How to Run a Successful Instagram Contest

06 Sep How to Run a Successful Instagram Contest

By Emily Copp

If I offered you a free flight to your next holiday destination—and all you had to do was post a cool photo of yourself on vacation—would you do it?

I know I would.

That’s the seductive play of the Instagram contest. With very minimal effort, your customers can potentially win cool stuff and maybe show off a little too. In exchange, you get to connect with your audience and get people excited about your brand.

In this post, we’ve outlined easy steps you can follow to run a successful Instagram contest, along with Instagram contest ideas to give you inspiration.

How to create, manage, and measure Instagram contests

1. Set your goals

In order to measure the success of your Instagram contest, you need to set tangible goals with relevant metrics. Depending on what type of contest you run and the goals you set for yourself, you may need to measure totally different things.

For example, if you’re running a contest with the goal of brand awareness, you’ll measure things like follower count, engagement, and website traffic. If you’re running an annual sale associated with the contest, you’ll measure product purchases, year-over-year engagement, and landing page traffic. If you’re not sure where to start, check out our guide on How to Set Strategic Goals for Your Business on Instagram.

2. Choose a contest type

Like to win

The beauty of this contest lies in its simplicity. A like-to-win contest is when you ask users to Like an Instagram photo your brand has posted in order to be entered to win a prize.

Comment to win

A comment-to-win contest is when you ask users to comment on a photo uploaded by your brand for a chance to win a prize. It’s an opportunity for your audience to get creative. For example, brands can pose a question to their audience and choose the best answer as the winner, like you do in a caption contest.

Reposting

A reposting contest is when you ask users to regram Instagram content onto their own feeds for a chance to win a prize.

Tag a friend

A tag-a-friend contest is when you ask users to tag their friend in the comment thread of your brand’s photo for a chance to win a prize.

Photo challenge/user generated content (UGC)

This contest is by far one of the most popular on Instagram. All you have to do is ask users to post a photo on their personal account and use the contest hashtag or tag the brand for a chance to win a prize. View Full Article >>

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