Running competitions on Instagram can help build brand awareness, increase your number of followers and can potentially lead to more sales if the competition strategy is executed correctly. That being said, it is important to plan contests and competitions and have clear goals in mind. Here are a few tips to help you plan and run a successful Instagram competition.
Start off with making a list of the marketing goals you want to achieve. Do you purely want to increase the number of followers you have on Instagram? Your goals will in part determine what type of competition you’re going to run. Here are a few examples:
- Like to win – entrants need to like a specific photo to enter
- Follow to win – entrants need to follow your account to enter the competition
- Comment to win – entrants need to comment on a specific post to enter
- Regram to win – entrants will regram your post to enter the competition
- Post a photo to win – entrants need to post a photo and make use of a specific hash tag in order to enter the competition
Make it easy for people to enter your Instagram competition. If you require entrants to go through a lot of steps, make sure your prize is worth the effort.
If one of your goals is to increase brand awareness, get entrants to post a specific caption to their photo. The caption should include your brand’s Instagram handle and the competition’s hash tag. Your competition’s hash tag needs to be something unique so that it can easily be searched on Instagram. Make sure that the hash tag is not already in use by doing a quick search on Instagram.
Once you have sorted out the planning aspect of the competition, you’ll need to kick off and promote the competition through your other marketing channels. Post about the Instagram competition on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and your website or blog.
Have you seen any interesting Instagram competitions or have more tips to add? Let me know in the comments.