Hosting a giveaway is an efficient way for any marketer or small business owner to win big with their marketing efforts. You can gain more social media followers, build your email list, and reach untapped markets. Successful sweepstakes cannot happen without the help of the right social media channels.

Did you know that, even in 2014, about 87% of people entered a giveaway via social media?

So it should make sense that if you are going to host a giveaway, social media has to play a significant role in the process. Not only to get the word out about the sweepstakes itself but also, to facilitate it.

You can host your giveaway right on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. And today I want to talk about the variety of campaigns you can run on these three platforms when hosting a sweepstakes or giveaway.

Instagram Giveaway Ideas

Instagram is a platform that values beautiful imagery. Hosting a contest on this platform can be a great way to not only grow your presence here, but also give you the opportunity to build your brand with customer-created content. Any sweepstakes you run should focus on beautiful imagery and should have a great tie to your brand.

Giveaway Idea 1) Best Caption

A ‘Best Caption’ sweepstakes or giveaway involves posting on your Instagram account and asking people to comment on the picture. The goal is to ask people to reply with their best caption for your image. These campaigns are a great way to get engagement on your account.

One of the best parts is that if the audience looks at this one image for you, they are probably more likely to look around at your other content. They may even subscribe! That multiplying factor is why this method is a great way to get quality engagement. After they comment their caption, it is essential to ask them to add their contact information to the sweepstakes link in your Instagram bio, so you have their information in case they win.

Giveaway Idea 2) Tag a Friend

The tag-a-friend giveaway is very similar to the best caption contest, and a great way to get people to involve their friends!

You can host your giveaway that rewards a prize to someone plus one or more friends. But to enter, they must tag a friend they would include if they were to win. The same rule applies when it comes to collecting their contact information with a link in the bio.

Giveaway Idea 3) Tag the Brand in a Product Photo 

Tagging a brand in product photo campaigns are pretty cool since it highlights the brand itself. This one is perfect if you have a physical product. Ask current customers to share a photo of the product on their Instagram account with a special hashtag and a story about their experience with the brand.

Out of the three, this one is my personal favorite. It allows you to get content that you could ask to repost later. When done correctly, this sweepstakes works as mini advertisements on multiple Instagram accounts all for the cost of one good prize. If executed efficiently, this type of giveaway or sweepstakes could have benefits that are long-lasting.

Facebook Giveaway Ideas

With so many people there, Facebook is an excellent platform to host giveaways and sweepstakes. As of December 2017, Facebook reported having 2.2 billion monthly active users. And if you choose to host a giveaway or sweepstakes on this platform, you can run an ad targeting your exact demographic on which you choose to focus. It’s a beautiful platform to use for thoughtful sweepstakes.

Giveaway Idea 1) Ask a Question

Starting by asking a question or three is a pretty easy way to research and host highly relevant sweepstakes right on Facebook. The question can relate to the products you sell, such as, “How do you use X product?” You could run the sweepstakes for a few days and give a prize randomly to one of the people who answer.

I like this method too because it gives a brand insight into how your audience thinks.

Make sure to get each person’s contact information as well, by having them submit a sweepstakes form. This way, not only can you select your winner, but you can also follow up with some of them to get more feedback at another time.

Giveaway Idea 1) Submit a Selfie Contest

Running a selfie campaign is also a good idea because it opens the possibility to get cool content from your audience on Facebook. Ask your audience to post a selfie with your product on your facebook page. This way, it gets exposure to your brand from several accounts.

Giveaway Idea 1) Create a Photo Contest

Similar to the last format, this sweepstakes style asks your audience to post their best photo of your product or an event, etc. But it results in great content that you may be able to ask to use at a later time.

Develop and work with a unique hashtag as well. You can randomly select a winner using the Winner Picker tool when the campaign ends.

Twitter Giveaway Ideas

Of all the social media platforms, Twitter has the potential to make it easy for it to go viral in no time at all. Since it is so easy to tweet and retweet a message, you can quickly spread the word about your sweepstakes. Just include the details of your giveaway in an image since tweets with a photo typically see about a 35% boost in retweets than tweets with no photo. Then, add the details of how to enter in the caption.

“Just include the details of your giveaway in an image since tweets with a photo typically see about a 35% boost in retweets than tweets with no photo”

From there, you are all set! Below are a few ways to host a giveaway on Twitter.

Giveaway Idea 1) Host a Hashtag Contest

Twitter is huge about hashtags. And they are a great tool to host a giveaway. Using the Woobox hashtag entry method, you can create a hashtag that fits your brand and ask anyone who participates in the campaign to share it.

If it goes viral (fingers crossed that it does) it could turn into a trending hashtag on the homepage of Twitter. So it pays to have a great gift to give away.

Remember: having a hashtag for your giveaway on Twitter is essential to it being found there. So don’t forget the crucial step of creating one and using it — especially if you make a Woobox UGC Contest with hashtag entry enabled.

Giveaway Idea 2) Retweet to win

Asking your customers to retweet to participate is a great strategy. Not only because it gets your brand out to more people, but because it is so easy to retweet.

Ask them to retweet in order to enter and also turn in their contact information in case they win. But Twitter makes it so simple to share content. So that makes it perfect for hosting a sweepstakes, giveaway or instant win contest.

Giveaway Idea 3) Retweet, Like and/or Reply to Win

Lastly, consider doing a giveaway or sweepstakes where you allow people to not only retweet but also to reply and like the post in order to win. This way not only do you get more exposure for your brand, you also get more meaningful brand engagement.

Remind your audience that they can do one or all of these actions (retweet, like and reply) for more entries in the sweepstakes.

Wrapping Up

Social media is essential to running successful sweepstakes. And if you want it to be successful, I highly suggest using all the platforms to bring awareness to whatever type of sweepstakes you decide to do. But they all have the ability to do well!

Hosting sweepstakes can be as simple as signing up for a free Woobox account. You can embed sweepstakes on Facebook, choose winners randomly, and run polls. And the best part is that you can run as many giveaways or quizzes you like. Sign up for a free account here.