How To Run An Instagram Contest For Your Brand

More and more brands are growing their engagement and brand recognition by on Instagram. It has over 700 million active users per month and has become the greatest platform for influencers and brands to promote their content and products. A feature that has become popular on Instagram recently is Instagram Contests, and it’s used to hold photo/video contests with followers. In this article, we will show you four easy steps to make Instagram contests, which will help you to conquer users.

Step 1 - Choose the type of contest

Take advantage of the fact that Instagram doesn’t have any promotional limitations like other social platforms. So be as creative as you want with the concept of the contest.You don’t have to offer prizes related to the company, you can also take advantage of the festival days of the year or popular events in the city to make some kind of contest.Here are a few ideas of the type of contest you can choose:

‍Likes: this is the easiest to run, you just have to ask the users to like the photo of the contest and win the product that appears in the photo. This type is great because it’s not difficult to participate and you can grow your brand recognition.

‍Comments: this is similar to the previous one, the users have to like the picture but also have to leave a comment in order to win. You can even ask the followers to tag their friends in the comments. This is especially useful to gain new followers.

‍Photos: in this type of contest you need to ask your followers to post a photo in their personal profile on the products and use a specific hashtag. It’s important to remember that the followers need to have their profiles be public so you can check their photo.

Step 2- Define the goals of the Instagram contest

It may sound very nice to make contests and gifts to your followers but everything has a hidden purpose. Whether profit or not your goal is to get more followers, more interaction, attract traffic, increase sales, etc. So to start you need to write down your objectives in detail so that you can help define the online raffles of your brand. For example: increase brand followers by 15%, generate at least 300 comments in your Instagram account for 1 week.

Step 3 - Share the rules of the contest

First of all, you need to acknowledge that you are not running this Instagram contest with any sponsorship from Instagram. Second, you can’t tag people in the posts or ask users to tag their friends in the posts. There are very few limitations regarding the Instagram contest, just be sure to be very clear about them. Here’s a copy of some of the most important points of Instagram’s regulations:

Offer terms and eligibility requirements (ex: age and residency restrictions); and Compliance with applicable rules and regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered (ex: registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals).

You must not inaccurately tag content or encourage users to inaccurately tag content (ex: don’t encourage people to tag themselves in photos if they aren’t in the photo).

Promotions on Instagram must include the following:

A complete release of Instagram by each entrant or participant.

Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram.

We will not assist you in the administration of your promotion and cannot advise you on whether consent is required for use of user content or on how to obtain any necessary consent.

You agree that if you use our service to administer your promotion, you do so at your own risk.

These are only a few points of what Instagram has to say, but you can find the complete information here.

Step 4 - Choose A Relevant Prize

As any good marketing strategy, the main goal is not to just gain more followers but gain quality followers. The best way to find these people is by offering a prize that is relevant to them as well as to your brand. Regardless of your professional activity, you can always offer prizes with a low cost to you but ones that would be of great interest to your audience.

Step 5 - Spread The Word

Is important for you to create a hashtag to promote your content. It has to be attractive and easy to remember. Proper use of hashtags in content publications and Instagram comments are key!

To Close Up

The wide options of promotion in Instagram allow having the freedom to create contests and to give prizes without many complications through the images. To be most successful, you have to be creative and original with the types of contests you make, choose the right award, and use related hashtags to attract the right audience. Cheers!