Reasons Why Instagram Giveaways Fail and How to Fix Them
Instagram is one of the world’s leading social media platforms with over 2 billion users and it generated over $43 billion in ad revenue in 2022. This shows how important the platform is for brands and influencers alike to grow their business and name far and wide. One thing that helps in meeting this goal is running an Instagram giveaway. Instagram giveaways are a popular marketing tactic used by brands and influencers to grow their audience and increase engagement. When executed properly, giveaways can help you gain new followers, promote your products, and connect with your target market. However, there are several common mistakes that lead to Instagram giveaways failing to achieve the desired results.
Common Causes of Instagram Giveaway Failures and How to Rectify Them
Not all Instagram giveaways are destined to bring laurels to the brand. However, if the brand is aware of the possible pitfalls it can leverage the power of the Instagram giveaways for furthering its goals. In this blog post, we’ll explore the top reasons Instagram giveaways fail and provide tips to help you create successful giveaways that deliver real results.
Wrong Giveaway Prize Selection
Choosing an unappealing or low-value prize is one of the biggest mistakes brands make with Instagram giveaways. Furthermore, you'll struggle to get engagement if the prize isn’t exciting enough for your audience. The right prize will lure the audience and will make the difference between the good virality and the poor virality of the giveaway. Building a brand on Instagram requires patience and strategy which includes an awesome prize selection as the starting point.
Solution:
Prizes like gift cards, free products, and cash tend to generate the most entries. Make sure to choose a prize related to your brand that will truly excite your followers. So here again reiterated is to offer prizes your audience genuinely wants - think cash, experiences, your products, etc. The better the prize, the better the participation.
Complicated Entry Requirements
Requiring too many steps to enter like tagging friends, following multiple accounts, sharing posts, etc can discourage participation. Data shows that elaborate and extended entry requirements correlate with poor user participation. Users generally have a lot to choose from as there are many contests and giveaways that are running simultaneously. They don’t have enough time to carefully peruse through the entry requirements. They will just leave the page if the requirements seem too complicated and unfathomable.
Solution:
The easier you make it to enter your giveaway, the more entries you’ll receive. Keep the entry process simple by only requiring 1-2 easy actions like liking, commenting, or tagging a friend. One golden rule is to draft entry requirements that are easily understood in first perusal as users wouldn’t take the pain to dig deeper in order to understand.
Not Promoting the Giveaway
More than simply posting the giveaway on your feed is required. Some people invest so much energy into organizing giveaways and contests that they put all their eggs in one basket and deprive themselves of the opportunity to promote the giveaway rightly. Not promoting the giveaway will limit the reach of the contest to a wider pool of audience.
Solution:
You must put effort into promoting the giveaway through stories, tags, hashtags, and influencer marketing. Run paid ads to reach a larger audience if your budget allows. Promoting the giveaway daily throughout the entry period is key for maximum reach. A correct promotion strategy holds the key to making the giveaway post go viral. Promote the giveaway frequently through your Instagram stories, posts, IGTV, and influencers.
Limiting Entry Period and Lack of Clarity Around Rules
Giveaways with entry periods of less than 3-5 days rarely perform well. You need to allow enough time for your audience to see the giveaway and enter. Anything less than 3 days provides too small of a window for your followers to participate. Furthermore, the official rules of your giveaway must be clearly outlined in the giveaway post or story. Details like entry requirements, entry period dates, eligibility restrictions, winner selection process, and prize details should be easy to find. This avoids confusion and shows your followers the giveaway is legitimate.
Solution:
Ideally, run your giveaways for 5-7 days or longer to allow plenty of time for entries. The extended time gives breathing space to the contest. More the time, the more the chances of the giveaway going viral. Don’t extend it too long for like more than 10 days otherwise, it will lose its sheen. Moreover Share official rules covering eligibility, selection process, prize details, and other terms.
