- 14 minute read
- Digital Marketing
- Reputation Management
- Social Media
Beginner,
Intermediate
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An effective way to encourage followers to engage with your brand and increase their interest in your offerings is by running a social media giveaway. Giveaways give your followers a chance to try out what you have to offer for free, and they can be a great way to reach new audiences. After all, who doesn’t love free stuff?
While giveaways are fun and engaging, it’s important to follow all the rules of your state and of each platform to ensure your campaign is legal. This guide will cover the different types of giveaways and legal considerations as well as the step-by-step process to launch your first giveaway.
The first step toward creating a giveaway campaign that complies with local rules and platform guidelines is to understand the different types.
To further ensure the legality of your giveaway, there are a few best practices you want to follow.
Here are some main guidelines to consider per platform, but be sure to read up on the official rules before you launch your campaign to be sure you’re getting the most up-to-date information.
As a Facebook property, Instagram’s rules are fairly similar to those outlined above. However, there are a few differences.
TikTok has not published any official contest or promotion guidelines, but you can read their advertising guidelines to get an idea of their general posting rules.
Now that we have all the important legal information out of the way, you can get started on your giveaway campaign! Follow these steps to make sure your campaign is effective and engaging.
As with any marketing effort, you need to start by setting a goal for your campaign. For example:
Once you have a clear goal, think about who your audience is. If you’re looking to solicit user-generated content, then your audience will likely be your existing customers – people who have been on an adventure with you. If you want to increase your followers, your audience will be people who are interested in your industry, such as outdoor enthusiasts or foodies.
A great prize is what will entice users to enter your giveaway and help you reach your goal. Your giveaway is an opportunity to showcase the great experiences you offer, so an ideal prize would be offering a free tour for two, a free activity for a family of four, or another way for people to enjoy your tours or activities. Another option is to offer a gift card that can be redeemed for any one of your offerings.
Pro tip: If you’re offering prizes that are outside of your products, there are a few more legal considerations to keep in mind. For example, if you were to give away an Amazon Echo, you couldn’t use the words “Amazon Echo” in the name of the promotion unless the company was sponsoring the giveaway. You can, however, list the prize in the contest rules.
Now you need to decide what users need to do to enter the contest (keeping the platform guidelines above in mind). This should be in line with your goals. If your goal is to get user-generated content, you could create a contest where customers submit a photo. Keep this in line with your brand as well. For example, if you offer birding tours, you might ask participants to send their best photo of a bird in flight.
You also need a clear timeline for your contest. Keep it short enough to stay top-of-mind (if you give participants too long, they might lose their sense of urgency and forget) but long enough to give people a chance to enter. If you’re running a contest, you’ll need to give participants enough time to put together their entry. For example, if you’re soliciting videos, people might need a couple of weeks to create theirs. A sweepstakes can be entered more easily, so you can keep the length shorter (about a week).
With all the logistics in place, it’s time to get creative with your posts to promote your giveaway. Be sure to use exciting imagery with bright colors to capture your followers’ attention as they scroll through the feeds. The word “giveaway” should be front and center! As far as copy goes, you want to keep short, clear, and enticing. For example: “Got weekend plans? We’re giving away a free tour for two, the perfect way to enjoy the long weekend! Tag your bestie who you would invite on an adventure.” Below your main text, post the eligibility requirements and official rules, or a link to the landing page where they can find the full information. Be sure to call out the length of the giveaway and the date when winners will be announced.
After your initial promotional post, post a reminder every few days so those who haven’t had the chance to enter yet can see it. If you’re running your giveaway on Instagram, you can re-share your original post in your Stories so people can click directly to it. If you have the budget, you could also boost your giveaway posts so more people outside of your followers will see them.
Once the entry window is over, it’s time to tally up your results and choose the winner. How you do this will depend on whether you selected a contest or a sweepstakes. If you ran a contest, you’ll need to gather all your entries and have your panel of judges select the winner based on the predetermined criteria. If you ran a sweepstakes, you can enter all your participants in a spreadsheet, assign each a unique number, then use a tool like Google’s random number generator to select a winner. Make sure you choose a fair and efficient method to select your winner, and document it using screenshots and saving your files.
A giveaway is not just about giving away freebies, but also about achieving your social media marketing goals. Once your promotion is over, use the analytics tool of the platform you selected to find out whether you met your goals. Look at your engagement metrics, new followers, and other KPIs. By analyzing this data, you can understand how your giveaway performed and use any insights to do even better next time!
As you can see, there are a few considerations to keep in mind to make sure your social media giveaway is efficient, engaging, and follows all the necessary guidelines. However, they can be a fun way to engage your followers, gain new ones, and give something back to your online community. Once you’ve run your first giveaway and become familiar with all the moving parts, you’re sure to be excited to start your next one! For more tips on making the most of your platforms, check out our social media guides.