Giveaways and competitions on Instagram. How to hold a competition on Instagram if your profile has not yet been promoted The most successful Instagram competitions

Two million mentions - exactly the same amount that Instagram gives for the word “competition” in internal search. Everyone has at least once thought about running a contest for their brand or participating in sweepstakes as a user. The material is devoted to mechanics, trends and tips on how to run (and how not to) contests on this social network.

Contests can be held, as well as their results can be summed up, in different ways. Here are some tips that will be useful no matter which mechanic you choose:

1. Choose your prize in advance

Many companies today create joint, partner competitions on social networks to make the prize fund more significant. Now only the lazy are not looking for a brand companion, and all this is truly a necessary measure. Why? Because people stopped participating in sweepstakes as willingly as before.

If you give, like Tinkoff Bank, and recruit tens of thousands of participants in a matter of hours, that’s one thing. More often than not, you have a small prize that was literally pulled out with your teeth after a week of long negotiations with the customer. But for a successful competition it is not necessary to have an impressive prize in monetary terms. Just give something meaningful to your audience.

Know your followers and understand what is important to them at the moment.

An example from my experience: for a large chain of supermarkets, Kay equipment, after concluding an agreement with Zenit, it was decided to carry out draw in honor of the latter’s victory in the All-Russian championship.

The gift chosen was simple - a scarf with the club emblem. Its cost was small, but the draw I held attracted about 2,000 participants and more than 7,500 likes. Know your followers and understand what is important to them at the moment.

2. Location

“Stories” or main feed? More and more active users (more than 150 million people, to be specific) are moving from the main feed to the new one, regularly viewing content there. Try holding a lottery in Stories and compare the results.

Make sure that the competition does not get lost among other content and is clickable on other social networks of the brand: it is best to attach a link to your competition in the profile description (before the final results).

3. Come up with an illustration.

It is very important to effectively announce the competition to your subscribers and in advertising. The ideal (and logical) option for this task is to show the prize. Take a photo of a gift in the person’s hands, making a live frame, or shoot a beautiful layout (if you don’t know how, read our material about flatley). Do not overuse text in the photo: put only the main thing there. Let the resulting layout be concise, and let all the inscriptions be contained in the body of the post.

4. State deadlines

Previously, many competitions lasted about a month. Now the lifespan of a draw is inexorably shortening: one to two weeks is increasingly considered the optimal duration. There is so much content, the information field is so oversaturated that a month seems like too long a period: people may simply forget about the competition and lose interest. Consider how long your audience can stay focused on your competition and wait for results.

5. Results

Think in advance about how you will summarize the results. Write these conditions as a separate line in the competition announcement: the results will be summed up in such and such a way, on such and such a day, for example, at 20:00. I don’t recommend choosing Fridays and weekends for the announcement: it would be better during the prime time of weekdays, when the maximum number of users is concentrated on social networks.

Take the time to look at your activity statistics: they are available in your account’s business profile if it is connected. Statistics will show the most active day for your subscribers - schedule a results announcement for it.

How and where to announce the winner? The best option is to post a post in the main feed on the day of summing up the results with a picture and the name of the lucky winner in the text. It wouldn’t hurt to write the winner again in the comments under the first announcing post.

If you are determined by a random number, then at the time the results are announced, be sure to publish a video with the randomizer itself in your story. This way you will show openness and honesty in summing up the results, without compromising the visual appearance of your account by publishing an unformatted video.

For results, I use the classic Random.org, but my colleagues also conduct competitions through Giveaways.ru, which includes both a randomizer and giveaway analytics.

Types of competitions

There is a lot of controversy about the mechanics of Instagram giveaways. The principle to remember: a simple and clear competition at all stages. If you come up with too complex rules, subscribers will not want to understand. If the contest period is too long, subscribers will not want to wait. If the prize is too unusual and sophisticated, subscribers will not want to spend time and effort evaluating it.

Here are the main types of mechanics - choose the one you like and adapt it for your company:

1. Tag a friend

A new and popular type of competition, unobtrusive and not requiring much effort (and therefore doomed to success). Participants must follow your account and tag one or more friends under the post. Mechanical advantages: significantly increases profile coverage. Cons: weakly keeps people in the account, even if they subscribe.

