6 Tips for Hosting an Instagram Loop Giveaway
One of my April goals was to improve the quality of my Instagram feed and grow my followers. After working on my photo composition, taking the time to adjust lighting, and even using my real DSLR to take photos and transfer them to my phone, I decided I was ready to grow my following. I had participated in one instagram loop giveaway before and had so much fun meeting new bloggers and watching my numbers grow, so I wanted to get in on one again. I looked for opportunities, but none were really coming my way and the month was quickly passing me by, so I thought to myself: “Hey Chels, why don’t you just put one together?” So, having virtually no experience, I decided to give it a go.
What’s an instagram loop giveaway? It’s a bunch of people contributing money to a prize. Everyone posts the same image and text with details about the giveaway and how to enter and tags someone else who is participating in their photo. A follower can enter by liking the photo, tapping it to see who is tagged, going to that profile and following them, and repeating the process. The whole idea is that the tags create a big loop of the instagramers putting on the giveaway-you’ll eventually end up at the person you started with!
I learned a ton from hosting the instagram loop giveaway in April and although I ran into a few bumps, I feel like all-in-all the giveaway was a huge success. I made some great friends, gained some new followers and gained confidence in myself to pull of something like running a giveaway! Here are a few tips I would give to anyone who is thinking about hosting their own giveaway:
one: Less is more. Limit how many participants you will involve in the giveaway. I know that I’ve started to enter some giveaways and the loop is taking for-ev-er. I’m not interested in spending 30 minutes following and liking 50 Instagram accounts! I limited my giveaway to 12 fellow bloggers, that way the giveaway prize was still desirable (120 dollars) but it wouldn’t turn people away by taking up all their time trying to complete the loop.
two: Use Paypal to collect buy-ins. I asked everyone who wanted to participate to send me 10.00 through Paypal. It’s secure and easy to send cash that way through a card, check or bank account. I don’t use paypal a ton, so I knew the money would sit there safely until it was time to send out the prize. Also, because our giveaway was for Ulta, I could use my Paypal account directly to pay for the gift card, which prevented delays while waiting the money to transfer from one account to the next.
three: Use Instagram DM. I got this tip from Elizabeth at Downtown Demure and I’m so glad she told me about it! I originally tried to send out information to my participants through email but it was slow and some people don’t check it as often as others. Using DM on Instagram, I can see who has seen the message right away and who I’m still waiting to hear back from and it is much faster.
four: Have everyone on “standby” the time the image goes live. One of my participants had a health scare that prevented her from posting her image on time, which meant that the loop was broken. I was able to contact another one of my participants and had her change her tag so that the loop was complete, but it would have been bad news bears if she wasn’t by her phone to fix her image. No one would have been able to complete the loop.
five: Use a reminder image half-way through your giveaway. I designed an image and sent it out to my participants three days into our giveaway for them to post. By posting a reminder image, people who may not have seen the original post will have the opportunity to enter! I saw a huge second wave of new followers after we posted the reminder image.
six: Delete the image after the giveaway ends. You don’t want people trying to enter after the giveaway ends; that can be really confusing. Others may not have seen the announcement of who won and might message you about who the winner is, which can be a little annoying and depressing to tell them that they didn’t win.
Putting this giveaway together was a TON of work, but I learned so much!
Tell me, have you been part of a giveaway or entered into one of Instagram? What did you like or not like about it? What other tips would you like people like me (who try to run them) to know?
