage participants to share the giveaway in their Stories to help you reach more people. Just don’t make it an obligatory requirement to enter your promotion and don’t promise additional entries sharing the giveaway in Stories. 

DON’T award the prize to the comment with the most likes

Giving the prize to the comment that receives the most likes is a form of covert voting without anti-fraud measures. At Easypromos, we do not recommend this approach because, aside from not following Instagram’s best practices (as it encourages spam-like behavior), it can generate a lot of noise for your brand.

When you award the prize to the comment with the most ‘likes,’ you set users against each other in competition. It’s not the same dynamic as a random giveaway, where the prize is awarded randomly. In a competition of likes, there will always be more than one participant who complains because they have observed unfair practices or believes that not all likes have been counted for them. Additionally, external platforms like Easypromos cannot gather likes from all comments, only from the participating comments.

DON’T forget to announce the winners

Users participate in giveaways for a chance to win – make sure you offer only positive experiences by announcing the lucky winners of your promotion. If you don’t officially share the winners of your giveaway, you might lose credibility and trust as some users may simply think that the giveaway was a fraud – and you don’t want that!

There are three different ways to announce Instagram giveaway winners:

• Edit the giveaway post and add “Giveaway closed, the winners have been contacted”. But you can reinforce trust further by tagging the lucky winners in the post. 
• Create a new post only to announce the winner
• Share the winners in Stories and create a Highlight so that it doesn’t disappear after 24 hours

Remember the Certificate of Validity I mentioned before? You can share it in stories or as a Link in Bio. 

So… How does it all sound? Are you a little bit more clear on how to organize a successful Instagram giveaway now? Just stick to what we mentioned in this article and you’re good to go! And remember – it’s all about fun and growing your brand! And in case of questions or doubts make sure you contact us via live chat!

Whether the objective of your campaign is to increase your follower base or promote your product or brand, promoting the giveaway post will definitely give it that extra oomph. There is, nonetheless, an important factor to keep in mind in this situation to avoid unnecessary headaches. That is: how to pick the winner for an Instagram giveaway with promoted posts.

Instagram promoted posts

Although you probably know this by now, we think it won’t hurt to do a little explaining on the topic. The most logical, and common, first step is to publish your organic post. This is the post you usually publish from your account, it’s free and organically visible to your followers. Being a Giveaway, the post will mention the prize, participation requirements, deadline, and the corresponding image, nothing new here. We’re pretty sure it will comply with all the do’s and don’ts of an Instagram giveaway. However, if you want to double-check, click on the link to read an article on that.

Once you publish the organic post and decide to promote it to increase the reach, you will have to use Facebook Ads. This is where things might get a bit complicated if you’re not fully aware of what’s going to happen next.

When you click on the “promote” button in your Instagram business account, Facebook Ads will clone your organic post, creating a “dark” post. This post is the one that will reach the audience segmentation that you selected when promoting it. The users that get this post will see the “Ad” caption in the post, and the post itself will NOT be visible on your Instagram feed. However, the original organic post will be.

Users will be able to participate through both posts, the organic -posted for free in your account and visible to your followers- and the dark post created by Facebook ads that will be featured in the target audience’s Instagram feed.

The result of this will be that you will now have two “independent” posts. Both with different comments. And consequently, giveaway entries coming from two “sources”, from which you have to select a single winner. But worry not, Easypromos has your back and the tools to navigate this situation efficiently and transparently.

Two Instagram giveaway posts, one winner

When the time comes to pick a winner, you will have to carry out a prize draft from among the participants of both posts. To do that, make sure you log in as the administrator of the Facebook page that created the post and follow these simple steps.

1. Go to the Easypromos control panel and create a “Multi-Network Giveaway”.
2. In the first step of the process, select “Instagram” as the social network where you want to create the giveaway.
3. Log in with the Facebook profile that manages the Facebook page linked to the Instagram account where you want to create the giveaway. Authorize Easypromos App to read your Facebook ADS, by accepting the Facebook ADS READ permission. 
4. Select the Instagram account.
5. The panel will display all the posts on the Instagram profile. Select the organic post.
6. Once you have selected the organic post, the next step is to add the sponsored post. To do this, click on the option “Add a sponsored post”.
7. Select the Ad account where you have created the sponsored post. If this is the first time you connect your ad account, you must authorize the Easypromos application so that it can read and access the ads created in your ad account.
8. Finally, select the sponsored post that you want to add to the giveaway from the list to include the users who have commented on the ad.

