As you have probably noticed recently, more and more brands are using giveaways to drive significant traffic to their sites, increasing their social media followers, and building their email lists faster than ever. 

Giveaways have proven themselves to be massive engagement boosters for the brands that host them, which is precisely why you’re seeing an increasing amount of them in the past few months. 

 

Why Should You Host a Social Media Giveaway?

• They are becoming noticeably more popular on all the major social media platforms, such as Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. 
• They are allowing brands to reach a broader audience than ever before, using their ideal client’s favourite social media platforms.
• By reaching a broader audience, brands can build their following and reach new potential customers. 

 Apart from being totally amazing in regards to boosting your social media, giveaways are also useful for:

• Leading potential clients to your website
• Building your email lists
• Getting people to sign up for your memberships
• Driving people towards your physical shop

 

How to Host a Social Media Giveaway

A social media giveaway may or may not seem like the easiest thing in the world for you to do, especially compared to all the other things you’re juggling. But, there are several things you need to be mindful of when hosting a giveaway, especially if you want it to be a major success.

The most crucial elements of a social media giveaway are:

• Planning It
• Choosing a Prize
• Launching and Promoting It
• Evaluation

For the best results, you will have to ensure that your giveaway is well planned, has an excellent prize, and properly promoted. 

 

Planing your Giveaway

Planning is essential when comes to anything, right? 

When it comes to planning a giveaway, you’ve got to get clear on the why and who it is for. 

The first step to doing this is to get crystal clear on what your goals are.

 

Choose a Goal and Entry Method

We know there is a tonne of benefits to hosting a giveaway. 

If your goal to gain more followers on social media, then you can request that to enter the contest, users must follow you on the social media account that you choose.

If your main goal is to build your email list, then you can invite applicants to the contest by signing up for your mailing list via your website.

There are multiples of ways you could have people enter, but to make things easier for them, it’s best to have a single entry method with optional ‘bonus entries’. This way, users can submit their email to enter, if that is your primary goal, then if they want, they can submit additional entries to boost their chances of winning. Bonus entries (follow us, visit our website, etc.) can be actions related to your other goals. 

 

Choose a Prize

When choosing the prizes for your giveaway, you want a prize that will get people excited about it.

Probably the most crucial factor of choosing a prize is ensuring that the prize attracts the right audience. If you do choose a general product like a microphone or an expensive throw rug, you will probably get tonnes of entries. But, will all those people be interested in your brand, or only the prize? 

It’s best to choose a prize that your dream client would find desirable and useful, something of value to your specific niche. By doing this, not only do your readers feel like they’re going to win something awesome, but they’ll get the sense that you actually really care about them. 

 

Launch and Promote Your Giveaway

Once you’ve made it through the planning stage, have chosen your giveaway prize, and method of entry, you can then begin your launch! It’s time to start promoting, babe! 

If you are hosting a giveaway on LinkedIn, IG or FB, you’ll need to create an announcement post to let everyone know you’re hosting it.

Your goal for this post is for it to basically go viral. The more comments, likes, and shares the post gets, the more people are likely to see it. 

If all the attention you’re getting is from your ideal clients, then people who follow them are probably going to be interested in it too! 

If your post does have a lot of engagement, then the post will become even more visible to your followers.

Getting people to share your post is crucial, you can ask your followers to comment, like, tag a friend, and share your post. If someone shares your post on Facebook, then their friends and followers will be able to view your post, too! This will increase your post’s reach even further. Woop!

 

Promote, Promote, Promote!

It would be best if you didn’t let a single post on social media determine the success of your giveaway. Use it as an opportunity to start a conversation with your current client base and other potential leads.

Giveaways hosted on social media are an excellent opportunity for people to discover your brand. 

Use the giveaway to attract people to your brand, your products, and your website. If you already have marketing channels set up, use them to promote it.

Don’t forget to design an eye-catching banner for your giveaway. Pro tip: create one banner design and repurpose it for multiple channels by adjusting the image dimensions.  

 

 

Some of the more standard marketing channels used to promote a giveaway are:

Email

If you already have an established email list, you can send out an email to everyone on that list to announce your giveaway. 

You can use these emails as an opportunity to lead traffic to your website as well by adding links at the bottom of the mail.

 

Blog

If your website has a developed blog section, then you can create a post specifically for the giveaway. List everything that needs to be known about it including rules, closing date, and the date winners will be announced. You can then direct traffic from other blogs or social media to this blog post. If the prize is your product, then you can place a link to that product within the blog post.

 

Influencer Marketing

If you are hosting an Instagram giveaway, then perhaps you could partner up with an Instagram influencer who can help you to promote it on the platform.

 

Paid/sponsored posts 

If you are looking to boost your giveaway post early on, then you could invest a small amount of cash and boost it. This will help you to get the word out early on and will also allow you to reach an audience outside of your current followers.

Social media giveaways are definitely worth the time and effort. Apart from achieving multiple goals, they are fun and engaging for your audience and also great for brand building. If you plan and manage your giveaway correctly, you will increase your chances of attracting quality leads for your business.

 

We go into this topic (and just about every other topic you could think of related to rocking your biz) over in the Rebel Office Resource Library, our evergrowing collection of success series dedicated to diving right into the things you need to know to master every aspect of your business. Inside, you will find a vast range of exclusive resources, downloadables, and a virtual co-working space for women just like you.