Repost the picture

All a subscriber dreaming of a prize needs to do is post a competition picture and tag the company in his account. Advantage: even a child will understand the terms, but that’s where the advantages end.

Despite the outdated nature of reposting on Instagram, this type of contest is still used by low-quality companies. I do not recommend carrying out such activities because of the main disadvantage: the “exhaust” from such a draw is extremely small.

The Redmond brand on its official accounts asks you to post a picture on your feed.

Complete a creative task

To do something with your own hands, post a thematic frame on a given topic, write a poem, come up with a funny caption for a picture, invent a story - such competitions are not very convenient to conduct and judge on Instagram, but they are often found, especially on the “Runet”. Pros: the company looks creative and creates a certain atmosphere around the draw due to its non-trivial mechanics.

Alas, it’s a fact: people are lazy by nature, and the more difficult the conditions, the fewer participants, even if you give an impressive prize. There is no need to come up with multi-stage schemes: let everything be simple, succinct, but with a fresh idea.

Trends in competitions

1. Repost competitions are a thing of the past

On Instagram, activities that require you to repost to your feed are no longer so successful.

Firstly, most users simply do not know how to repost on this social network. For example, do you know how?

Secondly, the ubiquity of competitions affects the uniformity of your account (on which you worked so long and hard) with content that differs in style. In 2017, we’ll leave such competitions to provincial hair salons: the better quality your target audience is, the less likely it is that they will be ready to repost to their personal feed.

Stories competitions are the future

A new type of competition is gradually appearing - activities in “stories”. I advise you to try contest formats that are still unusual for users: as long as they are new, they will work.

People share posts in Stories many times more willingly than in the main feed.

How to conduct such a competition? Ask your subscribers to post a post (a unique one or a screenshot of yours - in “stories” screenshots and reposts are allowed and done willingly) to this new feed. A prerequisite is to mark your account. This is necessary so that you can determine the order of participants.

After the competition has passed and you need to choose a winner, you do the following: determine a random participant number (here you can use the same Random.org or any other “randomizer”) and publish the results in “story” or the main news feed.

How to determine the participant number? Just count the required number of marks in the “direct”, where all the marks of your account appear in chronological order. It sounds unusual, but the mechanics are fresh and really work. Try it!

Bonus mechanics: “we’ll repay your loan!”

A new mechanic of sweepstakes has been noticed on Instagram, which is gathering a lot of “hype” (we don’t like this word either, but sometimes there is simply no more precise term) - these are competitions, the prize of which is... loan repayment.

The competition is held according to the standard giveaway mechanics: a well-known blogger advertises a competition account designed as follows:

The same blogger suggests subscribing to all the sponsors of the draw who are in the “subscriptions” of the competition account. Sponsors get a lot of traffic to their pages and then the results are tallied and a random winner is chosen. The winner's loan from any bank is repaid from the funds collected by the sponsors.

The creativity of the creators knows no bounds: one can only imagine what kind of response this mechanic finds in the hearts of Russians, many of whom, as we know, are “credited” for several generations to come.

Tatyana Zaitseva, SMM specialist at Ginza holding:

Nowadays, no one will repost on Instagram even for the sake of a cool prize, but three years ago such a giveaway would have attracted hundreds of participants. Mechanics are changing, it is necessary to adapt to the audience, technical features of Instagram and trends.

Nowadays, giveaways in Stories are going very well: from a simple “take a screenshot, get a prize” to a complex interactive quest with the full involvement of subscribers. For example, we recently gave away certificates for a restaurant - we hid them in the premises and posted hints in stories every day. The draw brought more than 50 people to the restaurant in two days, and these are no longer just subscribers, but real interested guests!

By the way, despite new trends, I still remain faithful to the simple “tag a friend” mechanic. It seems to me that it is good for very young accounts (especially in collaboration with a “big” partner) and for those who want to win a modest prize and at the same time get good coverage.

Repeat and remember

It still makes sense to hold competitions on Instagram, but the mechanics themselves have changed: hold tagging contests less often (everyone is tired of this) and completely forget about reposting pictures (it almost doesn’t work).

Don’t ask subscribers to fulfill boring conditions. Instead, choose modern ways to increase loyalty: conduct interesting, simple, but catchy activities in “stories” and in the main feed.

