What's The Difference Between A Contest, Lottery, Sweepstakes & Giveaway?

Why Instagram giveaways?

Instagram followers and engagement are getting harder to come by, but Instagram giveaways are among the best ways to grow a loyal and engaged following.

Why Instagram giveaways?

Let's be honest: Instagram giveaways are ads.

If you're a Creator, they're ads for your content.
If you're a Business, they're ads for your products or services.
Ads should get people interested in what you do: capture attention and generate engagement, especially directed engagement. Nothing does this better than a well-run Instagram giveaway.

 

Why read this Instagram giveaway guide?
Instagram accounts that do giveaways grow 70% faster than those that don't.
Instagram giveaway posts get 4X more engagement than non-giveaway posts.
In a survey of over 50,000 Instagram posts, of those that received more than 1,000 comments, over 90% were giveaways.
Giveaway posts on Instagram get 60X more comments than regular posts.
Learn how POPSMASH can help you track giveaways, pick winners, see your stats and grow faster.

What are Instagram giveaways?

Instagram giveaways are promotions (usually sweepstakes) that last for a short time. At the end of the giveaway period, a winner(s) is selected based on the giveaway's entry criteria.

Instagram giveaway entry criteria can include things such as following the host's profile, liking the post, commenting, tagging friends, and more. We'll talk more about how to choose entry criteria later.

Instagram giveaway prizes can include anything from gift cards to free company products and services. If a brand is hosting the giveaway, they will typically give away their products. We will cover how to pick a giveaway prize in the section about running a giveaway.

 

What's the difference between a contest, lottery, sweepstakes & giveaway?
It's common to use these terms interchangeably, and it's usually no big deal, except when you're running a giveaway! Why? Because there are legal implications to each that we should be careful about. "Giveaway" is the most appropriate term in this case. Here's a quick summary of what each one means:

Contest: Based on some type of skill or merit where the winner is decided based on competition.
Lottery: Requires a purchase or payment to be eligible for entry to win a prize. Think state lotteries, Powerball, etc.
Sweepstakes: Winners are chosen randomly (by luck/chance) and can enter for free. You cannot charge a fee for entry; otherwise, this becomes a type of lottery, which can have legal implications.
Giveaway: Giveaways are a type of sweepstakes (just a more modern twist). Thus, entry must also be free (like sweepstakes), with a random winner.

Why do an Instagram giveaway?

Instagram giveaways are among the best ways to grow your followers, increase engagement, and build loyalty with your customers. Creators, big brands, small businesses, and more all do Instagram giveaways due to the excellent ROI.

4 reasons why Instagram giveaways should be part of your marketing strategy:

Those who do giveaways grow 70% faster than those that don't.
Giveaways get 60X more comments than regular posts.
Of posts that get more than 1,000 comments, nearly 90% are giveaways.
Giveaway posts get 4X more engagement than non-giveaway posts.

Get new followers with Instagram giveaways
Giveaways are among the best ways to grow followers. But the type of giveaway you do (especially the entry criteria) has a significant impact on how well it will perform.

For example, to drive growth, you'll want to include entry criteria that require entrants to tag multiple friends. Why? Because their friends are likely to be similar to them, which means a good fit for your brand.

You want to attract followers that'll stick with you long term (not unfollow immediately after the giveaway) and are interested in your content—not just any followers. Giveaways focused on your niche are best at achieving this, which we'll talk more about later.

Increase engagement with Instagram giveaways
Giveaways are among the best ways to increase engagement on Instagram. The type of giveaway you run will also factor into your success here. For example, you'll want to include liking, sharing, and commenting among your giveaway entry criteria to increase your engagement rate.

Reward loyal followers/customers & build stronger relationships with giveaways on Instagram
If you have a loyal customer base, you'll want to reward them from time to time with giveaways they can enter to win. For giveaways like these, sometimes it's more effective to give away lower-priced prizes to more people (multiple winners), especially for local businesses with local customers and simpler logistics for distributing prizes.

Celebrate milestones with your customers & followers using giveaways
Celebrating milestones like 1,000,000 followers (see example below), new releases, or other personal or company milestones, it's a great time to celebrate with your customers and followers. It also gives your giveaway purpose, which creates more momentum and excitement around your giveaway.

Instagram giveaway mistakes

We've covered a lot of information so far. Most Instagram giveaways do pretty well as long as they avoid making significant mistakes. So, let's review the top 8 most common issues that could hurt your giveaway results.

The top 8 reasons your Instagram giveaway will fail:

Below is a summary of the eight most common errors to avoid when running your Instagram giveaway. Then we'll go into more detail on each of these and how to avoid them.

Using the wrong prize
Behaving unethically or unfairly (even by mistake)
Having complex rules/entry criteria
Participating in "loop giveaways"
Inadequately promoting your giveaway
Making your giveaway too short or too long
Using generic hashtags that attract spammers
Failing to keep new followers engaged and let them slip away

The Instagram Giveaway Guide: How to Grow Followers & Engagement with Giveaways on Instagram in 2021.

https://www.popsmash.com/instagram-giveaway-guide

This is the most comprehensive guide to Instagram Giveaways ever. You'll learn everything you need to know about running Instagram giveaways to earn more followers and drive more engagement than you ever thought possible.