How to hold a contest on Instagram if your profile has not yet been promoted. How to hold a contest on Instagram to attract subscribers: examples, mechanics, rules How to correctly write down the conditions of a contest on Instagram

19.10.2023

About working on Instagram. Today, designer and SMM specialist, Evgenia Ashirova, will tell us about the intricacies of conducting sweepstakes and competitions on Instagram.

Viral activities on Instagram

The social network Instagram is now developing very quickly, and every participant on this platform is in a hurry to make themselves known. One way to make information go viral is to hold a contest or giveaway. This method is also very suitable for rewarding account subscribers and increasing their loyalty. Everyone loves gifts!

There are a lot of options for such events at the moment, let's look at some of them in more detail and study all the pros and cons.

The general rule for all activities of this type is the correct design: the banner should be bright, stylish and interesting. You can put basic information on it: the word “giveaway” or “competition”, the timing and, if desired, a description of the prize.

Options for conducting giveaways on Instagram

The first option is the simplest - this is a repost giveaway with a unique hashtag(you can do without it). Its mechanics are very simple:

A banner is posted in your account;
The text of the post briefly describes the event to which the lottery is dedicated and indicates a detailed description of the prize.

Conditions (we write them in the text):

Be subscribed to the account;
Repost a photo indicating a unique hashtag and account name (or just the account name);
Place a serial number under the photo in your account. It is possible that you hand out numbers yourself by clicking on a hashtag - in this case, a hashtag is required and only unique.

The advantages of this option: very good virality and growth of new subscribers, it is easy to identify the winner. Cons: there is a percentage of prize-winning participants; sometimes it is technically difficult for people to repost.

Second option: similar to the first one, only a large and well-known account takes part in the event, and you act as a sponsor and provide a prize.

The conditions indicate a subscription to both accounts, and all other actions are similar to those indicated above. A huge advantage of this competition is that you enter a new platform with an audience loyal to the blogger, and this attitude is transferred to you.

Third option: circular giveaway. You've probably already come across a similar option, when several accounts of similar topics and the number of subscribers unite to hold a big draw.

I’ll tell you the advantages right away: a large prize fund allows you to increase interest in the gift, and the intersection of many audiences leads to a rapid and significant increase in subscribers.

There are quite a lot of disadvantages:

the participant needs to perform a large number of actions, subscribe to many accounts,
high percentage of catches;
it is necessary to indicate friends, which Instagram users do not really like to do;
there is difficulty in identifying the winner and it is difficult to check all the actions.

In a classic circular giveaway, the conditions and pictures of the drawing are the same in each account, only the names of the accounts to which you need to switch differ. But other options are now common. The event can be held on a newly created account for the drawing. Or, one of the participants’ accounts acts as a leader, and then all rules and activity are localized to him.

The participation procedure may be one of the following, and there is also room for variations and combinations:

You must subscribe to all circle participants, repost the entry from the prize account, and leave the number under the specified photo;
You need to subscribe to all the organizers of the draw, indicate links to friends’ accounts in the comments (depending on the conditions you choose, you must indicate one or more friends, and also indicate the number of comments - one or more from one participant) in the prize account;
The mechanism is the same as described in the second paragraph, only comments are left in each sponsor’s account under the drawing post.

The main thing that will be required of you when organizing a circular GiveAway is the need to clearly state the rules and determine the procedure for selecting the winner. Be sure to indicate these conditions in the description of the draw, even if the mechanism for selecting the winner is a “magic poke with your finger in the comment.”

Fourth option: drawing without reposts. In this case, as a condition of participation, you must indicate your friends’ accounts in the comments to the post. The selection of the winner is determined by random or in another way convenient for you. Pros: there is no need for reposts, the percentage of catches is insignificant. Cons: low virality and the need to indicate friends.

The fifth version of the draw is to encourage subscribers. Its condition is to indicate the number under the drawing post. One or more prizes will be drawn among the participants. The winner is determined using any random program (random number generator).

Raffles in accounts specially created for this are special.. The mechanics of the second option apply here, only the percentage of prize catches will significantly exceed the number of real subscribers.

And the next type of activity is contests and flash mobs(I already talked about the latter in).