Be sure to give relevant prizes that are valuable to your audience, and team up in unique collaborations with other brands.

And most importantly: conduct competitions honestly and always send prizes to participants. And you will have SMM happiness.

Do you love Instagram giveaways and want to run them fairly?

The main catch usually lies in how to choose the winner on Instagram based on comments. Often such events attract many participants; if there are no restrictions on the number of notes, real Armageddon begins under the post.

Let's figure out how to hold a draw, collect more comments, increase engagement and give the winner a fairly won prize. Both the reputation and loyalty to you of this social network depend on honesty. Because for violations or mass complaints from subscribers, the account can be blocked seriously and for a long time - the efforts will be in vain.

We have prepared another interesting article -. Want to lead the community, including Instagram, and receive maximum return? Read!

How to run a giveaway on Instagram based on comments

And why is it needed? Commenting is a special type of activity on social networks. There's no way to screw it up. But even a loyal audience is not always ready to share their opinions under posts. Like is her maximum.

But a comment is a sign of engagement. The more people write, the warmer their attitude towards you. Plus, the smart feed judges your posts as important to people and ranks them higher. The result is publication in front of more people.

Want more comments? Hold giveaways. In the hope of winning a prize, people are more active in leaving notes under the post. It's simple. Plus, one of the conditions for participation can be the requirement to tag two friends in the comment. Then your subscribers’ friends will also see your publication. This gives you greater reach and helps you quickly increase your number of followers.

Simplicity and effectiveness are the main motives for conducting such activities. And the requirement for a comment can be anything:

• Write the given word one letter at a time.
• Tag friends.
• Tell a joke.
• Come up with a funny/sad/original caption for the photo.
  etc.

The more expensive the prize, the more requirements there may be. The main thing is to clearly describe them so that participants do not have any difficulties or questions.

Types of competitions on Instagram based on comments

The choice of contest or giveaway mechanics largely depends on your goal. It can be anything:

• Get to the TOP of Instagram.
• Appear more often in your subscribers feed.
• Increase the reach of publications.

The main task is to attract live subscribers to your account who will still buy your product or order a service.

Carrying out an activity with the opportunity to win a prize brings people together, increases trust in you, and helps motivate subscribers who mindlessly scroll through your feed.

There are 3 nuances that are important to remember when holding competitions:

• They must be carried out honestly;
• They need to be carried out infrequently;
• Do not conduct it at all until you have at least 2,000 subscribers.

Honesty implies the actual availability of a prize and an unbiased selection of the winner. Reasonable frequency is at your discretion and budget. For some, small competitions are optimal once every 2 weeks, while others hold large-scale promotions once every six months.

If you pamper your subscribers too often, they will lose interest. You invest in prizes and promotion, but in the end you don’t get the desired result. The same thing happens if your account has not yet gained momentum.

What types of pranks are popular on Instagram?

Giveaway

This word has long set the teeth on edge both for regulars of social networks and for account owners. Such a competition helps to promote collectively, to increase the audience at the expense of other accounts - sponsors of the event.

How it all happens. You agree with the owners of other accounts who also want to get subscribers that you will hold a prize draw. At the same time, you chip in for these very prizes and choose the one who organizes everything. Next, place a post with the competition on your account and tell your subscribers about the conditions of participation. And then you wait for the agreed date and win prizes.

Prize for action

Nothing complicated - you play a gift among people who will perform the action you need. For example, they will tag 2 of their friends in the comments. It is important that it is easy to implement and understandable. Only this limits your imagination.

Service for determining winners on Instagram by comments: which one to choose

An important condition for any drawing is to clearly tell participants how the winner will be selected on Instagram based on comments. You have 2 options for choosing a winner:

• Manually.
• Using a special service.

If you choose a winner manually, be sure to make a video of the process or broadcast live on the appointed day and time. But keep in mind that you can only do this if there are not too many comments. After all, you yourself will have to scroll through the notes left by the participants and point your finger at the one who will receive the prize. Those who are left without a gift may be indignant and accuse you of bias. There will always be people who are dissatisfied, so accept it and give the fairly won prize to the winner.

