Contests for Instagram: What to Hold and How to Hold It in Your Account

12.10.2022
5 min.
12.10.2022
5 min.

Do you want to get new followers, receive loyalty from the ones you have or increase the activity on Instagram account? Arrange the contests! I have searched through the whole Instagram...

Content:

I have searched through the whole Instagram and made a selection of different types of contests. Make sure you read the article till the end: general tips on holding the contests on this social media are waiting for you.

Giveaway

Let’s start with the most popular type of Instagram competitions – Giveaway. Everybody’s got their bellyful of it because giveaway posts have spread so widely, but many users and companies are still using this one and have their own giveaway ideas. In the Giveaway few bloggers are getting together to give away one valuable gift. As a rule, the conditions are: to follow all the organizers, like one or several posts, sometimes you also need to tag from 1 to 3 of your friends or make a repost.

This is one of the examples of the contests that include liking, following all the pages and tagging the friends. Now you have an idea of giveaway posts and may try to make one yourself.

Instagram has many separate Giveaway-pages where such competitions are posted.

Tag a Profile in Your Stories

Recently, the posts asking to make a publication via stories and tag a profile are becoming very popular. Once the user tagged your account, you receive a notification through direct messages. You can immediately send a contestant their serial number in private messages, or you can do it through Instagram live. Using the random number generator, you identify the number and count the direct messages from bottom to top. Contestant with this number that tagged you become a winner. If you hold the contest through the live broadcast, it is better to shoot your phone’s screen using other device. The advantage of such Instagram competitions is that followers of the contestant will know about it. The disadvantage – post will disappear after 24 hours or the contestant will make a post and delete it right after.

Repost of a Caption

This one of the Instagram raffles is also popular, you need to make repost, write caption of a photo, tag page and wait until the organizer write your number in the comments. You can do a repost by taking a screenshot or using the apps InstaRepost, Repost for Instagram and all kinds of their analogues. The winner, as a rule, is determined by the random number generator. This idea of Instagram contests is also a bit complicated because you have to like the last 3 photos. It is possible that this way the user wanted to increase activity in their account.

Liking the Posts

It has a similar contest logic complicated with the fact that you have to save a photo and like the last 10 posts. From my point of view, competitions with saves are always unsuccessful because you can see the number of saves but cannot see to whom exactly they belong. Therefore, when the results will be defined, you will have to ask the winner to share the screenshot of the saved publication. And there is no guarantee that they saved it before, not 5 minutes ago.

Guess the Fact

Suggest users to guess the wrong or, on the contrary, the right facts for a prize. This way you can check how well your followers know you or your company. I advise you to write in the conditions the number of times contestants can leave a comment, to avoid winnings of stubborn geniuses that picked numbers randomly.

Course Description

If you teach courses or trainings, ask your followers to share the reasons they want to be a part of them. Suggest them to make posts on their pages with a specified hashtag that will help you to monitor the works. These posts will stir up interest of the contestants’ followers, which means even more people will learn about your training. You can later repost them to your page or share them in your stories.

Reviews

How about holding a review competition on Instagram? Ask your followers to share the opinion about your product: let them shoot a video review or write a post using beautiful picture of your product, and use particular hashtag. I advise to specify in advance the person responsible for choosing the winner and the way this winner will be chosen. Thanks to that you will get the content you could use on your pages.

What Is On the Photo

You can ask your followers to guess what is on the photo. It is good if you connect it to you, your hobby or your business. For example, if you have a wedding shop, ask the brides to guess the name or model of a dress. While participants are looking for the right answer on your website, they are also getting acquainted with other clothing models. Think over the prize in advance: you can give a discount for a purchase or some detail for the wedding dress.

Download an App

One more idea for an Instagram contests, if you have a personal mobile app, suggest your followers to download it. Make sure to think over how you will define whether the participant downloaded it or not in advance. For example, you can configure the function that allows the registered ones to receive a code. After that, when the winner will be defined by the random number generator, ask them to name a code they received. Or, when you will know the name of a winner, you can ask them to send a screenshot of the app downloaded, but you wouldn’t know for sure whether they have actually downloaded the app before the results. Basically, it all depends on the functionality of your app.

Photos with Products

Ask followers to take a photo with your products or at your company’s location, post a photo with a specified hashtag and tag your page. In addition, you can ask to write a review or share a story of how did they met you. Make sure to describe how the winner will be picked.

You can also make this competition for Instagram a bit harder and make it like a quest. Suggest the guests of your place to follow certain conditions. For example, to take a photo with your specialist, post it with a hashtag a get a prize for that. The advantage of this competition is that competitors only rely on themselves, not on some randomizers.

You can complex the conditions and ask followers to make certain actions. For example, define the theme and suggest to shoot the video or take photo. Let followers to post it using the particular hashtag so you can see their work. Such type of a contest is suitable only if your prize is really valuable. Make sure to indicate the dates of competition and the ways of identifying the winner.

General Tips for Holding an Instagram Contest

  1. You can make a post announcing that you have prepared great prizes before the competition. This way you can warm up the audience.
  2. In the Instagram giveaway post or other type of competition post describe in details the conditions and the way winners are going to be determined.
  3. Specifically highlight the photo, adding the text “Competition”. It will increase the chances for your post to be seen either than scrolled.
  4. Don’t make any mistakes in your text. The captions “Become a Winner”, “Competition” will look ridiculous.
  5. Define the dates in which the contest will be held.
  6. Give valuable gifts, there is a little chance that the crowd of participants will participate for cards.
  7. In no way deceive your followers and make sure to give prize to the winner. Other way you are risking to lose the loyalty of your clients.
  8. Remind about the contest from time to time, keep the intrigue by repeating the Instagram giveaway posts and stories.
  9. Agree with a blogger who has your target audience in their followers on the promotion of your competition.
  10. Ask the winner to post a publication with gratitude and repost it.