20 social media giveaway ideas for your business
Summary/Overview
A social media giveaway is more or less the same as a social media competition, where a business or influencer will acquire a selection of desirable items to be awarded to one or more lucky winners. The rules for entering can vary depending on the giveaway and its intended goals. Keep reading to find out how to host a giveaway plus 20 giveaway ideas to inspire you.
Why should you host a giveaway
Giveaways can be an amazing way to show your appreciation for those who support you. However, giveaways aren’t just a way to say thanks — they can also be a way to give your channel a boost and achieve some growth and engagement goals. Depending on the rules of your giveaway, users may be required to comment on a post of yours, follow your account, or interact with your content in some other way that will be beneficial for your ranking in the algorithm. Giveaways such as these can also be great for broadening your reach and getting exposure to people outside of your usual following.
Giveaways can also present a great opportunity to acquire some user-generated content from your audience, such as through photo or video competitions, that can be used to fuel the sales of your products or services long after your giveaway has concluded.
How to host a social media giveaway
- Decide on the goal.
Before you begin planning for your social media giveaway, it’s important to define what you’re hoping to achieve. Do you want to gain more followers? Increase your sales? Accumulate some user-generated content?
Whatever the goal, think about how you can formulate your giveaway to achieve this target, as well as decide how you will track the results.
- Choose the prize.
Your chosen prize needs to be something enticing enough to attract a lot of attention but should also be something related to your brand. Your prize could be an assortment of multiple items or services and include your own products or services as a part of the prize. While generic prizes like Amazon vouchers may attract new followers and attention, offering something more relevant to your brand will ensure that those who enter are more likely to be within your target audience.
- Announce your giveaway.
It’s important to announce your giveaway with clear instructions in your caption on how to enter as well as what you can and cannot do, plus the terms and conditions.
Remember to include details such as whether you are allowed to enter more than once, when the deadline for entry is, how many winners will be selected, if only specific geographical areas are allowed to enter, and, of course, what the prize is.
If you’re short on space, many prefer to create a landing page for their audience that includes all of the giveaway information.
- Promote your giveaway.
Posting about your giveaway doesn’t have to be a one and done. Continue to promote your giveaway on your Stories and on other social media channels and continue to post reminders about your giveaway regularly up until the entry deadline hits.
- Pick your winner(s).
For social media giveaways where your winner needs to be randomly picked from your comments, there are a number of tools available to do the legwork for you, such as Saverfront or IG comment picker (for Instagram giveaways). Alternatively, giveaways held on other social media channels can use a random number generator to select a winner for you.
For giveaways where your winner must be selected based on the quality of their entry (such as when hosting a caption competition or a photo competition), it’s important to assign the task to one individual expert or a small team of unbiased and expert judges to anonymously choose the winner.
Once chosen, reach out to your winner directly (if possible) or tag them in a comment or post and ask them to reach out to you. Watch out for scammers who may try to impersonate your winner and reach out in the hopes of stealing their prize. Be sure to check the username carefully of any person who messages you claiming to be the winner to ensure it belongs to the correct account.
20 social media giveaway ideas
- Like, comment, share, save, follow, to enter
Asking your audience to like, comment, share your post (with a friend or to their Story), or even save your post is a great way to give your giveaway lots of engagement and exposure. Asking people to follow one of more of your social channels as a requirement of entry alongside engaging with your post is also a really effective way to grow your following in a way that will benefit you once your giveaway comes to a close.
Note: Facebook does not allow for giveaways that incentivize participants to share, repost, tag others or in any other way publicize your promotion.
- Tag a friend to enter
Encouraging people to tag a friend in the comments as a form of entry will help to increase the exposure of your competition and bring more awareness to your post. However, this type of entry works best when you’re offering a prize for two — otherwise it can be an annoyance for the friends who get tagged.
Note: Facebook does not allow for giveaways that incentivize participants to share, repost, tag others or in any other way publicize your promotion.
- Vote to win
Giveaways that require users to participate in a poll as a form of entry are a wonderful way to get some real feedback from your audience on the direction of your business or your products.
- Make a Reel
Use an Instagram Reel to share the details of your giveaway in a more attention-grabbing way. This is especially effective if your giveaway rules need a little more explanation, or if you want to visually show off the prize.
