Giveaways are one of the only surefire ways to grow your community and reach new audiences. If you play your cards right, you can get hundreds or thousands of new followers just from one post. We should know: we’ve hosted our own fair share both in the app, on our Instagram, and in our email newsletters. Today, we’ll be giving you our secret recipe for hosting a successful giveaway. And all it takes is five steps!
Define Your Goals 📝
The first thing you need to do when planning your giveaways is set goals. Each giveaway is different and should have its own set of goals. Clear goals will help you plan giveaways and analyze their performance afterward. And we aren’t just referring to the metrics you’re tracking: goals include why you’re hosting the giveaway, and what part of your strategy it’s helping.
“But what if I just want to host giveaways for my followers,” you ask? That’s a goal in and of itself, but we recommend having some kind of metric to help you actually quantify the giveaway’s success. These can include an increase in followers, shares on a post, or comments and friends tagged, to name a few. The goal and metrics you pick will depend on what you’re asking followers to do, which we’ll get into later. Right now, just know that you’ll have to pick a goal for your giveaways before any other planning begins.
Create Your Strategy 📊
Once you have your goals figured out, you can build the rest of your strategy. What are you going to offer as a prize? How will you promote your giveaway? When will you launch your giveaway? It’s a lot to consider, so let’s break it down into the main parts!
What’s the Prize?
Every giveaway needs an irresistible prize. It doesn’t have to be expensive or super elaborate, just a cool prize your audience would want. We recommend making it something related to your niche or content. Art supplies, a camera, or even a gift card somewhere can be great! Look at what people in your niche have done for inspiration. Or set a budget and see what you can get in that range. We’ll circle back to this part of the strategy in a minute, so
How Will You Promote?
You’ll have to promote your giveaways, even a little! Depending on your goals, you might just have to post one video. Usually, though, we recommend sharing your giveaway on multiple platforms. Post about it on X, Instagram, or any other profiles where you have a community and let them know how to enter. Not only will this spread the word to followers who might not have heard about the giveaway (and will be more likely to follow you) but the algorithm on the other platforms will push your giveaway to new audiences.
When Will It Launch?
This will all depend on why you’re hosting your giveaway. Are you doing it for a specific holiday? Are you celebrating some kind of milestone on your profile? Try to time your giveaway with something that will help generate excitement. Giveaways can happen at any time, but making them themed or timely can encourage participation.
Set Entry Requirements ✅
This step goes hand in hand with your strategy, but you’ll need a strategy and a prize picked out before you set your entry requirements. Because the prize will determine just how much followers are willing to do to win. The better the prize, the more you can ask them to do.
Most giveaway rules are super simple: follow us, like this post, tag a friend, and share it for an extra entry. These are pretty minimal (people can do it in less than five seconds) so the prizes don’t have to be super grand. A gift card, an art set, or something more simple would be appropriate. But if you want to give away an iPad, AirPods, and a MacBook, then you can ask them to do a little more.
Your entry requirement should also relate to your goals. If you want to boost subscriptions to your newsletter, have followers sign up for your newsletter. If you want to grow your following, have them and a friend follow you.
Brand It ✨
Give your giveaway a theme of some kind! Whether it’s themed around your anniversary, an upcoming holiday, or even just given its own color palette and style, you want everything about your giveaway to be cohesive. You can even give your giveaway a fun name! Your giveaway should be distinct and cohesive, and followers should be able to tell it’s all related right away.
This will be the final step before you announce your giveaway! Get everything designed and written out, make sure it’s perfect, then announce your giveaway. We recommend letting your giveaway last at least a week, so people have plenty of time to see and enter.
Pick the Winner 🏆
The final step in your giveaway will be to pick the winner. This will depend on the entry rules; you might just be able to select randomly, or you may have to review the entries. For example, if you ask people to sign up for your email newsletter, you can upload all subscriber emails into a program that will randomly pick one. If you ask followers to respond to a prompt in the comments, you’ll have to review the comments to find the ones you like best. If you want them to tag a friend, then you’ll have to go through the list of comments and pull the users who did tag a friend. Keep this in mind when choosing the entry criteria: you may not want something less maintenance!
We recommend picking the winner and reaching out to them before you announce the winner. Clearly state in your rules that you’ll give the winner a certain amount of time (24 or 28 hours is good!) to respond before picking a second winner. Once they accept, then you can announce them!
Bonus: Make it a Collab 🤝
If you’ve got a big enough audience, try partnering with a brand! Some are willing to give you the prize for your giveaway in exchange for some promotion. You can email their partnerships, PR, or marketing team to learn more. Or shoot them a DM On your preferred social platform!
Now you’ve got everything you need to host a successful giveaway. Well, almost everything: you just need a prize and a killer idea!