Not Tagging or Mentioning the Brand Sponsoring Prizes
If brand partners are sponsoring giveaway prizes, you need to properly tag and mention them in the giveaway posts and stories. Not doing so will leave you bereft of leveraging the social media presence of the brand. Brand partners want recognition in exchange for contributing prizes. At last be vary of the procedures and conduct associated with the brands. It is imperative that you are well aware of Instagram giveaway do’s and don’ts for better management of the contest.
Solution:
Tag and mention brands as much as you can when posting about your giveaway. The more you tag more you will leverage the force of followership of the concerned brand. The technique helps spread the word about the giveaway to their followers, expanding your reach and entries.
Infrequent Giveaways Running giveaways too infrequently leads to lower engagement over time. Your audience will forget about your giveaways if you only run them every few months. Infrequent giveaways breed inconsistency and result in a stagnant flow of users visiting your profile. Running a giveaway without a proper long-term strategy and relying on just will is a disaster that often newbies and rookies make.
Solution:
Aim to launch 1-2 new giveaways per month to build consistent excitement among your audience. Draft a long-term strategy of running giveaways in a periodic manner. Attractive prizes make sure that the participants are kept hanged and eagerly wait for the next contest. Track your progress with each successful giveaway.
Announcing Winners QuietlyAnnouncing giveaway winners via DM or tiny text in a story fails to generate excitement. Winners deserve recognition and enthusiasm. The announcement of the winner should reverberate in as many ears as possible. Announcing the winner should be seen as another sort of promotion. This makes participants eager to enter your next giveaway.
Solution:
Repost your giveaway image announcing the lucky winner in CAPS along with their winning comment/post. Promote the results as much as possible. It is also important to choose the winner with the help of an Instagram giveaway picker tool to make the contest more legitimate and just. The picker tool is the most comprehensive and ideal way of selecting the winners as it does away with the biases that humans have.
Conclusion
Instagram giveaways are a fun, easy way to grow awareness, engage your followers, and partner with brands when done right. Avoid common giveaway mistakes by offering an exciting prize, simplifying entry steps, extensively promoting your giveaway, allowing ample entry time, clearly outlining rules, properly tagging partners, announcing winners with enthusiasm, and running frequent contests. Using these giveaway best practices will help you achieve real results and success on Instagram.
Common Causes of Instagram Giveaway Failures and How to Rectify Them
Not all Instagram giveaways are destined to bring laurels to the brand. However, if the brand is aware of the possible pitfalls it can leverage the power of the Instagram giveaways for furthering its goals. In this blog post, we’ll explore the top reasons Instagram giveaways fail and provide tips to help you create successful giveaways that deliver real results.
Wrong Giveaway Prize Selection
Choosing an unappealing or low-value prize is one of the biggest mistakes brands make with Instagram giveaways. Furthermore, you'll struggle to get engagement if the prize isn’t exciting enough for your audience. The right prize will lure the audience and will make the difference between the good virality and the poor virality of the giveaway. Building a brand on Instagram requires patience and strategy which includes an awesome prize selection as the starting point.
Solution:
Prizes like gift cards, free products, and cash tend to generate the most entries. Make sure to choose a prize related to your brand that will truly excite your followers. So here again reiterated is to offer prizes your audience genuinely wants - think cash, experiences, your products, etc. The better the prize, the better the participation.
Complicated Entry Requirements
Requiring too many steps to enter like tagging friends, following multiple accounts, sharing posts, etc can discourage participation. Data shows that elaborate and extended entry requirements correlate with poor user participation. Users generally have a lot to choose from as there are many contests and giveaways that are running simultaneously. They don’t have enough time to carefully peruse through the entry requirements. They will just leave the page if the requirements seem too complicated and unfathomable.
Solution:
The easier you make it to enter your giveaway, the more entries you’ll receive. Keep the entry process simple by only requiring 1-2 easy actions like liking, commenting, or tagging a friend. One golden rule is to draft entry requirements that are easily understood in first perusal as users wouldn’t take the pain to dig deeper in order to understand.