You can also access our step-by-step tutorial on how to add a promoted post to your giveaway by clicking on this link.

At this point, you have combined all the participating comments from the posts you have selected in one single group. Now you can manage the promotion’s entries, set up exclusion rules, decide on the number of alternates, etc. And finally, carry out the final prize draw, randomly and transparently with Easypromos’ certificate of validity.

Using the Easypromos Multi-Network giveaway app you are able to group the comments of up to 10 different posts, whether they are promoted, organic, or from different social networks altogether.

Giving an image of fairness and transparency is essential for your brand’s reputation and to build customer loyalty. Not to mention it will greatly help your future promotions be a success. If you have any questions or need technical assistance, our live chat team will be happy to help you.

Tips for running giveaways on Instagram

Behind every successful Instagram promotion there’s a lot of hard work. Launching a giveaway or contest is not just about generating good copy, preparing the graphics and picking a winner. Nothing could be further from the truth! There are certain strategic aspects that you should keep in mind from the moment you decide to launch an action of this type. Let’s see what they are:

1. Define a goal

Why launch your promotion on Instagram rather than another social network? Do you know what your objective is? You should never launch a giveaway, contest or promotion without having a clear goal and a strategy for achieving it.

Launching into the world of viral promotions on Instagram without a plan can be a waste of time and money. You’ll get far better results if you focus your efforts strategically!

2. Get inspired

We know that good ideas don’t always grow on trees. After many years working on your brand, creativity can run dry. But don’t give up. Find inspiration in these real-life examples of successful giveaways and campaigns.

It’s not about copying other people’s ideas, it’s about keeping up with trends and best practices. Then you can decide what’s best for your brand and your audience.

3. Know your audience

The key to carrying out effective Instagram giveaways is to understand your users. It’s vital that you understand what they’re looking for, what they like, what they need, how they interact and who they trust. 

We’re sure you already know most of this from past experience. But it never hurts to find out as much as you can about your current users. Remember that tastes and audiences change with the times.

4. Establish the legal basis for your Instagram giveaways

A clearly written and easily accessible legal basis transmits transparency, honesty and integrity. Being honest with your audience brings other advantages too: it reinforces your brand image and promotes greater participation. 

In addition, regulating your contest, giveaway or promotion is a way of protecting yourself from liability. Try to include every detail: who is responsible for the promotion, who is organizing it, what the dynamics for participation are, what the prize is, and when and where the winner/s will be announced.

It’s important that you adapt your legal basis to the country or geographic territory where you will carry out the promotional action, and to Instagram’s promotions policy.

5. Free tool for an Instagram giveaway

Do they exist? They certainly do! If your dynamic is very simple, you could save some money by using a free tool to create your Instagram giveaway. But if you wish to launch a more ambitious campaign and need all the features required to make your campaign go viral, then investing more is likely to have a positive impact on your promotion.

Ideas for carrying out Instagram giveaways

Now that you know how important it is to define an objective, draw up a plan, and establish legal basis for an Instagram giveaway. Let’s look at some examples of viral mechanics that work, and that you could also employ:

Comment giveaways on Instagram

If your goal is for users to generate content relating to your brand, one good idea is to incentivize your audience to post a comment about your product or services. You can ask them to mention you and add the campaign hashtag in order to take part.

When the participation period is over you can run a prize draw based on the number of mentions in the comments section.

Influencer giveaways on Instagram

Imagine you’re a clothing store about to open its doors. In order to start generating expectation you launch a campaign with influencers, giving them access to your collection before the official opening. They share the whole experience with their audiences via stories and reels. One week later, you launch a prize draw for the chance to win a $1000 gift card to spend in the store.

The nature of the prize draw could be as straightforward – but as powerful and viral – as asking users to comment on the post, mentioning three friends they love shopping with, and following the brand’s account. What could be simpler?

If your aim is to raise brand awareness among your target audience, the above is an example of a giveaway that you should definitely consider.

Visual challenge

What could be better than playing a fun game for the chance to win a big prize? Test your followers visual skills by challenging them to guess how many objects are in a picture or to spot the differences between two images.

You could then run a prize draw among all users who comment on and participate in the post.

