How to Host a Useful Social Media Giveaway

If you’ve established a steady presence on social media and you’d like to earn your page some fresh attention, consider hosting a giveaway! This is a great opportunity for your business to stir up new interest in its products or services, offering something free to a winner in exchange for plenty of engagement on social media. Giving your followers, fans, and new viewers a reason to spread the word about your business like this can be helpful in increasing your audience and drawing people to your page to engage!

Here’s how we recommend setting up your giveaway:

1. Decide what you’ll put up for grabs. Ensure this is something that you won’t mind giving to someone for free, whether it’s a product that won’t cost much or an amount of time that you’ll find to be well spent.

2. Create an image to announce your giveaway! Try to ensure that the image has a relevant picture of your giveaway prize, a title, and that it’s both eye-catching and easy to understand.

3. Make posts about your giveaway! Of course, no one will know to join unless you post about it. Make at least one post about your giveaway, but consider making an additional 1-2 over time to remind people to join in. These posts should go across all of the social media platforms you use, even if it’s primarily held on just one– in that case, use your other platforms to drive traffic to that platform!

3. Include contest information and rules in your post. People will need to know how to join and you are best served if you use the contest as a chance to spread word about your business. We recommend including the following information/contest rules in your post:

– What exactly is up for giveaway
– How to enter to win (we recommend the LIKE, FOLLOW, COMMENT, TAG, and/or SHARE strategy)
– When the giveaway ends
– Any restrictions as to who can win

4. Make sure to hashtag your post! This will help get your contest post in front of the most people possible. Use relatable words and short phrases that relate to your business and the giveaway itself. When in doubt, take a look at what hashtags are being used through a search!

5. Reply to any questions, comments, and all entries! Engage with this new audience by replying as your business to everyone who takes part or comments on the contest. This can help start to form the customer connections that you’re hoping to make online.

Lastly, reap the benefits! If you’ve run a successful contest, you’ll hopefully have an increase in engagement, follows, and plenty of new mentions about your business across social media. For help in creating a contest or running a social media strategy for your own business, the team at i3 Media Solutions is here to help! No matter your marketing needs, we’ve got you covered. You can set up a free consultation from our Facebook page!