Not Promoting the Giveaway
More than simply posting the giveaway on your feed is required. Some people invest so much energy into organizing giveaways and contests that they put all their eggs in one basket and deprive themselves of the opportunity to promote the giveaway rightly. Not promoting the giveaway will limit the reach of the contest to a wider pool of audience.
Solution:
You must put effort into promoting the giveaway through stories, tags, hashtags, and influencer marketing. Run paid ads to reach a larger audience if your budget allows. Promoting the giveaway daily throughout the entry period is key for maximum reach. A correct promotion strategy holds the key to making the giveaway post go viral. Promote the giveaway frequently through your Instagram stories, posts, IGTV, and influencers.
Limiting Entry Period and Lack of Clarity Around Rules
Giveaways with entry periods of less than 3-5 days rarely perform well. You need to allow enough time for your audience to see the giveaway and enter. Anything less than 3 days provides too small of a window for your followers to participate. Furthermore, the official rules of your giveaway must be clearly outlined in the giveaway post or story. Details like entry requirements, entry period dates, eligibility restrictions, winner selection process, and prize details should be easy to find. This avoids confusion and shows your followers the giveaway is legitimate.
Solution:
Ideally, run your giveaways for 5-7 days or longer to allow plenty of time for entries. The extended time gives breathing space to the contest. More the time, the more the chances of the giveaway going viral. Don’t extend it too long for like more than 10 days otherwise, it will lose its sheen. Moreover Share official rules covering eligibility, selection process, prize details, and other terms.
Not Tagging or Mentioning the Brand Sponsoring Prizes
If brand partners are sponsoring giveaway prizes, you need to properly tag and mention them in the giveaway posts and stories. Not doing so will leave you bereft of leveraging the social media presence of the brand. Brand partners want recognition in exchange for contributing prizes. At last be vary of the procedures and conduct associated with the brands. It is imperative that you are well aware of Instagram giveaway do’s and don’ts for better management of the contest.
Solution:
Tag and mention brands as much as you can when posting about your giveaway. The more you tag more you will leverage the force of followership of the concerned brand. The technique helps spread the word about the giveaway to their followers, expanding your reach and entries.
Infrequent Giveaways Running giveaways too infrequently leads to lower engagement over time. Your audience will forget about your giveaways if you only run them every few months. Infrequent giveaways breed inconsistency and result in a stagnant flow of users visiting your profile. Running a giveaway without a proper long-term strategy and relying on just will is a disaster that often newbies and rookies make.
Solution:
Aim to launch 1-2 new giveaways per month to build consistent excitement among your audience. Draft a long-term strategy of running giveaways in a periodic manner. Attractive prizes make sure that the participants are kept hanged and eagerly wait for the next contest. Track your progress with each successful giveaway.
Announcing Winners QuietlyAnnouncing giveaway winners via DM or tiny text in a story fails to generate excitement. Winners deserve recognition and enthusiasm. The announcement of the winner should reverberate in as many ears as possible. Announcing the winner should be seen as another sort of promotion. This makes participants eager to enter your next giveaway.
Solution:
Repost your giveaway image announcing the lucky winner in CAPS along with their winning comment/post. Promote the results as much as possible. It is also important to choose the winner with the help of an Instagram giveaway picker tool to make the contest more legitimate and just. The picker tool is the most comprehensive and ideal way of selecting the winners as it does away with the biases that humans have.
Conclusion
Instagram giveaways are a fun, easy way to grow awareness, engage your followers, and partner with brands when done right. Avoid common giveaway mistakes by offering an exciting prize, simplifying entry steps, extensively promoting your giveaway, allowing ample entry time, clearly outlining rules, properly tagging partners, announcing winners with enthusiasm, and running frequent contests. Using these giveaway best practices will help you achieve real results and success on Instagram.
