Instagram giveaways are a fantastic way to boost engagement and attract new followers. By hosting creative and fun contests, you can generate excitement around your brand and encourage user interaction. Here are ten innovative giveaway contest ideas that can help you achieve these goals on Instagram.
Key Takeaways
- Branded Hashtag Challenges can enhance brand visibility by encouraging participants to use a unique hashtag.
- Comment to Win contests are simple yet effective for increasing post engagement and interaction.
- Like to Enter giveaways can boost the visibility of your posts through increased likes and engagement.
- Follow to Enter contests are great for growing your follower count quickly and effectively.
- Caption This contests encourage creativity and can lead to higher engagement through comments.
Branded Hashtag Challenge
A promising way to create a strong brand identity is by using a branded hashtag in your Instagram giveaway. This method encourages participants to include a specific hashtag in their comments or captions. This technique helps your audience become familiar with your brand’s official hashtag, leading to more people posting with it.
Craft a unique hashtag, make it a key part of your content, and enjoy increased brand awareness. For example, Disneyland uses a branded hashtag in all their campaigns to promote their brand.
A branded hashtag challenge can significantly boost your brand’s visibility and engagement on Instagram.
Comment to Win
A "Comment to Win" contest is one of the simplest yet most effective ways to boost engagement on Instagram. Participants are required to leave a comment on your post to enter the contest. This method not only increases the number of comments but also encourages interaction among your followers.
How to Run a Comment to Win Contest
- Create an Engaging Post: Make sure your post is interesting and relevant to your audience. It could be a question, a prompt, or even a simple statement that encourages comments.
- Set Clear Rules: Clearly outline what participants need to do to enter. For example, they might need to answer a question, share their opinion, or tag a friend in the comments.
- Choose a Winner: Decide how you will pick the winner. It could be random, or you might choose the best comment based on creativity or relevance.
- Announce the Winner: Make sure to announce the winner in a follow-up post or story to keep the excitement going.
Benefits of Comment to Win Contests
- Increased Engagement: More comments mean more interaction, which can boost your post’s visibility on Instagram’s algorithm.
- Community Building: Encouraging followers to comment can create a sense of community and make your audience feel more connected to your brand.
- Easy to Enter: The simplicity of this contest makes it easy for anyone to participate, increasing the number of entries.
Running a "Comment to Win" contest can be a game-changer for your Instagram engagement. It’s simple, effective, and can yield impressive results with minimal effort.
For more creative giveaway ideas, check out our article on the best ideas for Instagram giveaways and see how you can take your contests to the next level.
Like to Enter
The "Like to Enter" giveaway is one of the simplest and most effective ways to boost engagement on Instagram. To participate, users just need to like your post. This method is straightforward and can generate a lot of interaction quickly.
Why it works: When users like your post, it sends positive engagement signals to Instagram’s algorithm. This can help your post reach a wider audience, giving more people the chance to see and enter your contest.
Tip: Don’t stop at likes. Offer additional entries for users who complete extra actions, like leaving a comment or saving the post. This can further increase engagement and visibility.
Running a "Like to Enter" contest is a great way to get quick and easy engagement. It’s simple for users to participate, and it can help your post gain traction in the algorithm.
Need some inspiration for your next Instagram contest? Check out this post for 20 awesome Instagram giveaway ideas and examples that you can learn from.
Follow to Enter
Running a ‘Follow to Enter’ giveaway on Instagram is a straightforward yet effective way to boost your follower count. If your giveaway post goes viral, you could gain thousands of new followers overnight, significantly enhancing your organic reach.
To set up this type of contest using Floor23 Innobear, follow these steps:
- Create a compelling giveaway post.
- Clearly state that users must follow your profile to enter.
- Optionally, include additional entry methods like tagging friends or sharing the post.
A ‘Follow to Enter’ giveaway is a simple yet powerful tool to increase your followers and engagement without the intensity of a full-scale social media campaign.
For example, a fitness page recently ran a successful ‘Follow to Enter’ giveaway, requiring entrants to follow their profile for a chance to win a fitness program. This method not only increased their followers but also boosted engagement on their posts.
Using Floor23 Innobear, you can easily manage and track your giveaway entries, ensuring a smooth and efficient contest experience.