Conducting competitions on Instagram

Competitions on Instagram, as in any social network, have less engagement, since people are too lazy to take many actions. Therefore, you must interest the participants either in a meaningful prize or in the fact that the execution will be convenient and logical. Such activities work well on children’s accounts, when parents and their children are asked to do something together and post the result in the form of a photo or video.

In order for people to know about you, the condition for participation must be that you include a link to your project in the report. And so that you can find competition entries, be sure to create a unique hashtag and ask participants to indicate it in the description of the photo. The options for choosing a winner can be different: either you choose the winner yourself, or ask your subscribers to vote for the best performers, in their opinion. The main advantage of such competitions is the generation of content for your page and, of course, the dissemination of information about you.

In fact, various variations of sweepstakes and competitions are possible. Just turn on your imagination and create. Here's a clear example:

Above, I tried to briefly describe the main options for viral activities that are easy to use in the first stages of development on Instagram. The main thing to remember:

The rules of a drawing or competition should be intuitive. If you have written them down, give them to other people to read, so that there are no discrepancies and conflicts when summing up;
Be sure to ask to indicate your account, since the main goal is to launch viral information about you;
If you use a hashtag for a giveaway or competition, first make sure that it is truly unique so as not to complicate your work;
Immediately determine for yourself how you will summarize the results and be sure to describe this in the rules.

See you in the next articles!

Competitions are one of the ways to promote a blog. With their help, you communicate with your audience, attract new subscribers to your blog and activate old ones. The idea is that you promise participants a gift if they tell other users about you in one way or another. This promotion method is considered effective.

What types of drawings can be held?

There are three mechanics that marketers recommend alternating between each other. Of course, if they are all relevant to your business.

Giveaway

The simplest option. Several bloggers or brands team up and contribute an equal amount, which is used to buy a prize for the winner. Those wishing to participate only need to subscribe to all the organizers, put a few likes and repost on their page. The winner is determined using a random number generator using one of three actions:

Your branded hashtag included in the repost.
The number left under your entry. Each participant writes a number +1 to the previous one.
The number of live likes on a reposted note.

Prize for a simple action

Another simple way to promote a blog is to hold a competition on Instagram based on comments. Bloggers often call them giveaways. The condition could be the task “continue the phrase”, tag a friend, take a photo and post it under the post, come up with an interesting caption. You can also add reposts and likes to the program.

Creative task

The mechanics are similar to the previous one, but a little more complicated. The participant completes the assigned task in his account. Ask your followers to take a themed photo, make something with their own hands, imagine writing a poem or story and add it to your page with your unique hashtag.

In recent years, bloggers are increasingly holding competitions on Instagram in Stories. They gather more response from the audience. The tasks can be simple: post a unique post or a screenshot from your account with his tag. The winner is usually determined using a random number generator. To find a person under this number, go to Direct and count the required number of mentions. The results are posted in Stories or in a general feed along with a randomizer. For more people to participate, leave a link to the terms and conditions in the header.

How to run a contest on Instagram: step-by-step instructions

Follow the basic rules that we will describe in this section, regardless of the chosen scenario.

Select your prize in advance

Analyze your target audience, understand what is valuable to them. Don't skimp on the prize or choose something inexpensive but meaningful for your subscribers. The more difficult the task assigned to the participants, the better the reward should be.

Come up with and take a good photo

The best option is a picture of the prize. Make a beautiful layout (several items that make up a single image) or take a photo of the item in the person’s hands. It is better to place the text in the caption of the photo. It would be better to write a brief description on the picture. In the post, write down the rules so that readers can understand how they can win the competition on Instagram. List them in a list. This way the information is easier to perceive. Add a permanent link to it in your profile header.

Don't forget to mention all the terms and conditions. For example, an open account, subscribing to all organizers, tagging your blog. Tell us on what date and time you will announce the winner and how you will choose him. The optimal duration of the draw is two weeks.

Decide on the place and time of placement

Stories or feed. Analyze the behavior of your audience using statistics on Instagram if you have a business account connected or in third-party applications.

