If you’ve never done a social media giveaway, but would like to do one to increase your online audience or raise awareness about your brands and products, it’s easy to do, especially with Woobox’s easy-to-use giveaway tools.
There are a few giveaway strategies: you can either host your own giveaway and promote it solely across your own online channels, or you can work with an influencer or other company to run the giveaway where you sponsor the prize and some promotion. The latter strategy is good when you’d like access to the influencer or brand’s audience to grow your own.
Whether you’d like to host your own giveaway or work as an influencer and partner with a brand, this article will go over the best practices for giveaways and how to successfully plan for an effective giveaway launch, promotion, and fulfillment funnel.
How to Work With Partners on Giveaways
First, you need to decide if you’d like to partner on giveaways with any influencers or other potential partners. The basic best practices will remain the same, but there are a few additional ground rules for working with others on giveaway projects.
If you have an influencer or brand you’d like to work with, make sure all responsibilities and deadlines are clearly outlined in a written document, such as a formal agreement or email. This should outline:
- Who moderates the giveaway
- What the prizes are
- The deadlines for launching, choosing a winner, and sending the prize out
- The legalese and requirements to follow FTC guidelines
- How often each partner will post/promote the giveaway and what to include
- Giveaway hashtags
- Payment for hosting the giveaway, if applicable
- How you and the partner will use entrant’s information and how to disclose to the audience (e.g. you will subscribe their email to your email lists)
These details are also important to decide when running your own giveaway as well. Clarifying everything up front will ensure there’s no confusion and missed deadlines or expectations on both sides.
What Prizes to Give Away
For some companies, deciding what prizes to give away is easy, while with others, it’s a much more difficult task. Some things to consider are:
- Value of the prize
- Benefits of using your own product versus an external product (like an Amazon gift card when you’re not Amazon)
- Fulfillment process (e.g. sending a gift card to the winner’s email is usually a lot easier and less costly than shipping someone a piece of furniture or another large prize)
- Prize description in the contest form: make sure users know exactly what they are entering to win
You also want to choose a prize that is enticing to your audience. Avoid choosing low-selling items as prizes in the interest of getting rid of inventory in your own warehouse. Choose items your audience will surely want. If you’re not sure, run a poll on Twitter or Instagram or ask your mailing list with a Woobox Poll or SurveyMonkey survey.
Where to Promote Your Giveaway
No giveaway can be successful if it’s not promoted effectively. Make sure your giveaway is promoted a few times across multiple platforms, including social media, a blog post, and in an email blast. In addition, any other useful platforms, such as in-store marketing or word of mouth via employees talking to customers, can also be useful.
Without proper marketing, giveaways may not get enough entrants and thus miss the mark on getting more email subscriptions, social media followers, or other goal metrics. While the number of entrants that a company counts as a success likely varies by company (e.g. a new blogger may think a giveaway is successful with 100 entrants; but for a large company like Kodak, that could be considered a low entrant rate).
What Wording to Use
Giveaway promotional content on the landing page and in any promotional content should be positive, informative, and true to your brand’s voice. Don’t try to use slang or casual terms if your company language usually doesn’t. This can be distracting and take away from the point of the giveaway: to raise positive brand awareness about your company.
Most giveaway social media posts should include the following information:
- What the prize is
- How to enter
- When the giveaway ends
- How the winner is contacted
- Giveaway hashtags, if they are a component of entering the giveaway
- Link to legalese, if applicable
Here’s an example for a furniture store giving away a $1,000 gift card:
“Enter our #DesignToWin gift card giveaway! Follow us (optional), then create a post on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #DesignToWin with your dream furniture piece that you know will tie your room together. The winner will be chosen March 31st and receive a $1,000 gift card sent via email or picked up at our Main St. location. Questions/Legal: https://example.com/giveaway”
Later “reminder” posts can be briefer:
“Have you entered our $1,000 Fantastical Furniture gift card giveaway yet? Follow @fantasticalfurniture on Twitter or Instagram and post your dream furniture piece you need to perfect your space with a description and #DesignToWin by March 31st.”
“Last day to win a $1,000 gift card! More info: [LINK TO GIVEAWAY PAGE OR ORIGINAL SOCIAL POST]”
Be sure to vary each giveaway reminder on the same and different platforms (e.g. Facebook and Twitter have different variations, not the exact same text, and reminders aren’t all the same as the original post) to keep your audience’s attention.
How to Reach or Choose the Winner
One of the benefits of having entrants follow your social media account is you can DM them to let them know they won. Or, if you’re using Woobox to run the giveaway, it’s easy to randomly pick a winner, then use their entered email address to tell them how to claim their prize.
Before sending a gift card or other prize in the mail or via email, make sure to contact the winner first so they know to expect the prize. That way, they can let you know if they didn’t receive it. If you have their permission, you can also tag them as the winner to refresh interest and let everyone know that the giveaway is over.
Final Thoughts
Running a social media giveaway is really easy and fun for your audience. Choose your partners if you’ll have any, decide on the prize and process, and then promote the giveaway to get enough entrants. A successful giveaway can result in a larger online presence, more email subscribers, and better audience engagement. It really is easier than ever when using a giveaway platform like Woobox.
If you have questions about hosting a giveaway through Woobox, feel free to contact support@woobox.com or call 1-360-450-5200 between 8 am to 5 pm PST, Monday through Friday.