This task can be simplified by assigning a number to each comment. This will add more work to you, because each participant will have to assign a number and send it via direct message. You can ask participants to number their comments themselves, but this can cause confusion. After all, several people can assign themselves the same number.

If the distribution of numbers does not scare you, feel free to use any random number generator. For example, https://randomus.ru/. Just enter a range of numbers and let the service choose the winner. Again, you should make a video of how you conduct the draw so that no one doubts your honesty.

If you prefer to transfer responsibility for the results of the drawing to a special program, then before holding the competition, understand the features of its use. Sometimes such software has certain limitations, sometimes it does not “pull up” all comments, sometimes you have to pay to use it.

In general, even before launching the draw, choose a service that suits you in all respects. We recommend taking a closer look at these three:

They are similar in many ways, so you can choose either one. To use the service:

• Follow the link.
• Log in to the selected site.
• Set the terms of the competition.
• Select a contest post.
• Follow the service instructions.

Some of these services will help you with promotion by posting information about the event on their website and social networks. This means you can attract more participants.

The main advantage of all these services is complete automation. But there is one “but”. They do not check compliance with the terms of the competition. That is, you will still have to check manually yourself whether the winner has completed all the necessary actions.

A few details that influence success

It is very important to indicate in the description of the conditions of the drawing how the winner will be selected. The audience on the social network is spoiled by all kinds of freebies, so some don’t trust manual selection, while others don’t like the automated service. But you can’t please everyone, and in any case, the competition will add activity to your account. So if there is a desire and opportunity, then why not?

The cooler the prize, the brighter the photo, the simpler the conditions, the more noise you will make on social networks. But don't rely on tape alone. Please note that the post describing the competition will need to be promoted for a fee, plus periodic reminders about it in stories.

Your task is to ensure that as many people as possible know about the event. And since you have decided to invest in gifts, then allocate a certain amount for promotion.

Also record your account statistics before the competition and after the competition to understand what kind of audience growth your activity gave you. Knowing the average conversion on Instagram, you can calculate the approximate increase in sales that the competition will give you.

Let's sum it up

If you have already gained a few subscribers, but you want more and are ready to “pump up” your audience, hold a giveaway. This is a great way to attract the attention of people potentially interested in your products and services.

Essentially it's a lottery. And no one should have any doubts about the fairness of its conduct. Otherwise, it will hurt your reputation and disappoint you in such a cool tool. If you haven't done this before, start small. Simple rules, small but nice prize.

If the audience goes, people appreciate your generosity, repeat in a couple of months. If there is no effect, do not be discouraged. It happens that your target audience is simply not interested in such activities. Still, try again. Don't like the result? Find another way to stir up your existing audience and attract new ones.

Happy drawings to you.

Instagram is one of the most popular social networks. There are few young people who do not have an account on Instagram. In this social network, not only people create profiles, but also various stores and service representatives. If you are a small business owner or create some things yourself, a competition will help you increase your audience and attract new customers. For detailed instructions on how to conduct giveaways on Instagram, read this article!

Instagram platform

Everyone has heard about Instagram; many have the application installed on their smartphone. Viewing color feeds with millions of photographs has become a daily ritual for thousands of people. Instagram users communicate, like and share details of their lives. The main difference of this platform is that the main information is presented in the form of pictures. It has long been proven that people perceive and process visual information better. Therefore, after a hard day at work, when you don’t want to strain your brain, scrolling through the latest photos of your friends is very pleasant.

On Instagram you can find not only everyday stories and beautiful photographs, but also all kinds of services and products. You will meet everyone on this social network: photographers, massage therapists, cosmetologists and, of course, sellers. Promotion on social networks has recently developed into a whole science. Its main part is competitions and sweepstakes. What are they for?

What are sweepstakes and competitions for?

Prize drawings on Instagram need to be carried out for several reasons:

• Attracting a new audience: as a rule, competitions ask you to tag several (from one to five) of your friends under the post who might be interested in the product. Thanks to such advertising (which is practically free), many new accounts will subscribe to your page.
• Brand promotion: in addition to involving new customers, this is another significant plus. Yes, yes, they are starting to recognize you! So what, thanks to the constant “flickering” in the feed. They will observe and then buy.
• Increasing customer loyalty: It often happens that people cannot purchase your product due to the high cost. If a subscriber wins a prize by participating in the drawing, he will definitely tell his family and friends about his luck. And warm reviews are the best advertising.