Complete the sentence

But not just any sentence! Imagine that you’re about to launch a summer campaign and you’re looking for a super fun and impactful claim. How about turning to your community for help? What could be better than asking your own followers to come up with the campaign claim? Provide the first part of the sentence and encourage your followers to put their creativity to the test by completing it.

In addition to raffling the prize among all participants you could extend the promotion until the campaign launch day, having the winner appear in the commercial or on billboards.

Raffle a prize by adding a touch of “gaming”

Challenge your followers to do a word search where they have to find five of the services you offer or five of your best-selling products. The dynamics of this action would also be a prize draw based on comments, so choosing the winner randomly would be far easier and more transparent if you use an app like Easypromos.

Are you ready to launch your next promotional action on Instagram? By getting creative on social media you can stimulate greater participation, grow your community, and generate brand awareness. Are you up for the challenge? Easypromos can help you!

Pointless or profitable?

Have you ever tried putting music to your reels before realizing that you can only do so if you integrate your accounts and change your category from Facebook? Have you ever wanted to advertise on Instagram but were told it’s better to do so from Facebook Business Manager? Maybe you keep posting the same content manually on each social network and have yet to take advantage of Facebook Creator Studio. Or perhaps you’ve spent your valuable time trying to set up your product store on Instagram to no avail. 

We could describe plenty more situations, but one thing you can be sure of is that, whatever the scenario, linking your accounts will help you design and execute a more effective Facebook and Instagram strategy. In addition to helping you solve technical problems, linking your accounts will provide you with greater brand recognition and help you reach a wider audience.

Advantages of linking Facebook and Instagram

However, to really make the most of Instagram for business it’s not enough to just integrate your account with Facebook. Integration is important if you want to really make the most of both platforms, but that alone is no guarantee of success. Also vital when it comes to making an impact on Instagram and Facebook is posting valued content, being constant, innovating, answering users’ messages in the shortest time possible, organizing free giveaways, and using the relevant hashtags. However, integrating both social networks can certainly help you achieve better results when it comes to optimizing time and resources. Let’s have a look at some of the key benefits to linking Facebook and Instagram!

• Carry out more strategic advertising campaigns. From Facebook you can launch advertising campaigns on both social media platforms simultaneously. One of the main advantages of doing this with Facebook’s Business Manager (a free tool that can help you carry out the company’s marketing actions more easily) is that you can finetune every tiny detail when it comes to audience segmentation and other variables such as budget, targeting, formats, and where you want your ads to appear. The metrics you obtain in Facebook about campaign performance are far more complete than those provided by Instagram alone.
• Facebook still has a far more powerful database than Instagram, so linking both accounts means that your posts and ads will reach more users.
• For an Instagram sales strategy to really be effective you should link both social networks. This is because it is from the Tools panel of the Fan Page that you must set up your catalog and shop: uploading products, creating cards, and providing the information and documents that Facebook requires in order to approve the store. 
• Save time and energy when publishing. Although Easypromos doesn’t usually recommend posting exactly the same content to Instagram and Facebook, we understand that you may have a strategy that involves sharing “mirror content” or that, on occasion, you may identify content that deserves to coexist on both social networks. In such cases, it’s in your best interest to link them so that you can publish or schedule them to be published simultaneously, without having to publish them separately on each platform.
• In addition to being able to integrate third-party applications more easily, connecting Facebook with Instagram enables you to manage Instagram DMs from the inbox of your Facebook page. That’s a real time-saver!

Simple steps for linking your Facebook to an Instagram business account

Before you start, make sure your Instagram account is a business one. If it’s not, this is easily rectified by clicking on Edit Profile and selecting “Switch to Professional account”. You must also be the business administrator of the Facebook page you wish to connect to. Once you’ve done this, follow these steps: 

• Go to your Instagram profile and tap “Edit Profile”.
• Go to “Public Business Information” and select “Page”.
• Click “Create a new Facebook Page” or “Connect to an Existing Page”.
• Now choose the page you wish to connect to.

And that’s it! As you can see, it’s a very simple process, but you’ll soon see how beneficial it is to your Facebook and Instagram strategy. 

*One more thing: if, after you’ve followed these steps, the page you wish to connect still doesn’t appear in the drop-down menu of your profile, then maybe you’re not listed as the admin of that page. Fix this in the page settings and make sure you have permission to add the page to your Instagram business account.

