Are you looking to boost your engagement on social media while building up a loyal following on your brand’s pages? While there are many strategies for sustaining social growth, one underrated but effective method is the classic giveaway!
You can’t go wrong with a social media giveaway: it’s a smart tactic that gives your fans value while bolstering your metrics at the same time. Whether you’re aiming to increase your follower count, promote an exciting new product, or simply boost brand awareness in a fun and interactive way, this is a wonderful means to accomplish your social media goals.
It can be intimidating to plan a giveaway for the very first time. You want to get everything right so that the event is fair, trustworthy, and fun for everyone involved. However, don’t let your fear of the unknown hold you back. In this post, I’m going to explain everything you need to know in order to plan and execute a winning giveaway that will increase your reach without breaking your bank.
In the world of business, it is important to give value first before asking for anything in return. If you simply log into your social media accounts and start begging people to interact with your content, you are obviously not going to come across as credible or likable. More than that, your efforts will likely just be ignored. In your own life, when you decide to interact with a new account, you probably first think about what’s in it for you. Well, other users have the exact same thought process. So make it worthwhile for people to visit your page or give you a follow by using a giveaway as a powerful and enticing incentive.
When done right, a giveaway is pretty hard for people to resist. For them, the tradeoff is simply a few seconds of their time in exchange for the chance to win a big, FREE prize. But to make the most of your giveaway, you still need to consider what truly constitutes “value” to your audience. Let’s talk about it!
The more excited your giveaway gets your target audience, the better results your efforts will reap. That means you need to research what the people you’re trying to reach are interested in so that you can best appeal to them. For instance, a social media giveaway from a business with a target audience of middle-aged business men from the Midwest is going to look very different from a giveaway geared towards young women in their early twenties who live in New York City.
Once you’ve determined the interests, trends, and pain points central to your audience, your possibilities will become more clear and you’ll be able to choose a real gem of a prize. For starters, here are best social media giveaway ideas you can use.
Now let’s get into the actual logistics of planning and pulling off a seamless giveaway event. Simply follow this step-by-step process and you’ll be good to go.
Doing social media giveaway can be fun, but before planning one, you need to have at least one concrete goal in mind. Ask yourself what specifically you want this event to do for you. Perhaps you want to increase your engagement on social media. Maybe you want to reach a certain follower milestone. Possibly, you want to get a certain number of sign-ups for your email newsletter. Whatever your end goal may be, having a clear objective in mind is crucial for tailoring your giveaway for optimal success.
You can give away one of your most sought-after and best selling items to get people excited. You can give away an unreleased product that is going to hit the shelves soon to get more eyes on this new hot promotion. You can give away a free service offered by your brand and highlight all the amazing features of the service in your giveaway to entice those who don’t win your contest to consider purchasing it. Your giveaway can also be physical or digital. Choose an option that fits best for both you and your audience.
Make it clear to interested participants what they need to do in order to enter your social media giveaway contest. Can each person only enter once by liking your post? Can people enter as many times as they would like by earning an entry token for each friend they tag in the comments of your post? Does each participant need to complete multiple actions such as sharing your post to their story and following your page before their entry counts? Make these rules very clear so that people will follow the directions you desire and avoid frustration and confusion.
Giveaways that have no end in sight are not appealing to social media users. First of all, not defining a clear end to the event makes it less enticing for people to enter, because they don’t know how delayed their gratification might be. Second of all, a giveaway that never seems to end can come off as a scam to skeptical social users and people might start to question if you ever actually followed through on the giveaway after all. However, making the duration too short can also end up hurting you because not enough people will be able to see it. Find a happy medium for best results!
Even when you’re giving things away for free, you need to be careful to cover your own back. Be sure to mention any exclusions that might apply – such as locations that you are unable to ship the prize to. This will save you from ending up in an awkward situation later on. You should also make it known if businesses are allowed to enter, as well as if you have any affiliation with brands or products that might be involved in your giveaway.
Have a clear and predictable strategy for sorting through applicants and selecting the winners. There are many free social media giveaway tools you can use to keep track of entries and randomize the final selection of your social media giveaway so everything is as fair as possible. After you’ve done this, the only thing left to do is notify the lucky winner(s) and deliver on your promise!
Giveaways are effective, affordable, and efficient ways to market on social media. Just think about the numbers for a moment. You could be giving away just one hot ticket item, and get thousands of social media likes, comments, shares, and follows because of it.
You get countless new eyes on your page, but at the end of the giveaway, you only have to part with one singular item. That is clearly a huge and worthwhile ROI. Of course, you can scale up your giveaways to include multiple products, services, or experiences and increase your reach even further. The possibilities are endless! Get creative, have fun, and start connecting with more people through the power of social media giveaways.
If you need help running a winning social media giveaway or implementing other smart strategies for social media growth, contact BHirst Media for expert help.