As you can see, there are many reasons for holding promotions on the Instagram platform. What types of competitions can be found on this popular social network?

Types of draws

On Instagram, sweepstakes can be divided according to the number of participants, the rules of the competition, and the conditions of the competition. The most important of them:

• Single: the organizer is only one company. In most cases, she plays something from her assortment. Standard conditions for participation: be a subscriber to the community, leave a comment under the post and repost the post on your profile.
• Round-robin: this type of competition involves several companies that give various gifts to the winners. Usually, the terms of participation specify reposting/leaving a comment under the advertising post and a signature for all participants in the drawing. In such competitions, many prizes are awarded, and subscribers’ chances of winning increase.
• A circular giveaway is the most enjoyable and easiest type of competition for subscribers. There is no need to repost anything in it - just subscribe to all participants, find a competition entry on their page and put a “heart”. From five to twenty accounts usually take part in such events, each of which offers its own product as a gift. In terms of organization, such a draw is quite complicated, so for the first time it must be carried out under the strict supervision of more experienced participants.
• A creative competition is a special type of drawing in which you are required to take an original photo of a product and write a text describing the reasons for your choice. But a creative competition only works well in the case of large and recognizable brands, because in most cases users are simply too lazy to fulfill complex conditions.

How to conduct giveaways on Instagram?

Having studied all types of competitions, you can move on to detailed instructions on how to conduct them.

By following this procedure, you will learn in practice how to conduct giveaways on Instagram.

Proper design of the competition

A properly designed prank can create the effect of a bomb exploding. New subscribers, orders, increased audience activity - you can get all this without spending money. How? It is enough to follow simple rules that will help users take part in the competition. Remember that the simpler they are, the more people will take part in the competition.

The terms of participation

• Decide on the rules of the competition and clearly indicate them: is it necessary to repost or is it enough to just leave a comment and tag friends, is it worth subscribing, etc.
• Indicate the time of the promotion on Instagram and indicate when the results of the competition will be announced.
• Be sure to note the need for an open profile of participants during the promotion period. If the profile is closed, then you simply will not see it in the search, and you will be accused of incompetence.
• Announce in advance how the winner will be selected. If it is a creative work, perhaps the choice will have to be made by a specially selected jury. In other cases, use programs to select winners, broadcasting the process online in Stories. This way, the audience will have no doubts about the fairness of the selection of the winner of the drawing.
• Come up with a unique hashtag for your competition. Often, when reposting an advertising post, users are asked to leave hashtags. This makes it easier to find information in the feed and choose a winner. It is important to choose a phrase that reflects the advertised product or company. For example, if you are promoting a sweater from the Mango company, the tag might read like this: #Iwantmangosweater.
• Recently, some people create an account on Instagram solely for the sake of free prizes. To avoid communicating with such individuals, immediately indicate the rule: no more than one active competition per person. If your subscriber is already participating in the drawing, add him to the stop list.

Pros and cons of pranks

Competitions on Instagram have both pros and cons. The advantages of this type of advertising include:

• free;
• wide audience coverage;
• Attraction of new clients;
• increasing loyalty.

In contrast to the advantages, we can list with equal confidence the negative aspects of competitions on Instagram:

• A large number of freebie lovers.
• Too frequent competitions can discourage buyers from purchasing your product for money.
• Large time costs. In order to find participants in the round-robin competition, it will take a lot of time to organize and formalize everything.

Sweepstakes applications

It is not necessary to choose the winner of the competition with your bare hands. To simplify the task, you can use one of the many services that will help you choose the lucky one. In programs for prize draws on Instagram, everything is thought out to the smallest detail. There's even a video recording feature so users can watch the selection process online:

• Giveaways.ru;
• WinnerPicker;
• online random number generator calculator.

Results

Knowing how to conduct giveaways on Instagram, you can easily increase the audience of your account and attract new customers. Don’t be afraid to experiment: come up with creative competitions, organize games, interact with other companies. After choosing the winner, do not forget to publish a detailed video with the drawing process and congratulations.

