Is an Instagram contest in your future? What you’re describing is quite intriguing. With the platform’s massive user base, you can rest assured that your contest will receive plenty of attention.
The issue is, it’s not as simple as it seems to figure out how to make your contest a success. The platform’s contest management requires more than merely uploading an eye-catching image. A great deal of effort is actually invested behind the scenes.
Is there anything you can do to ensure the success of your Instagram competition? If you want to get your marketing campaign off the ground, follow these five essential steps.
How to Run a Winning Instagram Giveaway?
Define the success
It’s crucial to get the foundation done before you even begin to consider potential contest concepts. When we say “groundwork,” we’re referring to your plans and expectations for the competition. Just what are your end goals? Is it to increase brand recognition? Can we raise awareness of the brand?
Having a well-defined objective will make it easier to assess the competition’s outcome. Plus, it will improve your strategic planning. Brand awareness will be increased by paying attention to how your ideal customers act. If you want to increase participation, you should create materials that will appeal to your intended audience.
You should also consider cost and timeline while making plans. You may use this to generate more practical and successful ideas for the competition.
Conceive of a means of access
You must now plan the details of the competition. Encourage people to share their own images with a branded hashtag for the greatest and most successful Instagram contests. These competitions not only attract a large audience, but also provide firms with content they can reuse in future advertising efforts.
However, you should know that there are various mechanisms you might use in your Instagram competition. All you need is a healthy dose of imagination and tonnes of preparation and study. In case you need more inspiration, consider these alternatives:
Request that your readers follow you and any other accounts you want.
To increase brand awareness, have your audience share photographs with a predetermined subject, tag your brand, and use your branded hashtag(s) in the description.
Make sure the laws of your mechanics are laid out clearly in your article so that nobody gets confused.
You must think of the ideal hashtag
After you’ve settled on the rules for your Instagram competition, it’s time to come up with a catchy hashtag. What’s the big deal, though? Because hashtags are so useful in expanding your brand’s reach. The material created for your contest can’t be tracked without the use of designated hashtags. In addition, UGC is too valuable to be wasted.
Do you agree that it might be difficult to think of the perfect hashtag for your contest?
But here’s something to think about when coming up with a hashtag: if you’re holding a contest for a limited amount of time (as you should), make sure it’s memorable and stands out. Otherwise, it will be difficult to monitor the ever-growing membership.
In addition, before coming up with your own hashtag for the contest, you may wish to consider the following guidelines:
- Don’t drag it out. Avoid making people’s life more difficult than they already are by using too convoluted language or words that are difficult for them to remember. Your hashtag should be as brief as possible. Try to make it understandable as well.
- Maintain currency. Though it’s great to be creative, it’s not worth the effort if the hashtag you come up with has nothing to do with your business or its offerings.
- Just make sure it’s something they won’t forget. Promoting your giveaway on your feed is a given before you even start it. Make your hashtag something people will remember so they can quickly participate in your contest when it begins.
Choose a narrow topic
Keep in mind that we discussed how great Instagram competitions are at creating UGC (User Generated Content) earlier on. Right. This is why it’s crucial to establish the parameters of the picture contest before inviting people to take part.
Connecting your contest to a holiday, season, or event that is currently happening or will happen in the near future is the ideal method to come up with a topic that will appeal to your target audience. If you want to promote your company and the items and services you’re selling, you may, for instance, urge your audience to share summer-themed photographs.
Determine the method(s) you will use to select the winner(s) of the contest
Winners of Instagram contests are sometimes chosen at random, although this is by no means a must for your own competition. In reality, the majority of Instagram contests have a voting component or a jury that decides the winners.
If you pursue the voting route, you may simply declare the post with the most likes the winner. If the gift you’re giving away is substantial enough, you and your audience will both benefit. One benefit is more exposure as participants may solicit support from their social networks.