Today on the Wolf Blog, we’re taking a look at Instagram giveaways. You’ve probably seen giveaways on Instagram hosted by your favorite brands, celebrities and influencers. Giveaways are generally use as apart of a strategy to grow your Instagram following. But it’s also a really great way to give back to your audience or celebrate a milestone, like hitting 10k followers. Most people assume they are super difficult to manage, and don’t realize how easy they are to do.
There is a bit of planning that goes into setting up a giveaway, just like with any part of your Instagram strategy. But if executed correctly the work is well worth the reward. So here’s a run down on all the steps you’ll need to take to get your next Instagram giveaway going.
Hosting Instagram Giveaways 101
The Prize/Incentive
The whole point of a giveaway is to, well, give away a prize to a winner. So your first order of business should be to figure that out. There are no rules surrounding what you can or cannot use as a giveaway prize. But whatever you pick should be a good incentive for people to enter. Influencer giveaway prizes typically include cosmetics, gift cards, designer goods and even trips. If you’re working with a brand on a giveaway they’ll probably already have the prize selected to coincide with a particular promotion or product launch. Some influencers will partner with others within their niche to host the giveaway which not only boosts visibility, but also allows for a bigger prize budget. This can definitively help increase your follower gains.
The Content
After you’ve figured out what you’re giving away, it’s time to create the content to promote it. And because it’s on Instagram visuals are everything. You want to be sure you’re creating content for your Instagram giveaways that will get attention to your prize and encourage people to enter. And of course, quality content always rules, so take your time when coming up with your giveaway visuals.
Your caption is also a vital part of your Instagram giveaway content. This will include all of the giveaway entry rules and conditions, but it’s also important to draw attention to your caption. Most people will start with “GIVEAWAY” as the first word in their caption to signal to people that they should read the rest of the caption for details.
The Entry Rules
Like we mentioned earlier, one of the main goal of Instagram giveaways is to gain followers. In order to make that happen you’ll have to set entry rules. These are a list of actions a person has to take in order to enter to win. Entry rules can vary from giveaway to giveaway, for example some will ask you to answer a question, while others might have you tag a friend. Some giveaways can also be a bit more extensive, like having to repost a photo on your feed with a hashtag. Let’s say we were hosting a giveaway with Sephora. Here’s a typical set of giveaway rules we might use:
Follow @WolfGlobalGroups & @Sephora, like this post and tag a friend.
We always recommend keeping your giveaway rules as simple as possible. This ensures that you get the most entries possible. No one wants to jump through a thousand hoops, just for the latest miracle skinny tea.
The Disclaimers
In order to avoid getting in trouble with Instagram, we highly suggest disclosing in the caption of your giveaway post that Instagram is not at all involved with your giveaway. The language is usually something along the lines of, “This giveaway is in no way affiliated with or sponsored by Instagram.”
Now that you’ve got the basics down, we’ll give you our top five tips to hosting or participating in a successful giveaway, ensuring follower gains, and curbing drop-off rates once the winner is announced. It’s standard to have some follower drop off once your giveaway winner is announced. Unfortunately, many people follow the giveaway hosts and participants for entry purposes, and then unfollow once they realize they didn’t win. This happens with everyone and shouldn’t discourage you. After all, you want your followers to genuinely be interested in your content so they engage back.
Tips For Hosting Instagram Giveaways
Tip #1: Great Content First
Let’s be honest here, giveaways can get a bad rep. The initial flood of new followers is exciting. But it’s typically and should be expected that a portion of those new followers will unfollow you once your giveaway is over. Our tip for helping to curb those drop off rates is to have amazing content first. Some people might still follow you just to enter the giveaway. But if your content is great and engaging, the chances of them continuing to follow you post-giveaway is much higher.
Tip # 2: When Partnering with Peers, Stick To Small, High Quality Groups
When finding other influencers to partner with for a giveaway we recommend sticking to influencers within your niche. You also want to keep the group small to avoid a long list of accounts people need to follow to enter. Partnering with influencers within your niche means you’ll reach a follower base that is already interested in content similar to yours. This increases the chances of gaining more long-term, engaged followers from the giveaway. Partnering with influencers with similar follower counts is the most realistic. It’s hard to expect a participant with, let’s say 200K followers, to carry the weight of promoting the giveaway with a group who will only be promoting to 20K followers collectively.
Tip #3: Short, Descriptive Caption with Entry Rules
Some giveaway captions can be long and confusing to read and understand. Make it as easy as possible for people to know what you’re giving away and quickly know what they have to do to enter. The more confusing things are, the less of a chance people will bother to enter. Be short, sweet and to the point!
Tip #4: Try A Loop Giveaway Companies
If you can’t find any peer influencers to partner with, we suggest trying out the loop giveaways. These types of giveaways are hosted by multiple influencers, and managed by an agency. Though loop giveaways typically result in lower quality follower gain, the sponsors and follow gain help to guarantee a gain.
Tip #5: Paid Advertising For The Giveaway Post
More reach and more impressions means more entries, which means more followers in the end. In order to maximize the returns on the time and money investment in your giveaway, we suggest taking advantage of paid/sponsored posts on Instagram. Even doing as small as a $5 paid ad campaign on your post can help to reach thousands more people.
Want to improve your Instagram game? Checkout the Wolf Blog for more great articles filled with tips and tricks on maximizing your Instagram!
