Obviously, whoever said “nothing in life is free” has never won anything. Everyone enjoys receiving a free gift, and there are few feelings more amazing than winning! In this article, we’ll walk you through guiding principles for running an Instagram giveaway, step by step, as well as some ideas for you to explore.

With over 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram is one of the most popular social media networks worldwide. With that said, having a giveaway on your Instagram business page has a lot of advantages.

The first and most obvious benefit of holding a giveaway is that it will increase brand awareness and reach. You may also increase brand loyalty and build a long-term relationship with your present and potential clients by rapidly growing your following. Running a well-planned and executed giveaway will help bring attention to your company and attract new customers.
Let’s get into the best steps to be taken while running your giveaway now that we’ve enlightened you of the benefits.

What is your freebie?
What exactly do you want to hand over? Is there a product or service that your company offers? Will you be donating a physical item or an experience?

Whatever you choose as your prize, make sure it is intriguing and interesting to the audience. The more desirable your award, the more likely you are to attract more participants. The greater the number of participants, the greater the reach and engagement of your giveaway campaign.

It’s important to ensure that your marketing attracts the proper sort of audience. Finally, you want participants who are of good quality, who make sense for your business, and who will be trustworthy in the long term.

You should also make sure that your reward is within your brand’s budget and that it is worth the time and effort required to enter. Everyone wants to win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Maldives, but is simply like a post good enough? Is it something your company can afford? You’ll have to figure out how to achieve the proper balance between challenge and reward. You are the only one who can decide what is best for your company.

What’s in it for you?
Giving away a great prize to the right audience is important, but you also need to consider your business goal and what you want to accomplish with the campaign. Is the objective to attract more followers, create a database, boost website traffic, increase email sign-ups, or increase sales?
The next best suggestion is to work out your entry criteria by determining your marketing goals. If you want to reach out to new consumers, for example, one of the entry criteria should be tagging a friend. We’ll go through this in further detail towards the end of the blog, so stay tuned!

Use your words
This is where we figure out exactly how we’ll encourage our audience to participate in the giveaway. For example, you might like this article and tag a friend, or you may share it on your stories and tag us.
The opening few of words of your essay should catch your reader’s interest right away. To keep your audience from scrolling past your article, use phrases like “WIN!” or “GIVEAWAY TIME!” When creating your entry requirements, be sure to stay true to your brand’s tone, voice, and personality, and keep it to two to four easy stages.
By setting a time restriction on your offer, you may create a sense of urgency among your audience. People will feel rushed to enter and won’t want to miss out, which will result in a higher percentage of interaction. Make sure that your directions are clear, accurate, and simple to understand. The audience will be less interested and engaged as the criteria get more difficult. Humans are Lazy, remember. If it requires too much effort, we will probably lose interest.

It’s also important to include terms and conditions in your gift so that there are no misunderstandings if questions occur. Regulations such as entrance age, location-based criteria, eligibility, and so on might be included. It’s also important to know that hosting a giveaway on your Instagram company profile is subject to Instagram’s strict restrictions. If you don’t include these rules in your offer, Instagram has the authority to delete it entirely.

Promote
Everything on social media would be a huge success if we lived in a perfect world. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Spend a few pounds promoting your giveaway on Instagram till it has gathered a lot of attention.
This will help spread the word about your offer and reach a larger audience. The more it appears in people’s feeds, the better your chances of winning become, and so on.
Don’t be afraid to cross-post your contest on your other social media platforms to reach out to an audience that isn’t currently following you on Instagram and to spread the word about your offer.

Congratulations! You’ve won!
It’s time to choose a winner! How you choose your winner will be determined by your participation criteria.

If your entry criteria are straightforward, you may choose your winner using a variety of free internet tools. Search for “random name or number generators” in Google and see which tools best meet your competition’s needs. The majority of these tools will allow you to enter your competition’s regulations and will help the selection process go smoothly.
If your entries must be judged, it is up to you to look over the requirements and choose the best one. Also, keep in mind what you wanted the audience to do with their entry. Was it necessary for them to add a caption on the photo? Is it possible to write about a personal experience? Have they also followed all of the giveaway’s rules and requirements? When picking the winner by hand, all of these criteria come into play.

Was it worth it?
It’s time to keep track of your progress and see if your Instagram giveaway was worthwhile. To determine the return on your investment and the impact of the Instagram giveaway, compare the outcomes to the original goals you established.
Instagram’s insights can provide you with all of the information you want about your Instagram page. On your profile, go to the “insights” page, and you’ll get all the information you need, including new followers, demographics, reach, and discovery. It will be able to tell you how many people have visited your website, clicked on your profile, and signed up for your email. It’s a clever and effective little gadget for small businesses.
After you’ve analysed the data to determine if your objectives were met, you’ll be able to make adjustments and changes for the future.

Instagram giveaway ideas and inspiration
Now that we’ve covered how to conduct an Instagram giveaway from beginning to end, it’s time to give you some options and desired outcomes from which to select to ensure your contest is a success.

Like this post – Encourage your audience to like your post, or even a few of your posts, in order to boost engagement.

Follow us – This will help you gain more followers, and your brand will eventually start to show up in other people’s feeds.

Tag a friend (or two) – Reach out to a whole new audience that isn’t currently following you. This will help you expand your audience and raise brand awareness.

Buddy up – Join together with a complementary brand to offer a contest. This will allow you to reach out to a largely unavailable audience as well as improve engagement if the contest has several prizes. Isn’t it true that two is better than one?

Caption this / comment below – Encourage your followers to leave comments on your article for a chance to win. This may be used to target an entry that requires a little more creativity in order to win. The more comments your post receives, the wider your giveaway’s potential audience will be.

Campaign #hashtag – For maximum visibility, create a campaign hashtag that your audience must use while entering. This is a brilliant approach to get your brand and hashtag trending while also making it easy to search and locate individuals who have entered the competition correctly.

Sign up to a newsletter – If you’re searching for a quick method to develop a database, hosting a giveaway that requires participants to sign up for a newsletter is a terrific way to start. Just make sure your rules and regulations include a warning that informs your audience that they are signing up for email marketing and that they may opt out at any moment to protect their privacy.

Trivia/questions – To win, ask your audience to answer a question about your company. This is an excellent method to drive traffic to your website and encourage people to learn more about your business by conducting research.

That’s all there is to it! You’re well on your way to hosting a successful Instagram business page giveaway. We’ve provided you with all the necessary instructions, as well as some ideas and inspiration. You should be able to improve engagement, expand your following, widen your reach, and develop relationships with your audience using these methods and concepts.
To learn more about FBS Digital’s social media services, call 0204 526 5195 or send an email to hello@finchleybusiness.co.uk.