How to Run an Instagram Contest Successfully (7 Easy Steps)

Do you want to create an engaging Instagram contest that people want to take part in? 

Are you getting less engagement in your Instagram handle? 

What if I told you – I can help you create an Instagram contest that gets much more engagement than a regular post. Plus, it’ll help you build a new audience base as well?

Would you be interested in learning more? 

If you’ve said yes, then in this post, I’ll be showing you step by step how you can create and run successful Instagram content without breaking your head.

Sounds good? 

Let’s dive in. 

Before diving right into – “how-to,” let’s understand why you must run an Instagram contest. 

Some reasons are as follows – 

Growing on Instagram is quite hard for new companies that basically do not have any audience base.

Nobody knows you. Right? 

So how can they follow you? 

And you want people to know you. But how?

The simple answer to all these questions is: Run a contest and give away something valuable for FREE. 

Customers love freebies. 

And by running a contest, you can create brand awareness and trust – as your potential customers have to pay you nothing. 

So your potential customers have no risk. 

Plus, you’re building a customer base by giving away freebies.

If your product is great enough, you’ll get noticed pretty quickly.

Giveaway contests are one of the best strategies to engage your existing followers and gain some new ones. 

The interested ones who know you and follow you will comment and share, which will boost your Instagram reach, and eventually, you’ll get noticed by so many new audiences.

Moreover, setting contest rules and asking your audience to tag 3 of their friends helps get new followers. 

When you’re giving away freebies as a contest, it’s a no loss or no risk for your potential customer. 

Here’s what I mean – 

Suppose you own a cosmetic company and want to gain clients. You can give away any cosmetic product to your potential client. 

If the product didn’t work, it’s a no-loss for them as they didn’t pay for it. 

But if your product works – they would love to pay for your product in the future and will become a lifelong customer.

To test new products. 

If your business produces new products quite often, you can test the product reviews from your customer by giving away your new product as a freebie. 

In return, you’ll get an honest review + scope of improvement in your product. 

Here are some cool Instagram contest ideas that you can copy-paste for your business. 

Disclaimer: These examples are all practical and have the potential to work for your business as well. 

You might have seen, or your friend might have tagged you in some giveaway post. 

If you don’t, here’s how it looks like – 

If you look closely, You’ll find they have mentioned “Tag your girlfriends” – it’s a call to action. 

Like it’s saying, if you want to win the gift or contest, you need to tag your friend. 

By tagging, you’ll get more reach and visibility in the market. And that’s what the goal is – for a business owner. Isn’t it? 

Bottomline – Always use a call to action of – “Tag your three friends” in your contest to increase your post reach and engagement.

Stories are the limelight of Instagram.

And if you want to get the most out of Instagram, you have to start taking Instagram stories seriously.

But how can you use Instagram stories for your contest?

If you create a contest rule that only those who share and tag your Instagram handle in their story will be eligible for the contest, your audience will have no other option than to share (if they want to win the contest). 

This way, you’re reaching more people and opening many opportunities for the future. 

And you know – it costs you $0 to share the post in your story. 

Likes, comments, and follows are crucial metrics that Instagram looks at before giving a post tremendous reach. 

After the first few minutes of your posting – Instagram promotes only 10% of your most engaged following. 

If they engage again with your post, Instagram makes it available to most of your followers. 

And if those top engaged 10% dislike the post, Instagram decreases your reach. 

So make sure you’re posting quality post so that 10% of your most engaged audience like your post (comment and share would be GREAT). 

And if you give a call to action like – Like and comment on your post as an eligibility criterion for the contest. 

People are going to like your post.

And that way, you’ll get tremendous reach on your post.

Here’s an example of the same mentioned below.

Instagram is full of influencers. 

But not those who have 1000 followers and talk shit. 

Even with 500 followers who talk positive and informative things is an influencer. 

People trust and love to listen to them. 

So how can you leverage an influencer’s audience to build your Instagram handle? 

Answer – Collaboration. 

You can reach out to influencers or agencies who can connect you to other influencers around your niche.

And then, you can ask those influencers to promote your giveaways or contests.

Why? 

Because most influencers already have a massive and loyal audience base.

And by taking advantage of their audience base, you can not only create a successful contest but can reach thousands of new audiences without putting in too much effort.

