Hosting a giveaway sounds fun and exciting, but the crux of the situation is to choose the correct and fair way to pick a winner. There are many ways you can decide to select your giveaway winner. The only criteria for your methods should be unbiased, fair, and not breaking any laws.
Seven steps on how to pick an Instagram giveaway winner:
- Research the state laws and regulations before hosting the giveaway. Typically, state laws are against running lotteries, so it is best to avoid running an illegal lottery.
- Read through Instagram terms and conditions for hosting giveaways.
- Ask yourself, “What do I want to achieve at the end of this giveaway?”
- Come up with eligibility criteria for those who can participate in the giveaway.
- Determine how long the giveaway will last and when the winner will be announced
- Revise the rules and regulations for the giveaway and finally posting it on your Instagram page
- Pick a method to choose your winner for the giveaway and announce the winner at the end of the giveaway.
Different ways to choose a winner for an Instagram giveaway:
Comment picker applications
You can ask your followers / the giveaway participants to tag their friends in the comment section under the giveaway post. If you are hosting your giveaway intending to get these comments , you can use a comment picker to choose one comment from your post as the winner at random.
This shows no bias and is entirely random.
One famous comment picker is the Woobox Instagram Comment Picker. This marketing app can be integrated with your Instagram account for choosing comments after the giveaway is over. You can also use this app for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.
Manual comment picking:
This also deals with comments on the giveaway post but not at random. This method works well if you have asked your participants to comment on something related to the giveaway. Hence, they are adding personal opinions and unique answers that can be judged and perceived by you. You have the authority to choose which comment you liked the best and choose the winner accordingly. This method is purely based on quality and not so much as a tool to earn lots of followers or increase engagement.
Highest likes:
Like the previous two, this also depends on the comments that the participants leave under the post’s comment section. However, instead of randomly selecting the winning comment or the comment which was liked the most by the giveaway hosts, this method deals with the number of likes. For instance, you can ask the participants to tag their friends under the post and tell them that whoever gets the most likes will win the giveaway. Hence, they can ask their friends whom they have tagged to come to your page and leave a like on their comments. The person who gets the highest number of likes on their comment wins the giveaway.
Dos and don’ts of hosting an Instagram giveaway:
Dos:
- Post a list of all the official rules you have come up with.
- Announce the eligibility criteria
- Meet the terms and conditions of state-federal laws
- Announce that Instagram is not a part of the giveaway contest, nor is it a sponsor or an associate
- Incorporate a release of Instagram from all the participants.
Don’ts
- Don’t use irrelevant tags under your post, and don’t let your participants do it either
- Don’t host a lottery in the guise of a giveaway. The repercussions for illegal lotteries are high.
How can I contact the winner of the Instagram giveaway?
After the giveaway is over and your winner has been chosen, you can announce this in your story. Of course, you will have to tag them in your story/post to get notified. The most common rules for Instagram giveaways consist of following the account or tuning on notifications. Hence, when the participant wins, they will automatically be notified of your announcement.
You can go the extra mile and contact them personally, or you can even ask them to do you first in the announcement.
If your giveaway has more than one winner, you can create a registration form that the participants have to fill up. Especially when it comes to apparel or makeup giveaways, you need to contact the participants for their size and color preferences if it was part of your giveaway plan. After creating the form, you can send the winners the form link to claim their prizes. After you get their shipping and contact information, you can send them their prizes.
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