Giveaways 101: A Comprehensive Guide
"More followers, higher engagement, more email addresses. How do we get them?"
Time and time again, we are approached by clients asking how we can help increase their follower count, boost engagement, and build their list of emails.
One of the most popular and effective ways to turn up the dial on achieving growth and awareness-centered objectives is to run giveaways. Giveaways are a proven way to provide value to your followers at a very low cost with potentially high gains. Tailwind reports that accounts that run giveaways grow their following 70% faster than those who don’t. They also receive 64x more comments and 3.5x more likes. By the looks of that data, and from our own experience with clients, giveaways work!
Objective
There are several ways to approach giveaways, which we will cover in more detail. But first, the key for any single giveaway is to determine the primary objective - followers, engagement, or email acquisition.
It is vital to select one primary objective and focus the elements of the giveaway on achieving that. Keep in mind that there may be a trickle-down effect for the others, but that is just the icing on the cake. Attempting to achieve too many objectives by one initiative will only cloud your efforts and result in fewer conversions.
Entry Method
Your objective will drive the structure of your giveaway’s entry method. For instance, if your objective is to grow your following, you’ll of course want to require hitting that follow button. But consider also layering in one or two entry elements that will boost your organic reach, like sharing the post to IG stories, or tagging friends in the caption.
For giveaways structured for follower growth, we generally adhere to the “like, follow, tag a friend” entry method you’ve no doubt seen time and time again, but we’ve noted one subtle tweak can increase your comment count: more tags = more entries. Including this simple CTA can help your comment count soar.
If your objective is email acquisition, you’ll need to use a third party platform like Gleam or Pagemodo. Some of these third-party apps allow you to reward multiple actions as entry methods, but we generally recommend keeping your entry method around two requirements for the best results, and awarding extra entries for any additional actions. Overcomplicate your entry method and you’ll negatively impact your results.
Prize
When determining your giveaway prize, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, who is your target demographic for this giveaway? Be sure that your prize is fitting to their interests, and enticing enough to motivate entry. Next, make sure that your prize value is fitting of your entry requirements.
People are generally reluctant to hand over their personal information, so consider incentivizing lead generation campaigns with a little something extra. And if you have a long list of partners or entry requirements, make sure the potential to win is compelling enough to motivate your audience to complete them all.
Your prize doesn’t have to be expensive if you get creative. Client Guayakí saw huge success with a one-of-a-kind drinkware giveaway in an artist partnership. If you’ve got buy-in to your brand, your followers will be interested in unique merch.
With the basics of objective, entry method, and prize determined it’s time to move forward with your giveaway structure. Here are a few strategic approaches to consider to drive different results:
1. Partner with a massive influencer(s) for a high-value prize
This tactic can put you in front of a vast number of potential new followers with a high return. Keep in mind that this type of activation can include a hefty price tag and can potentially render less qualified followers outside of the target market (which eventually might be lost after the giveaway is over).
In 2018, we were approached by Eagle Creek to help them dramatically increase their follower count in a short timeframe and chose this tactic. As a travel brand, it was essential to partner with an influencer who aligned with this demographic to draw in new followers with interests relevant to the brand. We chose to partner with travel photographer Rob King on a camera gear giveaway to reach and entice a travel photography demo.
We chose to work with this particular influencer in part because he had an extensive network of influencer friends that would engage in sharing the giveaway to their pages, which exponentially expanded the reach.
Next, we determined a unique prize that would encourage a ton of engagement along with creative content that was in line with the audience.
The results speak for themselves. In just six weeks, we were able to reach our goal, and Eagle Creek had 80k+ new followers.
*Note: this giveaway was run in 2018. Replicating the exact same strategy with today’s social landscape may not return the same results.
2. Loop Giveaways with Other Brands
A loop giveaway includes a few brands, generally 2-5, which all contribute to form a prize pack and promote the giveaway through their accounts. Typically the entry method for this giveaway will include liking the post and following all brands in the giveaway, and sometimes tagging a friend in the comments to increase organic reach.
Partnering with other like-minded brands on a loop giveaway is a tried and true method of accelerating channel growth and expanding targeted reach. The beauty of these is the significant reach you can achieve for usually just the cost of the product included in the prize pack.
By strategically considering the partner brands’ demographics, loop giveaways are an effective way to reach more of your current demo or expanding to a new target demo. To add another layer to this, consider requiring each brand to share the giveaway on all their other channels (FB, IG, Twitter, and even their email) and also a small budget for a paid boost for extra reach.
3. Simple product giveaways.
If your engagement could use a boost, consider a simple product giveaway using your own branded product. Sometimes it doesn't take much to generate excitement and increase the flow of engagement, and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel with new partnerships for every giveaway. Your followers are already interested in what you have to offer, and rewarding them for sticking around and engaging with your content with the occasional giveaway entices them to keep coming back for more.
Guayakí has a ton of success with simple product giveaways. We quickly figured out that Guayakí fans will do anything for a free case (or 10) of yerba mate. All we have to do is ask for the type of engagement we want. This recent giveaway was one of our most engaging posts of the year:
Keep track of holidays or National Days that tie into your branding. It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle on holidays but an engaging giveaway can help boost your holiday numbers.
4. Creative calls-to-action and entry requirements.
If you’re on a tight budget but still looking to expand the reach of your giveaway, consider getting creative with your giveaway’s entry mechanism. Thinking outside the general "like, follow and tag a friend/comment," can incentivize actions that promote your organic reach and stand out from the crowd.