Now that you know why you must run an Instagram contest, let’s get into steps on how you can create a successful Instagram contest. 

The first step is to define a goal. 

What do you expect after the contest is over? 

Is it the increase in follower count? Is it the conversion of potential clients into paying clients? Is it the increase in engagement? 

Have a clear goal – Set a metric to judge your success in the campaign. 

When you set an expectation, you work accordingly. If it’s more followers – you’ll work to get more followers. 

And at the last step, you’ll be able to judge your campaign’s success. 

If your business is new, try to build more engagement. Don’t try harder on JUST SALES. 

Yes, sales are significant, but engaging your potential client is way more important. 

Nurturing will bring more sales than simply selling and selling. 

The next step is to create a proper process for your potential contest winner (future) to participate. 

If your contest looks like a regular post, why would anyone even take time to read it all? They’ll leave. 

A proper process for your contest will: 

• Help you select a more serious audience. 
• Select a deserving winner. 
• Save time from irrelevant participants. 
• And grow your audience much faster. 

When you develop a method – only the ones who read your post will take part. 

It’ll blacklist the irrelevant participants – who add no value. 

Which in turn helps you select a deserving candidate who adds value to your business/contest. 

Here comes an exciting part. That is to decide the prize. 

What will your audience get if they won the contest? 

Let it be a product or service; it must be premium. Which lusts the shit out of your audience. 

That your audience wants your product or service no matter what. 

Let’s say – You sell premium gift items. 

So, what lusty things can you create to make your audience win the Instagram contest? 

You can give away the most remarkable product in your store along with unique, attractive gift packaging.

That’s how you can create your business USP and giveaway. 

All you need to make sure is that the prize is something premium, or people will not pay attention. 

Now that you know what the winner will get in a giveaway. You also need to have a process through which the winner will be selected. 

Right? 

The first way is to do it manually. 

Manually you can check who followed your rules randomly and adequately draw a lottery of the name of the person who won the contest. 

And make a live video and publish it.

But this takes a hell lot of work and wastes out a lot of your precious time as well.

However, you also have an option these days to skip this manual winner picking work and let AI do it for you.

There are some Instagram contest winner selector tools out there like Simpliers where you can set the rules of your contest, and the AI will pick an automatic winner for you. 

You can go live on your Instagram and make the participants join and perform a live winner selection session. 

This way, you’ll not only pick a winner but engage with your audience live. 

Now that you’ve decided how you’re going to pick up your potential winner. 

It’s time to know how you’re going to promote your contest so that more people can take part in that. And your Instagram handle grows. 

Even though it’s an Instagram contest, but that doesn’t mean you cannot promote it on other platforms. 

There are tons of other popular platforms where you can promote your Instagram contest.

I know I don’t have to tell you the platform names, but – It’s Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp stories, youtube shorts, and whatnot. 

Promote your contest heavily on these platforms. 

This way, you’re not just getting reach from Instagram. But other platforms as well. 

You want to grow your Instagram handle as well, right? So using other platform sources works well if done with correctly. 

Simply running a contest might not work for you. 

It would be best if you had a follow-up plan to remind your audience what they’re missing.  

If your contest is getting only likes and not enough comments and inquiries. 

You can create an Instagram ad via Facebook, re-target your audience, and ask them to comment or follow the rules to be eligible for the contest. 

This way, you can reach the audience who’ve liked your post as well as other potential audiences that might be interested in what you have to offer. 

Once the deadline of the contest is over, what you have to do is analyze the result. 

Go back to step 1.

There you have set the metric using which you’ll judge your campaign’s success. 

Check your Instagram account’s insight section. 

And compare your account before and after the contest. 

Plus, check if your goal (which was more followers or engagement or story mentions) is completed or not. 

Suppose the goal checklist has the ticks. Congrats, your campaign was successful. 

If not, then look for more opportunities that you can improve.

There you go.

We hope now you know the benefits of running an Instagram contest and how you can run your very own contest pretty easily.

Running an Instagram contest is an outstanding way to expand your reach, grow your following and improve your branding.

Now that you know how you can create an Instagram contest, it’s time to get the ball rolling.

So follow all the steps that we’ve mentioned in this post and launch your first contest now.