How to Advertise and Promote Your Instagram Giveaway

Did you know that there are over 200 million business accounts on Instagram?

With so many brands on the network, you'll need to be creative to increase your visibility and traffic. One way you can engage your audience, drive qualified traffic, and grow your business is by hosting an Instagram giveaway.

This marketing strategy can help you reach a lot of potential new clients while also building a stronger sense of community around your brand. But for your giveaways to be effective, you must ensure you're exposing them to your followers and beyond.

In this article, we'll show you how to actively promote your Instagram giveaway.

What are Instagram Giveaways?

Instagram giveaways are advertising campaigns that target Instagram users. To enter your prize draw, users must perform specific tasks like following your account, liking a designated post, leaving a comment, etc.

There are different prizes for giveaways. But most popular types of giveaways offer a free service or product in exchange for engagement.

Before you run a giveaway, consider the rules and regulations. Ensure you read the Instagram giveaway rules as well as the terms and conditions of creating a contest in your region.

Benefits of Instagram Giveaways

Wondering why you should run an Instagram giveaway? Consider the benefits below. 

Get More Exposure and User Engagement

When you run a successful giveaway, it will help create a buzz around your posts. Thanks to high engagement rates, Instagram's algorithm can amplify your content. This means that your content can get to the explore page and reach more people.

Increase Your Instagram Following

Asking users to follow your page to enter your contest can significantly increase your Instagram following. This can be a great strategy for brands that are just beginning their journey on the platform.

Collect User-Generated Content

Instagram photo contest giveaways are a great way to build user-generated content for your brand. They can also help you improve brand trust and offer social proof to your potential customers.

Increase Website Traffic

Aside from getting a lot of followers, you can use Instagram giveaways to drive web traffic. To do this, you can ask participants to go to your website so that they can join a contest.

How to Promote Your Instagram Giveaway

Once you create a creative Instagram contest, you should start promoting it to reach your target audience and grow your brand. Below are ways you can promote your Instagram giveaway for the best results.

Build the Hype of Your Giveaway on Instagram before Launching

Before making the debut, give your audience time to prepare by informing them a giveaway is coming soon. You can post a teaser promotion post on Instagram, releasing bits of information about your giveaway in the lead-up to its launch.

Remember to ask your followers to spread the word so there's a lot of excitement for launch day.

Announce Your Giveaway Within an Instagram Post

When it's time to launch, run your giveaway on your Instagram profile. Ensure your giveaway post on Instagram includes the following details:

• An attention-grabbing image or video
• What the giveaway is about
• Why you're running the giveaway
• Instructions for entering the giveaway contest
• Any rules and guidelines
• When the giveaway ends

Add the Giveaway Link to Your Instagram Bio

Instagram doesn't support clickable links in your image captions. To drive traffic to your giveaway, include a clickable link in your bio. It will direct users where to go to enter the contest.

Once you're done, use your posts to promote the giveaway and announce that users can access it through your bio. You can use phrases like, Click the link in my bio to enter.

Highlight Your Giveaway Prize

Your prize is what will incentivize users to participate in your giveaways. If the prize appeals to the audience, they'll be more than happy to complete the required actions so that they can get their hands on it.

Since it's important, ensure you place your prize at the forefront of your promotional material. Use visually stimulating images and videos to showcase your prize and everything it has to offer. You can also use descriptive language in your posts.

Making your prize as appealing as possible will help encourage entry.

Ask Users to Tag Their Friends

When you promote your giveaway on Instagram, your posts will typically be seen by only your followers. While reaching loyal users is vital for the success of your campaign, you need to connect with new users to maximize participation then you'll also need to connect with new users.

You can do this by asking your followers to tag their friends in a comment. This will expose your brand to a new audience and encourage entry from several new users.

Require Sharing on Social Media

When you're creating an Instagram giveaway, make social media sharing a requirement to earn more entries. For each person that enters the contest, you can increase your leads if they share the giveaway on their pages. This social media advertising strategy is an easy way to go viral and increase brand awareness.

Redirect Web Visitors to Your Giveaway Landing Page

Use your website to promote your Instagram giveaway. Create a giveaway landing page and add the links to the page throughout your website.

You can use a floating bar to advertise the giveaway on your website. It is a great promotion tool since it stays in place and doesn't distract your web visitors. Make sure to add a countdown timer on the floating bar to create a sense of urgency.

In addition, you can use exit popups to promote your giveaway on your website. It will capture the visitors' attention before they leave your web page.

Send Emails to Your Subscribers

Chances are you may have many clients that don't follow you on Instagram, but they're subscribed to your email list. You can send them an email endorsing your Instagram giveaway.

With professional email marketing, you can create an attention-grabbing subject, an informative body, and a strong call-to-action that links to your giveaway landing page.

Showcase Users' Entries

If you're running a photo giveaway campaign, it's a good move to incorporate user submissions into your promotional material. It can help get people excited about your campaign and encourage them to participate.

Sponsor Your Giveaway in Instagram Stories

Post your giveaway on Instagram stories. They have a lot of unique features, such as music and animations, that make your giveaways stand out. Using Instagram stories will help build interest throughout the period of the giveaway.

For instance, you can use stories to:

• Share highlights of the giveaway entries
• Re-share stories from people that have tagged your giveaway
• Add a question box so users can tell you what they'd like to win
• Announce the contest winner using an @ mention

Create a Unique Giveaway Hashtag

A great way to gain some extra attention and make your giveaway campaign visible to new audiences is by using relevant hashtags. It will attract users looking to win some prizes. It also makes it easy for you to track entries if your contest involves the submission of photos or videos.

You can use some generic hashtags such as #giveaway or #contest. But make sure to incorporate a unique one that's specific to your campaign. The hashtag can include the name of your brand or company, like #[yourbrandname]giveaway.

Cross-Promote Your Giveaway on Other Social Platforms

While Instagram is the most effective platform for using giveaways, don't ignore other social media platforms. You can promote your Instagram giveaway on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and more. This will help you reach out to a lot of users that may be interested in your contest.

Add Your Instagram Giveaway to Contest Directory Websites

Submit your giveaway to sweepstakes and other online contest directory websites. These websites have a vast audience that checks their pages for giveaways to enter, giving you a ton of exposure. The sites also link directly to your giveaway landing page.

Utilize Ads

To reach an even wider audience, consider creating Instagram and Facebook ads for your campaign. These ads allow you to target the exact type of audience most fascinated by your giveaways since you can set the criteria based on age, gender, interests, location, and more.

Partner with Bloggers and Influencers

Reach out to bloggers and social media influencers with an audience interested in your brand's products or services. For example, if you're a fitness brand giving away workout gear, look for fitness bloggers and influencers.

For this promotion strategy to be successful, it needs to benefit you, the blogger or influencer, and their audience. When you contact bloggers or influencers, highlight these benefits.

And the Best Part: Pick the Instagram Giveaway Winner!

Using the aforementioned Instagram giveaway ideas to promote your contest can help make it a hit online. Once you properly advertise your campaign, it may be time to pick the winner.

If you are looking for a powerful tool to pick random winners for your Instagram giveaways, look no further than Arbitery. We can help you select and announce the winners transparently. Get in touch to get started.