Selecting a winner in a competition on Instagram: services and other methods

If the task was creative, a jury will be needed to make a decision. The downside of this mechanic is that there is a high probability of being accused of bias.

To choose a random lottery number, use one of the sites:

They all work on almost the same principle. You need to log in via Instagram, specify the conditions and generate the result following the instructions. You assign the number yourself and send it to each person in Direct, or participants put it in the comments.

Promotion of the competition on Instagram

The competition itself also needs to be promoted. To make as many people as possible aware of it, follow these steps:

Copy the post to other social networks, to the website.
If you have sales points, tell customers about the draw.
Use Instagram Ads.

Carrying out various activities helps improve your profile statistics and find new subscribers, appearing more often in your followers’ feed. Interesting tasks in Stories, creative mechanics and simple lotteries in the comments work best. Reposts and “tag a friend” are doing worse. Do not deceive participants and give prizes honestly, then competitions will only bring you benefits. Record statistics before and after the play to evaluate its effectiveness.

How to conduct competitions on Instagram is a question faced by most business account owners aimed at making a profit from Instagram. Competitions and giveaways on Instagram are one of the best methods of attracting your target audience and quickly growing followers on your profile. Today we’ll talk about what types of competitions exist. Namely, about 3 popular varieties.

The best option, in my opinion, today. The mechanics are very simple and effective, as it has a small percentage of unsubscribes after the end of the competition/draw and perfectly engages the target audience and increases the reach of your profile.

The mechanics are this: a person must subscribe to your profile, like (you can also save) the post with the competition and tag a friend or girlfriend in the comments (or better yet, 3 at once) and you can make an infinite number of tags (the main thing is that they are not repeated).

To enhance the effectiveness of the competition/sweepstakes, you can write in its terms so that people, in addition to marking, write what they want to win in 2 words, for example, as is the case with one of my clients chain of laser hair removal and LPG massage salons: (“I WANT LPG”) when drawing a free procedure for LPG (vacuum roller) massage.

Or here is an example of a makeup giveaway:

Thanks to this mechanic, those people whom you have tagged receive a notification and immediately understand what is at stake and are consciously involved in such a prank on Instagram.

A creative competition on Instagram is when your subscribers (or in general those who saw the post) must take a photo with your logo, products, or in your salon or shoot some kind of video (flash mob), come up with a comment on the post or write a poem. In general, I think you understand.

This competition is aimed at recognizing your brand or obtaining unique content (when you can’t create it yourself, ask others). In general to popularize and recognize you or your brand.

This type of competition/sweepstakes attracts truly involved people who very often participate not for the sake of winning, but they simply like to participate, stand out, create - the very atmosphere and involvement in the competition/sweepstakes.

But you should understand: The more conditions in the competition, the fewer people will participate in it. So don't complicate the rules. Make a contest/raffle with an interesting idea and the simplest conditions possible.

The scheme came to Instagram from VKontakte. The mechanics are clear, but...

Firstly, Instagram has a bad attitude towards reproducing identical images, and secondly, most people don’t even know how to repost (you need to download the application, or take a screenshot and crop it).

This type of competition is ineffective and is used only by beginner SMM specialists or those who manage their own account and read about this type of competition somewhere.

But if you add a twist to this mechanic, it can also work well. Keep 2 useful points for running a contest/draw with a repost:

Placing a photo of the organizing account in the participating account with a unique description of why you follow this or that user, or why you use the product/services of this or that brand.
Bloggers use this mechanic more often (Post your favorite photo from my account on your account and write why you follow me).
Repost a post in Stories with a description of why you follow a particular account. The downside of the mechanic is that Stories hang for 24 hours, which complicates summing up the results of the competition.
Don't forget to include a mandatory condition: tagging your account. To select the winner, use random number service(about them below) and the amount that fell in the service is calculated manually in the direct message using marks in Stories
Unfortunately, no other method has yet been invented, but the mechanics are working.

Here's what needs to be described in the Instagram contest/draw conditions:

Actions required to take part in it
Competition dates
Prize drawing method
What prize will the winner receive?

A couple of tips for running the competition:
Be sure to select a prize before starting the competition.
Users are becoming less and less involved in competitions because they are not interested in the prizes. Smaller companies are starting to team up with each other to make the prize pool more diverse and attractive.