In a recent Pair Of Thieves giveaway, we provided ten extra entries for users who shared the post to the Story. This call-to-action garnered 253 shares in comparison to the next highest giveaway without a share to story CTA, which received 95 shares. Not only do shares increase organic reach through each direct share, Instagram recently explained that shares positively impact your post’s feed rank in the algorithm.
5. Use Instagram Stories.
The Instagram feed typically gets the most love when it comes to giveaways due to trackability of growth and engagement — but consider using Instagram Stories to play with the algorithm a bit.
As we know, the more users that engage with your content, the more reach that post or Story will get. Using interactive features like the poll or question stickers are easy ways to layer in engagement giveaways on a different part of the platform. They are fun, and the method to enter is so simple that they are hard to pass up without engaging.
6. Use ads to reach a specific audience at volume.
Pair of Thieves launched a trifecta of giveaways, targeted at three demographics for building their email database. These giveaways increased their list by over 30,000 subscribers. They also received 6,000 new followers, despite the method of entry not requiring a follow.
Each giveaway spoke to a different target persona for the brand, and each was promoted with ads to that target demographic. Since the objective of this giveaway was lead generation, Gleam was used to track entries and collect data, and the giveaway was held across all of the brand’s platforms: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and in email marketing.
7. Facebook works, too!
It is against Facebook community guidelines to incentivize engagement, i.e. to ask for a like, comment, or follow as a giveaway entry method. Because of this, we typically see Facebook primarily used as an awareness tool for giveaways on Instagram with minimal impact. But, Facebook has unique methods of implementing giveaways despite their more strict rules.
With client Eagle Creek, we took a slightly different approach by creating Facebook-specific giveaways that run alongside our Instagram giveaways. While the Instagram giveaway is structured to take advantage of more lenient rules around tagging friends to drive reach & growth, these Facebook giveaways leans on the platform’s ability to feature a clickable link to push followers to an email capture to hone in on a lead gen objective.
Another strategy is using a status update with no image or video and asking a simple question. We find that status updates reach more followers and get exponential engagement. Layer in a giveaway, and you've got a winner!
Other things to keep in mind…
You’ve got your giveaway structured and any necessary partners are on board, so now what? Here are some tips to keep in mind as you plan out your content and schedule your giveaway.
Giveaway Assets
The visual component of the giveaway is a key ingredient to a successful campaign. We have found that images—in particular flat lays—work best as opposed to video. They provide the quickest way to showcase the prize and promote engagement, whereas a video post is optimized for views. Video views are great, but not necessarily for a giveaway that relies on engagement.
Pre- and Post-Giveaway Content
A strategy for follower retention when the giveaway is complete is an essential piece of the puzzle. With new eyes on the account, the content that follows a giveaway is crucial. Re-sharing some of your most popular posts or even creating custom content that speaks to that new demographic of followers can ensure that you are creating an excellent first impression and retaining as many of them as possible. We typically expect to see about a 10% drop-off after a giveaway is over, so retention efforts are important in keeping that remaining 90% on board.
Looking back at the Eagle Creek partnered giveaway which brought in 80k+ followers, below is a before and after of how we altered their feed to meet our new, travel photography audience with the best possible impression. In revamping their feed to cater to our new audience, we focused on posting beautiful, travel-based content since the audience coming in was outdoor focused.
Don’t overdo it
Once you get a taste of giveaway success, it can be tempting to run a ton. But more is not always better, especially in this case. Giveaway fatigue is real and you can start to see diminishing returns. We like to keep the limit at no more than one per month.
Too many steps to enter
As we mentioned earlier, too many objectives can lead to an unsuccessful giveaway. When there is not one clear goal, the giveaway steps or method to enter typically becomes convoluted or so complicated that users can't be bothered. Our attention spans are shorter than ever (less than 8 seconds on social media), so things need to be quick and easy. Always remember - KISS (keep it simple stupid!).
Wrong audience
Do the research ahead of time when partnering with other accounts. It can be tempting to jump into a giveaway with a brand that has a big following. But, if that account’s audience is not aligned with your product, service, or brand, the results could be less than stellar. Always ask yourself, which brand persona is this initiative speaking to? If you can’t answer that, take a pass.
Too localized
Unless your company is only servicing a specific region, you don't want to create a giveaway that will only interest a small population of users. While it is nice to be able to give back to your hometown, giveaways are not always the best way to do so. And if you do decide to localize, expect to see the effect in your results.
Content as entry
Getting fans to share user-generated content (UGC) can be a tricky endeavor. Brands often try to use giveaways to stimulate more of their audience to share their products in action. However, we have seen that asking for UGC as the mode of entry does not produce a successful giveaway unless there is a very substantial price ($$$$$). Plus, users are required to use or own your product already to enter, which immediately limits who can participate. If you want UGC, there are other ways to go about it.
Too many partners
More is not always better when it comes to the number of brands participating in a loop giveaway. We've found that it is best to pick a few strategic partners who can provide a variety of audience sizes, demographics, and complementary products to yours. Our sweet-spot is generally 2-5 partners max, and as your partner list increases, so should your prize value. If your partner list exceeds that amount, you’ll want to consider if your prize is valuable enough to incentivize entry.
As you can tell, there is some strategy necessary, as well as a ton of creative ways to host a successful giveaway. We hope this guide helps you understand the planning process and possibilities within each of the platforms to build something unique that helps you achieve your social media and greater business objectives.
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