It has always been a marketing strategy to use well-known influencers or kindred brands to reach and influence a specific audience in their decision-making. These actions generate trust and help promote the brand’s values through collaboration.

Let’s take a look at how Collabs works and how your brand can benefit from launching giveaway collaborations using this tool.

How to do a Collab Giveaway post

To do a Collab Giveaway post, the brand has to follow the steps of a usual post. Once the image and text are ready, the option to tag someone in the post is next. There are two buttons in this section: “Add Tag” and “Invite a Collaborator”. Select the second option and a search window will come up to look for the profile that you want to collaborate with.

Once the post has been published, a notification for the user or brand will come up, as well as several notifications in the collaborator’s account. 

Once the collaborator accepts the invitation, the post will appear in its profile. The name and image of both the organizer and the collaborator will appear in both posts.

*Note: When the organizer deletes the post, it will also be eliminated from the collaborator’s profile.

Now that you know how Collabs work, how about we go into how to organize a collaborative giveaway with Instagram Collabs? Let ‘s get to it!

How to run a collaborative giveaway with Instagram Collabs

Say your brand or business is collaborating with another brand or an influencer. So, you have decided to organize a giveaway to promote the collaboration and capture users’ attention. How to do it? Don’t worry! Easypromos has the solution and it’s easier than it seems.

You simply have to use the Instagram Giveaway tool and, once the organizer’s account has been linked to Easypromos, select the original post from the organizer in order to carry out the comments’ draw.

By selecting the post, the tool will collect the comments for both posts, the organizer’s and the collaborator’s. It ‘s that simple!

Note: Instagram or Facebook Ads can only be run from the organizer’s post. A collaborator cannot run paid advertising from a shared post. In turn, when running the giveaway, Easypromos’ tool allows the collection of the comments from the organizer’s sponsored posts.

Example of a collab giveaway

Take a look at this example of a collaborative giveaway between two Instagram accounts. The ready-made food brand Scott & Jon’s partnered with Primal Kitchen, a condiments and spices brand, to hold a collaborative giveaway of a skillet. Using the Collabs system, both accounts posted the giveaway simultaneously, and users who commented on either post entered the giveaway.

What if the collaborator has already posted a giveaway?

Easypromos’ inter-account collaboration system is still active and it can be very useful when the collaborator publishes posts commenting on a giveaway organized by two or more accounts. This would not be an Instagram Collabs post. However, it is possible to run a giveaway based on comments from several posts using Easypromos’ Multi-Network Giveaway tool. Here’s an example from Stranahan’s, a Colorado-based brand that teamed up with another Colorado company to together celebrate Colorado Day. Both brands posted the giveaway image on their Instagram accounts, therefore, the organizers used the Multi-Network Giveaway app to choose a lucky winner.

Do you need help creating an Instagram Giveaway using Collabs? Contact us via live chat. Our customer support team will be happy to help.

• Reels: all videos are saved in the Reels tab but they can also be saved in the feed.
• Stories: they’re visible for 24h but you can then add them to your profile as Highlights.
• Feed videos: upload videos directly to your feed. All videos are then grouped together in a separate tab on your profile.

How to organize a giveaway on Instagram videos

Uploading videos to Instagram makes it possible to generate closer relationships with followers and customers. Instagram Live videos shared on Stories work great when it comes to sharing content with the audience but they make it difficult to create meaningful conversations with the viewers. This is why uploading audiovisual content to the Instagram feed is an important aspect of generating engagement among your community.

As we’ve explained in the previous section, you can save all three different types of videos on your Instagram profile, however, only two out of the three formats allow you to retrieve comments necessary for running automated and random giveaways. And here’s how to do it.

1. Run comment giveaways on Instagram Reels

Giveaways on Instagram Reels are something we’ve all been waiting for! In July 2022, Instagram updated its API, making it possible to retrieve comments left on Reels. This means that you can now run automatic and transparent giveaways for your Reels viewers.

The participation requirements are exactly the same as for traditional Instagram giveaways. Ask users to comment on your post, tag friends, or follow your brand – however, you will have to manually check if the winner is also your follower.

Another important point aspect of running Reels giveaways is to make sure to make full use and take full advantage of all the options that Reels have. Add text to the video and use words like “win” and “giveaway” to grab more user attention and ensure you showcase the prizes that are up for grabs. Don’t forget to use the description section to clearly describe the giveaway dynamics, participation requirements, and participation dates. You can then use Stories to further promote the giveaway.

