The Problem With Giveaway Contests On Instagram
Giveaway contests are the oldest growth trick on Instagram. Follow the page, like the post, tag three friends, and you might win a phone, a hamper or a year's supply of something. Indian brands of every size still run them, because the follower count goes up almost immediately. The trouble is what happens after the winner is announced.
A contest buys attention. It rarely buys an audience.
Why giveaway contests look like they work
The numbers are real. A page can add thousands of followers in a weekend, the post collects more comments than anything else on the grid, and the report to the client looks excellent.
But look at who arrived. Many of the new followers are people who enter every contest they see, and some are accounts that exist mainly to enter contests. They followed for the prize. When it goes to someone else, they have no reason to care about the brand, and plenty of them unfollow or simply stop seeing its posts.
A giveaway fills the room with people who came for the door prize.
The hidden cost to reach
Instagram decides who sees a post partly on how people respond to what the account has shared before. A page that has swollen with disinterested followers can find that its ordinary posts reach a smaller share of its audience, because a large part of that audience never reacts.
So the brand ends up with a bigger number and a weaker page. Engagement rates fall, the next campaign looks worse than the last one, and the temptation is to run another contest to lift the numbers again.
What the rules actually say
Instagram's promotion guidelines are short, and they put the responsibility on whoever runs the contest. The brand must run it lawfully, its official rules must state that Instagram is not associated with the promotion, and it must not encourage people to tag content inaccurately.
That last point catches many "tag three friends" posts, which reward tagging people who have nothing to do with the content. And because prize promotions can raise legal questions in India depending on how winners are picked, a contest deserves a look from legal before it goes live, not after a complaint.
How to run one that helps
Pick a prize only a real customer would want. A limited edition of the brand's own product attracts people who like the product. A smartphone attracts everybody.
Ask for an entry that takes a little effort, such as a short answer, a photo of how someone uses the product, or a recipe. Fewer people enter, and the ones who do are far more likely to stay. For what to do with the comments that follow, see our piece on community management when the replies are generated.
And judge the contest a month later, not on the day. The useful number is how many of the new followers are still engaging after the prize has gone.
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