- Make a carousel post
Again, promoting your social media competition with a carousel post will give you an additional opportunity to present your giveaway in a visual way with more information about the entry requirements.
- Offer a coupon
To encourage people to enter your giveaway, you can even consider rewarding those who do with a coupon for your business. This way, you’re likely to get lots of giveaway entries, those who enter don’t feel like they’ve wasted their time even if they don’t win, and those who redeem their vouchers will be exposed to your excellent products and services.
- Refer a friend
Competitions that require you to refer a friend to be entered are great for providing your existing customers with an incentive for referring new customers to your business.
- Tell us something
Incentivizing your audience to leave you a testimonial is often frowned upon by social media platforms. However, asking your audience to tell you their favorite product and why? Totally acceptable. Whatever the question, make sure it relates back to your product or business, and afterwards you’ll have some great user-generated content that you can use in your future marketing.
- Make it seasonal
Seasonal events and special occasions can be a great time to host a giveaway — especially if your giveaway is related to the theme. For example, a business might choose to host a Valentine’s Day giveaway that includes a hamper of treats and a booking at a top restaurant for a romantic meal for two.
- Sweepstakes
A sweepstake that requires you to enter your contact details to be entered in a raffle is an amazing way to give back to your audience while also gaining new contacts for your sales team and email marketing campaigns. Feel free to promote your sweepstakes via social media but do not ask for contact information publicly — send your audience to a form to collect their details and enter them into your sweepstakes.
- Partner with another brand
When partnering on a giveaway, both brands may choose to add their services or products to the giveaway prize, increasing the value of the prize. Both brands will also be promoting the giveaway on each of their social media channels, giving you double the exposure.
- Paid partnership with an influencer
A giveaway doesn’t need to be hosted by your brand at all. In fact, it can be incredibly effective to choose a creator or influencer who has a similar audience to yours and offer them your products and services to giveaway to their audience. This allows you to get exposure to this influencer’s audience and a chance to showcase your products and services to whoever wins.
- Offer a new product
Giveaways can be a great way to promote a new product launch by offering this new product — potentially alongside some usual customer favorites — as the prize. Ideally, your giveaway winner will be the first to experience this new product, offering them something exciting and exclusive for which to compete.
- Milestones
As well as seasonal events, personal milestones — such as reaching a certain number of followers or a certain number of sales — can provide the perfect opportunity to say thanks to your audience by hosting a giveaway.
- Caption competition
Caption competitions are where your audience is provided with an image and are asked to come up with the perfect social media caption to accompany it. This kind of competition encourages your audience to have fun and be creative, which can often organically increase engagement.
- Use a hashtag
Many choose to host giveaways by creating a unique and catchy hashtag in order to track all entries across social media. Just be sure that your hashtag hasn’t been used in the past and is unlikely to be used by anyone not intending to enter your giveaway. Promote your hashtag when you share the rules of your giveaway and make it clear that all entries must be posted on social media with this specific hashtag attached.
- Photo competition
Asking your audience to compete in your giveaway by submitting a photo can be a great way to rack up user-generated content. You might ask your audience to take a picture of them using one of your products or take a picture of your product in an unexpected place. Just make it clear that by entering, your audience is consenting for their pictures to be used in your marketing.
- Video competition
Much like running a photo competition, a video competition can be a great way to collect user-generated content. Giveaway ideas for video competitions include: asking your audience to record themselves completing a challenge or create a video testimonial. Again, make it clear in your terms and conditions that, by entering, your audience consents to the use of their videos in your marketing.
- Offer a year of your product/service
When it comes to the giveaway prize, a year’s worth of your products or services can be a perfectly suitable prize and allows you the opportunity to promote your products or services alongside your giveaway.
- Social media scavenger hunt
When we think of a scavenger hunt, we often think about how this activity unfolds in real life. However, there is a way to create an online scavenger hunt with hidden images across your website or social media channels. The winner of the hunt wins the prize!
Social media giveaways are a great way to boost your brand awareness, get some extra engagement, and find some new followers along the way — all while giving back to those who support you. Make use of the guidance above and these 20 giveaway ideas when hosting your next social media giveaway.