But in a competition, it’s not the cost of the prize that’s important, but its significance to your audience. Do you understand?

The prize can be inexpensive, but very interesting for subscribers.

It is important to think on the part of the competition participant: What would I like to receive or win if I were my own subscriber. What are these people interested in? What challenges do they face?

Remember that the prize also cuts out unnecessary competition participants, so the potential target audience of the prize must match yours.

How to sum up and choose a winner on Instagram

An important point that will make your life easier and automate the selection of the winner in your competition/draw – BEFORE THE START choose a service to determine winners, take into account the details of its capabilities and announce the method for selecting the winner in a post with the competition itself.

Here are 4 services you can use:

First service the most attractive for reaching an audience across Russia and includes:

Checking marks in comments
Publication of the competition on the website and social media. project networks
Competition page on the Internet
Photos of participants' profiles on the competition page
Removing unwanted participants from the competition
Automatic determination of winners and display on the website

But for this you will have to pay 599 rubles. Not such a large amount for such a scale.

The second service will help you upload Instagram subscribers:

The analytical data service includes:

analysis of the complete list of your subscribers
providing a list of ID and name
number of incoming subscriber subscriptions
number of outgoing subscriber subscriptions
profile type (personal/business, open/closed)
determining the gender of individual subscribers
calculating the approximate coverage of posts without falling into the recommended

I haven’t used this service yet, so there’s nothing more to add besides the description.

Fourth service This is a simple number randomizer originally made for VKontakte competitions. But if you need to choose a number, then it will suit you. The service is free.

Bottom line

Contests and giveaways on Instagram are a good and effective method of attracting subscribers and target audiences. Don’t be too harsh with the frequency, otherwise there will be only freeloaders or you will simply kill the value of your service/product, which will affect the number of orders.

Try not to use competitions with reposts to your feed; these are complex and ineffective mechanics.

Choose a raffle prize that is interesting and meaningful to your target audience.

Think about it, approach competitions with creativity, test, come up with interesting combinations (for example: post + stories), combine, because this is how truly effective methods are discovered.

By the way. I found an awesome service that greatly simplifies the administration of several Instagram accounts at once and has everything you need:

Linking several accounts is very convenient for me, since several of my clients have a network of Instagram accounts)
Sending messages (welcoming new subscribers, sending to your subscribers, sending to a list)
Autoresponder
Dialogues – dialogues of all accounts in one place, which means that at least 40 people can respond to messages from one place – safe for the account. This is what I was basically looking for.
Autoposting – posts to your accounts from one place
Comment monitoring – you can monitor your own comments or your competitor’s comments
Mass following - subscription, liking of the target audience, etc.

Okogram service(like all good things in this world) it’s paid, but it’s worth it. You can see this for yourself, and for free. The service gives you 3 free days for the test. When registering, enter the promotional code instacool and use the test period without restrictions.

In general, wait, in the coming days I will post a review of this service and how to work with it!

If you think that the information is useful, share the link to this article with your friends on social networks. Thank you!

Holding a competition on Instagram allows you to increase brand awareness, attract new subscribers or increase engagement. Therefore, they are used by a huge number of accounts: the number of publications with hashtags #prank or #contest exceeds 4,000,000.

We decided to tell you more about sweepstakes and competitions on Instagram. In the article you will learn what contest mechanics can be used and how to run a contest to increase reach or attract subscribers.

Basic mechanics of competitions and types of drawings

For reach or awareness. The main goal is to get as many views as possible and increase brand loyalty. To do this, they use a competition based on mentions or hashtags. All participants in the competition must take a photo, preferably related to your products, and post it on their page with a mention of your account or certain hashtags. It is recommended to create new hashtags for each competition: this way you will only see competition publications participating in the prize draw.

All publications of competition participants will appear in the news feeds of their friends. Therefore, you will get great coverage. And if you correctly format the terms of participation and post mentioning the giveaway, you will increase brand awareness and get new subscribers. To increase your coverage even further, you can run advertising on Instagram.

