Giveaways are a great way to accomplish several business goals. Ideally you want to launch a giveaway that increases your social media fans which results in an increase in your sales.

Here’s Our Guide on How to Launch a Social Media Giveaway

1. Establish your goals

What are you hoping to achieve with your giveaway? Do you want more followers? Make it a requirement for people to follow you in order to enter. I highly recommend you make this a requirement no matter what your goals are.

Are you looking for more content (photos/videos) that you want to use to market your business? Do you want to reach more people? Then have them share their own unique post about your business or repost your giveaway post.

Do you want to send more people to your website so you can remarket to them? Then have your giveaway live on your website and just use social media to send people to your site. Do you want to grow your email database? Then require people to give you their email address in order to enter to win.

2. Partner with another biz

The saying goes two are better than one, and it’s true! Team work makes the dream work. Partner with another business that has your ideal customer base. Your type of follower matters. You want authentic followers that are interested in your business and will likely become customers. So be strategic.

3. Determine your prize

What are you giving away? You want the prize to be worthy of whatever actions you are requiring people to take in order to enter. If you are partnering with another business or businesses, then your prize will be more extravagant and more people will want to enter to win.

If you are a restaurant, you may want to give a gift certificate so the winner can come enjoy your delicious dishes. If you provide a service like lash extensions or nails, give a free service.

Make sure you include the retail value of your prize so entrants know how epic the prize is and that entering your giveaway is worth their time.

4. Be clever naming your giveaway

This is one of my favorite parts about the giveaway - giving it a clever name. I love to use alliteration, puns with the business’ name, rhyming- there really is not limit. The more creative your giveaway title is, the more memorable it will be for those who enter to win.

Have a hashtag created of your giveaway name so you can track entries and posts. This is a must if your goal is to capture more User Generated Content (UGC) because you can easily track entries with the hashtag.

Here are some of my favorite giveaway titles I have used for clients:

• #PlayTurtleBay -The goal was to capture content of Turtle Bay Resort guests enjoying the dozens of experiences that the resort offers.

• #SplashinStaycation - My client Residence Inn Kapolei partnered with their neighbor Wet & Wild Hawaii to giveaway the ultimate staycation.

• #GoKapoho - KapohoKine Adventures wanted to showcase their bucket list excursions by having guests share their experiences on their social media and also add the UGC to their personal marketing library.

5. Create your rules

What do they need to do in order to enter to win? How long does the giveaway run? How will the winner be determined - randomly or will there be a special panel of judges?

Make sure you include that the giveaway is not sponsored, endorsed or administered by Instagram or Facebook.

6. Launch the giveaway

Once you have 1- 6 complete it is time to launch your giveaway!! Before the giveaway even starts it is fun to have a countdown to let your followers know something amazing is about to happen. Use the Instagram stories countdown tool and post on your feed for your followers to be on the lookout for a giveaway soon.

7. Promote giveaway

The giveaway is live! Woohoo! Now it is time to make sure people know about it!

Here’s some ideas that don’t cost a dime:

• Share it on your stories throughout the giveaway lifetime to remind people to enter.

• Cross promote the giveaway on your other social channels.

• Ask influencers and partners you have worked with in the past to share your giveaway on their stories.

• Have your giveaway mentioned on the homepage of your website.

• Email the giveaway to your email subscribers so they don’t miss out and they can become followers on social media

• Have posters advertising the giveaway at your actual store so customers visiting you in person can know about the giveaway.

If you have a social media advertising budget you can always boost the post and target your ideal customers that aren’t following you yet.

8. Determine the winner

Once the giveaway is complete all your new followers will be eager to know if they won the prize.

You can determine the winner in one of two ways:

1. Randomly (highly recommend this!)

2. Chose the Winner

I highly recommend you have the winner chosen randomly, unless you have a local celebrity judging content entries. You can simply google “ random number generator” and input your overall entries to figure out your winner.

There are also some social tools that will select the random winner for you. Some a free, some charge a fee.

Now you are ready to launch a giveaway on your social media! Have fun growing your fan base, increasing engagement, driving more sales and collecting UGC!

Don’t want to do this on your own? Contact our team for more information on how you can launch an effective giveaway made specifically for your brand!