Caption This Contest
A "Caption This Contest" is a fun and engaging way to interact with your Instagram audience. Simply post a photo or a trending meme and ask your followers to come up with the best caption. The most clever or entertaining caption wins the prize. This type of contest is great for boosting engagement and can be easily managed using Floor23 Innobear’s contest management software.
Here are some steps to run a successful Caption This Contest:
- Choose a Photo: Select a photo or meme that is relevant to your brand.
- Set the Rules: Clearly outline the rules and guidelines for the contest. Make sure to include how the winner will be chosen.
- Promote the Contest: Use your social media channels to promote the contest and encourage participation.
- Select a Winner: Choose the best caption based on creativity and relevance to the photo.
- Announce the Winner: Share the winning caption on your Instagram page and give a shoutout to the winner.
A Caption This Contest not only boosts engagement but also helps in building brand recognition. It’s a simple yet effective way to connect with your audience and make your brand more relatable.
For example, fitness page @athleanx recently ran a caption contest where entrants were asked to provide a caption for a funny photo of a staredown between a man and a skeleton. The comment with the most votes won access to one of ATHLEAN-X’s 90-day programs. As expected, there were a lot of funny entries.
Tag a Friend
One of the simplest yet most effective Instagram giveaway ideas is the Tag a Friend contest. This method encourages participants to tag their friends in the comments section of your post. Each tag acts as an entry, and the more friends they tag, the higher their chances of winning.
This strategy not only increases your post’s visibility but also helps you reach a broader audience without spending extra on ads. When someone tags a friend, that friend gets a notification, leading them directly to your content and potentially your account. This can result in new followers and even more entries as the tagged friends might also participate by tagging their own friends.
How to Run a Tag a Friend Contest
- Create an Engaging Post: Make sure your giveaway post is eye-catching and clearly states the rules and the prize.
- Set Clear Rules: Specify how many friends participants need to tag to enter and if there are any limits on the number of entries.
- Offer an Attractive Prize: The more appealing the prize, the more likely people will participate and tag their friends.
- Monitor the Entries: Keep track of the comments to ensure that participants are following the rules.
- Announce the Winner: Once the contest ends, announce the winner in a new post and thank everyone for participating.
Tag a Friend contests are a fantastic way to engage your audience and expand your reach organically. By leveraging the power of social connections, you can significantly boost your brand’s visibility and engagement.
For example, a jewelry brand might ask participants to tag a friend they would like to bring to a local craft festival, offering tickets and a voucher as the prize. This not only promotes the event but also encourages more people to engage with the brand.
Follow to Win
One of the oldest and easiest Instagram giveaway ideas is the "Follow to Win" competition. Participants simply need to follow the brand’s social media accounts to enter the contest. This method is often used in collaboration with other parties, making it a great way to increase the number of followers for your brand and boost brand awareness.
This technique is a fantastic way to keep that upward momentum and drive even more social traffic to your account.
How to Run a Follow to Win Contest
- Announce the Giveaway: Create a post announcing the giveaway and the prize. Make sure to include clear instructions on how to enter.
- Set the Rules: Specify that participants must follow your account to be eligible to win. You can also include additional rules, such as liking the post or tagging friends for extra entries.
- Promote the Contest: Share the giveaway post on your Stories and other social media platforms to reach a wider audience.
- Select a Winner: After the contest period ends, randomly select a winner from the list of new followers.
- Announce the Winner: Share a post or Story announcing the winner and thank everyone for participating.
Running a "Follow to Win" contest is a simple yet effective way to engage your audience and grow your follower count. Get inspired by mom and model Elise Della’s giveaway, where she celebrated a follower milestone with a similar contest. Whether you’re aiming for 100 or 10,000 followers, this strategy can help you reach your goals and keep your audience excited.
Joint/Collaborative Giveaways
Joint or collaborative giveaways are a fantastic way to boost your Instagram engagement. By partnering with another brand or influencer, you can reach a wider audience and create a more exciting contest. This type of giveaway is a win-win situation for both parties involved.
Benefits of Joint Giveaways
- Increased Reach: Partnering with another brand means you can tap into their followers, expanding your reach significantly.
- Shared Resources: You can combine resources to offer a more attractive prize, making the contest more appealing.
- Mutual Promotion: Both brands get promoted, increasing visibility and engagement.
How to Run a Joint Giveaway
- Find the Right Partner: Look for brands or influencers that align with your values and have a similar target audience.
