How to do a giveaway on Instagram
Whether you’re looking to increase your follower count or promote a new product or partnership, Instagram giveaways are a great way to get eyes on your brand.
Why host an Instagram giveaway?
Instagram giveaways can help you grow followers 70% faster in 3 months
Instagram giveaways get 3.5 times as many likes and 64 times more comments on average than regular posts
Instagram is one of the most popular social networks in the world
Instagram has 2 billion active daily users
How to host an Instagram giveaway in 7 steps
A step-by-step guide on planning and running your Instagram giveaway.
Step 1: Set your goal
An Instagram giveaway is a marketing campaign. And successful marketing campaigns start with a goal.
Are you aiming to grow your followers on Instagram? To capture emails? To drive awareness?
Once you have set your overarching goal, make it measurable. For example: We want to grow our Instagram follower count by 15%.
Step 2: Select the prize
Your goal can help you to determine the value of the prize. If you have a particularly ambitious goal, you may want to offer a larger prize, or do a series of multiple giveaways with smaller prizes.
Larger prizes typically get more entries because they have that “wow” factor—but a large prize doesn’t always equate to a successful giveaway. It’s more important to pick a prize that’s relevant to your target audience. Sometimes small prizes that are limited edition or hold novelty value can outperform lavish giveaways.
Step 3: Choose the entry method
An entry method is what someone has to do to be in with a chance of winning the prize. Here are some examples of giveaway entry methods on Instagram and the goals they can help you reach.
Enter email address
Goal: Email capture
Your Instagram profile doesn’t have an email capture form, but your link in bio can. Direct your audience to your Bio Site where they can add their email address to enter your giveaway. Make sure you’ve added the Mailing List feature to your Bio Site if this is the route that you’ve selected for your giveaway.
Like and comment
Goal: Reach and engagement
Create a competition post on your feed and ask entrants to like and respond in the comments with the answer to a question or a word related to the campaign. This makes it easy for you to see everyone who has entered the giveaway.
Tag a friend
Goal: Reach, engagement and follower growth
Looking for a quick way to increase the reach of your giveaway? Try the “tag a friend” method. On your giveaway post, people must tag one or multiple friends in their comment to enter. Each person they tag will receive a notification that drives them to your post. This introduces new people to your brand, which can result in more followers.
Share to story
Goal: Reach and engagement
Asking entrants to share your giveaway post to their Instagram story can be another great way to increase the reach of your giveaway organically. When someone shares your post to their story, you’ll get a notification, which allows you to see who has entered the giveaway. However, you won’t be able to see their story if their account is private.
Remix this
Goal: Reach and engagement
Instagram has a feature called Remix which allows users to create Reels using videos from other accounts. With this feature, people can remix your competition Reel with their entry. This is a great opportunity to add some fun to your giveaway—entrants could complete a video challenge for a chance to win.
Step 4: Plan when you’ll run the giveaway
When will you launch your giveaway and how long will it run for?
Launch your giveaway at a time when you need to generate buzz around a new product or wider marketing campaign. You can also run a seasonal giveaway (e.g. the first day of summer or your brand’s birthday). Just remember that during peak times (like Black Friday or Christmas) there are a lot of brands fighting for people’s attention.
The duration of a giveaway is often determined by the prize. If it’s a smaller giveaway, you may want to keep it within a week. Bigger giveaways can run anywhere between 2–8 weeks or more. But ultimately, your giveaway should run for as long as you think it will take to reach the goal of your campaign.
Step 5: Write terms and conditions for the giveaway
Instagram states that if you use their platform for a giveaway, you are responsible for the lawful operation of that promotion. So before you push it live, you must write terms and conditions that include:
Eligibility requirements (e.g. age, location)
Who can’t enter (e.g. members of the team)
Giveaway dates
Entry process
Prize details
Prize delivery (e.g. will they have to collect the prize, or will you send it?)
When and how the winner will be selected
A disclosure (you must state that the promotion is not endorsed or administered by Instagram)
Any other local or national compliance
Note: Run your terms and conditions past your in-house legal team or a legal professional.
Step 6: Create your promotional strategy
The aim is to get as many entries as possible. But even the most generous of giveaways require some marketing support (especially those that run for a longer period of time).
Your promotional strategy may include:
Putting a link to the giveaway in your Bio Site (so your followers on other channels can enter)
Teaser content
The giveaway post
Partnerships with other content creators
Partnerships with other businesses (if they donated part of the prize)
Cross-channel promotion (email, website, events)
Paid ads
Follow-up content (e.g. winner reaction video)
Step 7: Pick your winner
How you pick your winner can depend on the entry method of the giveaway.
If it’s a simple entry like providing an email address, use software to pick a winner at random. There are plenty of free and paid options to choose from.
For something like a Remix challenge or a caption contest, 1–3 members of your team can select the winning entry.
Create a Bio Site for your Instagram giveaway
A Bio Site makes it easy for you to create a giveaway landing page that lives in your link in bio. Include details on the prize, terms and conditions, email capture and more.