Instagram is an effective way to connect and reach existing and new customers. However, marketing on Instagram is not as simple as creating content and posting it. Giveaways, influencers, and paid Instagram ads are just a few ways to market on Instagram. Instagram giveaways can help companies reach customers, accumulate followers, and make sales, all while giving back to their fan base. So what are Instagram giveaway rules? Are there Instagram giveaway templates? Keep reading to learn how to do a giveaway on Instagram.
Top reasons hosting a giveaway on Instagram can help your eCommerce business
Hosting an Instagram giveaway for your eCommerce business and your followers may be a surefire way to achieve some rapid growth for your business without spending a fortune. Traditional methods of marketing and advertising sometimes require larger budgets, a sizable staff, and lots of time spent planning and implementing a traditional campaign. A well-executed and simple Instagram giveaway can reach a much wider audience than a traditional marketing campaign and at a fraction of the cost. Additionally, an Instagram giveaway can increase the number of followers your business page has simply by making it a requirement to enter the giveaway. Other requirements to be part of the Instagram contest may include liking a post, commenting on a post, and/or sharing a post. For Instagram users who are genuinely interested in participating in the giveaway, a simple like or share, or becoming a follower of the brand page is an easy trade-off to gain entry into the contest. It is through this trade-off that a business can increase its followers, increase its brand awareness, and potentially increase sales. People love free stuff, and if the giveaway is enticing enough, a business could attract some unprecedented attention.
Here is a quick list of some of the reasons you may want to consider running an Instagram giveaway for your eCommerce business.
- Increase the number of Instagram followers your business has.
- Increase the number of likes a post accumulates and improve engagement with your followers.
- Generate more traffic to your business website.
- Grow your email subscriber list.
- Promote a specific product or service.
- Reward your most loyal followers and brand advocates.
These are just some of the benefits that an Instagram giveaway can bring to your eCommerce business. If you are looking for something else, then you can shape the requirements of your content to fit those goals. The main idea is to have some predefined goals you are hoping to achieve before creating the giveaway.
Examples of Instagram giveaways
However you would like to run your Instagram giveaway is up to you and your content creator. Aside from deciding what the prize of the giveaway is going to be and what the goals are that you are hoping to achieve with the contest, you need to decide how you are going to frame the giveaway to make it relevant. Relevant Instagram giveaways tend to have much more success than random ones. Here are a few examples of how some companies were able to make a giveaway successful and effective by making it relevant.
- Seasonal/Holiday giveaway: One of the easiest ways to tie in an Instagram giveaway to make it relevant is to make it about a particular season. Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, Saint Patrick’s Day, 4th of July, Memorial Day, etc. By centering a contest around a holiday or a particular season, you can easily make any contest relevant.
- Pick one giveaway: By creating a post with multiple products or multiple versions of the same product, you can encourage followers to vote for their favorite. By commenting on their favorite product and sharing the post, for example, you can bring awareness to the different products while creating a buzz on Instagram. A winner then is selected and the prize can be the product they chose as their favorite.
- Pick your prize giveaway: A smart way to encourage people to go to your business website and view all the different products or versions of products that you offer is to create a “pick your prize” giveaway. By requiring people to follow your business Instagram account, like a post, repost, and/or tag a friend in the comment section, you can then offer a choice of any product as a prize. Doing so will drive traffic to your website as participants browse your entire selection to dream about which prize they would choose if they won.
- Instagram influencer giveaway: By creating a giveaway in tandem with an Instagram influencer you can reach a large audience. Even better is the fact that the audience that is being engaged already sees the influencer as an authority on the subject and an almost instant trust and bond can be made between the brand and the influencer’s followers.
- Milestone giveaway: Is your business Instagram page a mere 400 followers away from reaching a milestone like 10,000 followers? You can create a contest that encourages people to follow your business page to help reach a specific milestone. Once the milestone is reached, then 5 lucky winners could be picked to win an exclusive merchandise box or cash prize.
There are hundreds if not thousands of ways that you could develop an Instagram giveaway to promote your brand, increase the number of followers your business page has, and drive traffic to your website. For the most part, you are only limited by your budget and your imagination.
How to host an Instagram giveaway for your ecommerce business
Creating an Instagram giveaway is an excellent way to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your business website, promote a product, generate new leads, increase engagement and the number of followers your business Instagram account has, and boost sales. This all can be achieved with a pretty small investment. However, before you launch your contest, there are a few things you may need to be aware of in order to run a smooth and successful Instagram contest.
- Set goals: Having clearly defined goals before you create an Instagram giveaway is critical. Do you want to increase the sales of a new product? Do you want to drive more traffic to your website? You can set any kind of goal that you would like, however, the main thing is that you have one.
- Know your intended audience: The more that you know about your audience the better. By understanding which target demographics you are going after, you can better shape the content and choose the prize to cater to the interests and curiosities of your intended audience.
- Choose a contest type: There is a magnitude of contest ideas out there that have proven successful for other brands and companies in the past. We discussed some contest ideas earlier including season/holiday giveaways, pick one or pick your prize giveaways, Instagram influencer giveaways, and milestone giveaways. Other contest types include hashtag contests, best photo contests, referral contests, and photo caption contests. Whatever you choose, make sure the contest type is relevant and that it is attractive to your target demographic.
- Set the contest rules: Whatever contest type you choose, you will need to make sure the contest rules are specific and precise. Who is eligible for the contest? Which entries are allowed and which ones are not? How does someone enter the contest? How is and when will the winner be chosen? These are the details that are critical for a smooth and successful Instagram contest. Any ambiguity or confusion can have the contest backfire and leave followers with a bad taste in their mouths.
- Choose the proper prize: Choosing the proper prize is essential. You want to choose a prize that incentivizes the goals that you have laid out before launching the contest. You want a prize that is large enough to attract attention, but nothing that puts a strain on your business finances. You also want to choose a prize that will entice your target audience and demographic the most.
- Track and measure results: The last step is properly tracking and measuring the response to your Instagram giveaway. Doing so can help you learn what worked and what could be done better for a contest in the future. Also, you may want a way to quantify the contest’s impact to justify the expense of the chosen prize.
These are the most basic steps to creating your very own Instagram giveaway for your eCommerce business. There are many other things you may want to consider before creating your ideal contest, however, the most important thing to remember is that you have clear and precise rules for the contest.
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