- Plan the Contest: Decide on the rules, prize, and how you will promote the giveaway. Make sure to include a branded hashtag to track entries.
- Promote the Giveaway: Use both partners’ social media channels to announce and promote the contest. Cross-promotion is key here.
- Select and Announce the Winner: Use a fair method to select the winner and announce it promptly to maintain credibility.
Joint giveaways are an excellent strategy in contest marketing. They not only increase engagement but also help in building strong relationships with other brands.
Examples of Successful Joint Giveaways
- Influencer Collaboration: Influencer @shaghnaphillions teamed up with @inthestyle for a clothing giveaway, which garnered over 171k likes.
- Brand Partnership: Action cam brand @GoPro ran a ’12 Days of HERO12′ giveaway, partnering with various influencers to give away 24 GoPro HERO12 Black bundles.
By following these steps and tips, you can create a successful joint giveaway that boosts your Instagram engagement and helps you reach a broader audience.
Photo Contest
Instagram is the top social network for sharing photos and selfies. So, one of the best giveaway formats for the platform is a photo contest. Ask users to share a relevant photo (e.g., a selfie of them using your product) to their Instagram Stories or pages using a campaign hashtag to enter the contest. Alternatively, you could require them to upload the photo to your website instead.
You could promise to pick the best submission as the winner of the giveaway prize or draw a winner at random from the pool of entrants. It’s up to you.
Photo Instagram contests are great for collecting user-generated content, which you can then use as social proof in your wider marketing campaigns.
Tips for Running a Successful Photo Contest
- Create a unique hashtag: Make sure it’s easy to remember and relevant to your brand.
- Set clear rules: Let participants know what kind of photos you’re looking for and how they should submit them.
- Promote your contest: Use your other social media channels, email newsletters, and website to get the word out.
- Engage with participants: Like and comment on the photos they share to keep the excitement going.
Example
Check out this Instagram photo contest from salon and spa @pinklimevc. They asked entrants to post a snap of their current hairstyle with the hashtag #pinklimelooks on Instagram for a chance to win a $500 hairstyle and makeup makeover.
Link in Bio Forms/Email Signups
Link in Bio forms are one of the best Instagram giveaway ideas for generating leads and driving potential customers to your brand. The process is simple: users sign up through a form in the Instagram bio of the brand, providing information like name, email, and contact details.
By getting the form filled out, you can create a customer database to connect with through announcements and important updates about your brand. Make sure the reward is intriguing for your audience to ensure maximum participation. It could be a larger prize like a vacation or a free subscription to your software service for the next six months.
To set it up, simply add the form or mailing list signup to the link in your bio. Then, in your post, let people know that they must fill out the form completely to be entered to win.
This type of contest goes beyond a simple like and involves users handing over valuable contact information, making it a powerful tool for lead generation.
Looking for a bio link tool that does all this and more? Check out Sked Link to add buttons to anywhere on the web using an on-brand gallery of your Instagram posts.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Instagram giveaways are a fantastic way to boost engagement and grow your audience. By using creative contest ideas like branded hashtag challenges, comment-to-win, and follow-to-enter, you can make your brand more visible and interactive. These contests not only increase your followers but also encourage user-generated content and organic reach. So, don’t hesitate to try out these ideas and see how they can benefit your brand. Remember, the key is to keep it fun and engaging for your audience!
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Branded Hashtag Challenge?
A Branded Hashtag Challenge is a contest where participants use a specific hashtag related to your brand in their posts. This helps spread awareness about your brand and engages users creatively.
How does a Comment to Win contest work?
In a Comment to Win contest, participants need to comment on your post to enter the giveaway. The best or most relevant comment usually wins the prize.
What is a Like to Enter giveaway?
A Like to Enter giveaway is one of the simplest forms of contests. Participants just need to like your post to be entered into the giveaway. This can help boost your post’s engagement and visibility.
How do Follow to Enter contests increase followers?
In Follow to Enter contests, participants must follow your Instagram account to enter the giveaway. This helps increase your follower count and broadens your audience.
What is a Caption This Contest?
In a Caption This Contest, you post a photo and ask participants to come up with a creative caption. The best caption wins the prize, encouraging engagement and creativity.
How do Joint/Collaborative Giveaways work?
Joint or Collaborative Giveaways involve partnering with another brand or influencer. Both parties promote the giveaway, which helps reach a wider audience and share the cost of the prize.