Are you planning to run a Reels giveaway for your followers? Make sure you check out our article about giveaways on Instagram Reels.

2. Organize a giveaway from comments left on your Live Video saved on your feed

Thinking to run a giveaway on your Live Video? Keep in mind that Instagram only allows comment-picking tools to import the comments left on Live Videos once the video has been published as a post, not the ones left during the live. Once the live videos are published on your feed, you don’t get to see any comments left by the viewers during the live, they’re simply gone.

Take for example this video of a healthy recipe. If the content creator wishes to organize a giveaway for those watching the video she must indicate that users must comment on the video once it’s published on the feed.

To sum up, during your Instagram Live you can’t:

• Do a giveaway during your live video
• Import comments left during your live video

But you can:

• Organize a giveaway for those that comment on your videos once it’s published on your feed
• Filter the users by the minimum number of mentioned friends
• Choose multiple winners and alternate winners

3. Organize a giveaway on a video uploaded directly to your Instagram feed

Sometimes you might want to upload an edited video in which you clearly specify the participation requirements, terms and conditions, participation dates, etc. This is why we recommend that you:

• Pre-record the giveaway announcement videos.
• Upload it to your Instagram feed.
• Create a description in which you explain the requirements and ask the question users must answer in order to participate in your giveaway.
• Explain participation dates and terms and conditions.
• Share the giveaway on Instagram Stories or create sponsored posts for maximum reach and visibility.

We recommend organizing giveaways on previously recorded and edited videos for the following reasons:

• You won’t lose any previous comments (left during the live video).
• You can better explain the participation requirements, and present the product, prize, and terms and conditions. 
• The participants can clearly see or hear the participation dates so they know if they can still enter the draw.

How to select a winner of your giveaway on Instagram videos?

Importing comments from your Instagram video with Easypromos is pretty straightforward. Access your Easypromos account and select the Instagram Giveaway app. As usual, it will ask you to connect your Facebook account to be able to access the Facebook-Instagram API in order to pull all the comments from your post. Once you authenticate the application, you will see a list of your publications with comments and among them, including videos and Reels.

All you have to do is select your video or videos and continue with the process of importing all the comments as if it was a traditional Instagram giveaway. The Instagram Giveaway app allows you to:

• Exclude users from your blacklist
• Exclude previous winners
• Indicate a minimum number of characters that each comment must have in order to participate
• Indicate a minimum number of mentioned users
• Exclude users who participated outside of participation dates

Why organize Instagram video giveaways?

Most of all, Instagram video giveaways allow you to identify and reward the most loyal followers and especially those that interact with your content. You can raffle free entries to events, courses, and webinars, give away prizes from your sponsors or even reward users with products related to your industry. 

By using the Easypromos Instagram Giveaway application you ensure that your giveaways are carried out with maximum transparency.

If you have any doubts or questions about running giveaways on Instagram videos, contact us via chat – we’re always happy to help!

The main purpose of launching a Tournament Bracket promotion is to attract users with multiple participation stages – following new rounds in sports events or choosing their favorites from among candidates that make it to the next round. 

The application allows you to publish an overall ranking page with all participants and their accumulated points. Have we mentioned that you can fully customize it with your corporate image?

Let’s now take a look at the Tournament Bracket app in more detail:

What marketing objectives can I accomplish with online tournaments?

Online knockout tournaments have three characteristics of games: rivalry, skill, and chance. These three allow brands to achieve a variety of marketing objectives:

• Increased engagement and repeat participation
• Brand awareness and visibility
• Increased customer trust and loyalty (incentives)
• Original content for your social media networks
• New contact details from social media users and website visitors converted into leads
• Visibility for specific events, products or services

How does the Tournament Bracket app work?

The Tournament Bracket application by Easypromos allows you to organize online tournaments with multiple rounds. There are two ways to organize your tournament, based on:

1. Real sports and cultural events. You can visually present teams, athletes, and candidates of important events and invite your audience to predict the winners. As you learn the official results, you can update them in the app and assign points to participants, based on their answers. They will be then displayed in the ranking. 
2. Online competitions, fully invented and organized by your brand. These competitions can be based on ANY topic. Ask users to choose their favorite products, books, series characters or food. Once the voting of each round is finalized you can assign points to the users that voted for the winning candidates. 