To attract new subscribers. The main goal of such competitions is to increase the number of followers. Here you can use the most banal mechanics - hold a competition among everyone who liked the entry about the draw. The conditions should also include a subscription to your account - then everyone who wants to take part in the competition will subscribe to you and like the post with the competition.

This mechanics has a significant disadvantage - to get subscribers, you will have to invest money in advertising. Otherwise, only those who are already following you will see the entry about the competition. Therefore, instead of a contest with likes and subscriptions, you can use the previous mechanics - ask contest participants not only to publish a photo with a thematic hashtag, but also to subscribe to you.

To increase engagement. The main goal of such competitions is to increase engagement rates and make your account more effective. There are several mechanics that can be used here. For example, hold a competition for likes or comments - choose a winner from those who liked or commented on the post.

A more complex raffle format is a photo competition. Ask all participants to send photos and post them on your profile, and determine the winner based on the number of likes. Contestants will view your profile, leave comments, and ask friends to vote. The only significant drawback of this mechanic is the very complex organization of the draw.

Ideas for Instagram contests

For the competition to work as it should, you need to attract the attention of potential participants with an unusual idea or a valuable prize. We offer you several original ideas for holding a competition on Instagram:

Ideas for competitions in Stories

Stories are a relatively new tool. But competitions can be held there too. Keep 2 original ideas:

Quest. Create several accounts, think over a plot, tell about the prize. For example, you can ask participants to find a way out of a virtual closed room, solve a difficult puzzle, or find your main account by following clues. Give the prize to the first person to complete it, or to a random participant who reaches the end.
Marks. Ask all contest participants to make their own story mentioning your account or a unique hashtag. This way you will significantly increase your reach, because Stories are gradually replacing the traditional news feed.

We are organizing a competition

Conditions of the competition

Think in advance about what you will write in the conditions. To ensure that the competition attracts a large number of participants, please indicate:

Prize. If there are several of them, post the entire list of prizes. Try to choose really valuable rewards - for example, 5,000 rubles or a 50% discount.
The terms of participation- write down exactly what a person must do to participate in the draw.
Start and end date of the competition. It is advisable to indicate the exact time when the results will be summed up.

Remember: don’t make the conditions for participation too complicated. Multi-stage sweepstakes with complex conditions usually have lower returns compared to simple contests.

Design of a competition post

To ensure your competition post attracts attention, prepare a high-quality photo. You can take a photo of the main prize and add thematic hashtags to the picture - for example, #attention! Competition or the standard “Giveaway” inscription. You can include the main conditions of participation or information about the prize in the photo, but do not overload the image with text.

In the caption to the photo, publish the terms of the competition and a call to action. You can add emoticons and write as many as you need: the main thing is to show the potential benefits of the competition participant from the first sentences.

How to attract more participants

Contests usually involve a minority of subscribers. To quickly increase the number of participants, you can purchase advertising in promoted profiles. Additional ways to run a competition on accounts with a small number of followers are:

Publishing a link to the competition post in the profile description and mass liking.
Linking the competition to a common hashtag or geolocation.
Subscriptions to your target audience: massfollowing.
Do live and tell us in detail about the competition.

How to determine the winner

The mechanics for determining the winner depend on the competition. Of course, you can choose the recipient of the prize manually, but this will take a lot of time and will allow subscribers to doubt your honesty. That's why we recommend special services. For example:

Rundstaff- free random number generator. Allows you to generate up to 50 random numbers from a list or range of numbers from 1,000,000,000. You can set any range - for example, from 95 to 1,453.

Giveaways- paid service for drawings. The cost of the competition is from 399 rubles. Can choose a winner from commentators or in a round-robin competition. It also shows an analysis of the competition.

Winner Picker- a free service without restrictions specifically for Instagram. Can select winners in competitions based on mentions and hashtags.

Summing up and awarding the prize

The winner's name must be published publicly at the appointed time. This way you will increase the trust of your subscribers. Record a video of the prize presentation, this way you will attract new participants for future competitions. Finally, you can indicate the date of the next drawing. This will pique the interest of your subscribers and make them follow your publications more closely.

How do you use competitions on Instagram and do you use them at all? Share in the comments.

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