Gift drawing... I feel so much negativity in these words. And you? If not, then you're either a lucky person or you've never run a social media contest.

It seems that out of the goodness of your heart, on a purely altruistic basis, you want to give all these strangers a brand new iPhone and at the same time increase sales or attract subscribers, and after summing up the results there is a lot of dissatisfaction in the comments, the boss hits him on the head, because sales have not increased and everything is like... it's not ice. So what's the problem?

I suggest going through all stages of the competition and understanding where you made or may make a mistake.

GOAL OF THE INSTAGRAM COMPETITION

Let's assume that you still dare to conduct some kind of activity on Instagram. But why? Why do businesses usually decide to hold competitions on Instagram:

1. Quickly increase your profile subscriber base
2. Audience re-engagement and loyalty growth
3. Additional viral reach and promotion
4. Because everyone does it
5. Sales growth

Most people do the competition just for the sake of fourth And fifth points, but due to a lack of understanding of the specifics of such events, disappointment ultimately results.

Holding a competition just because your competitors are doing it is stupid and risks financial losses.

4. Instagram competition rules and post design. Remember the main thing - there is simply no such detailed set of competition rules. Filling out the rules in detail will protect you in the future from controversial situations and “competition popandos.” It's better to be safe than sorry.

Determine clear deadlines and conditions for determining the winner in advance. Clearly, like in the army.

Designing a competitive post is another component of success. Always start the text with the keyword “COMPETITION” or “Giveaway” and others like them. You shouldn’t tell the story of why you decided to hold a competition and write down its terms somewhere in the basement. Nobody will finish reading there.

First the competition and its conditions, then the lyrics. This is the only way it happens, only in bad competitions.

What must be included in the competition conditions:

1. A clear description of the prize or prize fund
2. Conditions of the competition: what the user must do in order to take part in the competition
3. Date, time and place of summing up
4. Winner selection mechanism
5. Restrictions on participation, if any (citizens of which country, what age, etc.)

The extended conditions of participation should contain information about the terms of delivery of the prize, taxes if the prize is more than 2990 rubles, options for resolving controversial situations, the most accurate description of the prize, and so on.

NEVER DO THIS!

Never, no, not like that... NEVER do not hold a competition in which participants can increase indicators. A competition with the distribution of prizes for the number of likes, or the selection of the best photo based on likes and comments, voting in an open profile for a participant - all this will be inflated with a 99% probability.

I left one percent in case no one would participate.

I still regularly come across competitions where the winner is the one whose photo gets the most likes.

To begin with, such competitions are absolutely dishonest. Obviously, the one with the most followers will win (so it seems to the contest participant), which means that no matter how beautiful a photo you take, you won’t win.

Then the cheating begins and you are between two fires. On the one hand, there are conditionally honest losers who gained a few likes, on the other hand, there are winners who gained enough. Everyone is negative towards each other, but first of all towards you. It is impossible to get out of such a situation gracefully, so it is better not to get into it.

Do not change the rules during the competition. If you have not specified the required minimum number of participants for the drawing to take place, then you cannot cancel the competition because there are 50 participants instead of the 500 you were counting on. You will be accused of fraud, and then there will be a lot of negativity in the comments.

If you did not make a point about cheating and profiles that you consider to be alive, you cannot refer to this during the competition either. Let's go up a couple of paragraphs and read about the rules of the competition :) Horses are not changed at the crossing.

HOW TO LAUNCH A COMPETITION ON INSTAGRAM TO INCREASE SUBSCRIBERS?

Mechanics:

1. Competition post with a cover that makes it clear that this is a competition and the prize is visible
2. Conditions: repost the post in Stories, active profile tagging, any comment under the post
3. Competition lasts up to a week
4. Active, engaged audience in the profile, or starting reposts-announcements of the post to target bloggers
5. Additionally, you can ask to add the story to Current

Mechanics of summing up results:

1. Upload a list of comments via Getcombot or any other service for collecting comments
2. Select a random winner via random.org or built-in functionality
3. We are looking for a winner through a search in Direct, making sure that he reposted our post
4. Additionally, you can request a screenshot from the archive

Competitions in the Tag a friend in the comments format rarely go viral and bring new subscribers, often provoking mass unsubscribes in the active phase.

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