And now let’s take a look at some of the most important features of the Easypromos brackets app:

• The Tournament Bracket app is created with a default template. All you have to do is configure the first round of the tournament and adjust the participation dates. 
• You can add up to 64 candidates in each round and you can display them randomly or by manually matching up the rivals for each round. 
• It’s possible to activate multiple tournaments at the same time. It’s a great option for anyone looking to display more than 64 candidates or those launching different categories in your brackets competition. 
• A single registration for easy participation. Users register when they first access the promotion. The application then saves the user information and they don’t have to register again next time they want to participate in the competition. 
• Full customization of all texts and images. 
• Participants accumulate points for each round. They can also check their score and find out how many points they scored in each round. 
• Different rounds are visually presented on the welcome page that is adapted to all devices, including mobiles and tablets. 
• The application allows you to run random prize draws for all participants or reward those with the highest scores. 

Now that we know all the characteristics of the app, it’s time to see some examples!

Templates and examples of Brackets with multiple rounds

Now is the time to see some examples of online knockout tournaments. So… Are you planning to launch a tournament for a football league? Would you like to discover the favorite series of your audience? Or maybe you work for the tourism sector and you’re interested in showing the sights of your city and find out which one is the one that your followers like the most? You can even organize a competition between popular book titles and even dog breeds! Take a look at the following examples and download our pre-configured templates to launch your promotion. 

Knockout brackets for UEFA Women’s Champions League 2021

UEFA Women’s Champions League is a great example of an online tournament. The brackets competition has been divided into different rounds, based on matches happening on different days. As the teams progress through rounds, new participation stages are open. In this case, the organizer must closely follow the matches so that they’re able to correctly update the scores and open new stages. 

Do you like the above idea? Try our UEFA Women’s Champions League Brackets to discover the real user experience. You can then download our pre-configured template to launch your own tournament.

Monuments knockout tournament

In this example, you can see a tournament between some of the most famous monuments in the world. The main objective of this Bracket promotion is to discover the monument most liked by online users. At the end of the promotion, the 10 best participants will enter a random prize draw – they’ll be the users that voted for the candidates that made it to the next rounds. 

Do you want to try this promotion? Vote for your favorite monuments and learn how this fun competition can engage your audience. You can even download our pre-configured template for your promotion.

Tournament Bracket: novels

The final example is a great option for your brand if your audience is full of bookworms. In this tournament, there are two categories, best crime fiction, and best historical novel. Participants have the task of deciding which book is the best in each category. 

You can try the book tournament promotion and use our ready-made template for your own competition.

How to distribute prizes in online tournament bracket promotions?

If you use the Easypromos app for organizing your knockout tournament, you will be the one deciding how many prizes you want to distribute and in what way. Here are the most popular options for rewarding your promotion participants:

• Reward the best participants. You can reward the user with the highest number of points, or organize a random prize draw for the top 10 or 20 players. 
• Give prizes to the winner of each round. Just like in the previous point, you can reward the best participants, but this time of each round. 
• Run a random prize draw for all participants of a specific round.
• Organize a random prize draw for users that participated in all rounds. 

Direct prizes on participating – they can be different for each round. You can give away discount codes, invitations to events, free subscriptions, or product samples.

What’s the best way to create online tournaments?

Creating a knockout tournament in draft mode is completely free of charge. Just log in to your Easypromos account and choose the product you want to test. You can clearly see how the tournament rounds are configured. The application is available in White Label and Corporate plans. If you currently don’t have an active plan, you will be asked for a payment when and only if you decide to activate the promotion. 

And so far our introduction to the new Tournament Bracket application. Here is a short summary of why Easypromos is the best solution for your promotion:

• You will be able to fully configure and customize your tournament without programming, coding, or advanced IT experience.
• The tool is very intuitive and guides you through the entire process with buttons and additional information. 
• Your promotion will be published on a microsite – with a registration form, public ranking, and voting system. 
• Users can access the competition from any device and browser.
• The application has an integrated voting system with anti-fraud control. 
• At the end of the tournament, you will be able to reward participants based on their position in the ranking or by running a random prize draw.

So what do you think about our Brackets application? Do you have more questions or doubts? Contact our customer support team – they’re always ready to assist and inspire!