You wish make an Instagram draw online but don’t know how to do it?
You are in the right place.
There are many reasons why you might want to run a contest or online draw Instagram, whether you’re looking to quickly grow your online presence or simply want to give back to your followers.
But there are certain rules and guidelines that you should keep in mind with a sweepstakes on this social network.
To ensure you organize the best possible Instagram draw, we have put together this article which explains the ins and outs.
What is a sweepstakes on Instagram?
A Instagram sweepstakes is simply drawing a winner from a competition, for example via Instagram. You can do this via different means such as via Instagram comments, your followers, those who have liked your photos, etc…
The principle is therefore the same as for a online draw classic, except that this one takes place on Instagram.
5 Online Instagram Sweepstakes Tools
You have decided to do an online Insta draw, you have thousands of participants but now you still have the tedious work of choosing the winner.
Imagine, randomly selecting a winner from hundreds of comments or from your followers, the task can take hours.
Fortunately, tools exist to make your life easier.
Osortoo
Osortoo is one of Instagram sweepstakes tools the most powerful on the market.
Indeed, Osortoo is simply perfect for attracting subscribers. Once your Instagram page is connected, you will be able to:
- Draw a random comment
- Extract the list of all your comments
- Select multiple winners from one or more posts
- Remove duplicates
- Reply to users with comments
- Blacklist certain users
Please note, this software only works with Instagram business pages and not personal accounts.
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Instagram Random Picker
Instagram random picker is a free tool that analyzes your Instagram post and randomly selects an Instagram user from your comments.
Ideal for saving time and making a legitimate online draw.
With this free tool, you can blacklist users, remove duplicates, in short ideal for small Instagram draws.
Once again, this tool only works with Instagram business or creator pages that are linked to a Facebook page.
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App sortos
App Sorteos is an online sweepstakes tool that allows you to manage sweepstakes on different social networks such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
The strength of this tool is that it works with any type of Insta account and not just Instagram business or creator pages.
App Sortos has a free version that is often more than sufficient.
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Woobox
Woobox is a very complete social media tool and online draw.
Although Woobox can select a winner for your Instagram sweepstakes, Woobox also allows you to perform lots of useful tasks such as:
- Create forms, popups, contest widgets
- Create targeted discount coupons
- Create surveys
- And much more
Woobox random comment picker is available in the free plan, so it’s great to start with ⚡️.
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SweepWidget
SweepWidget is a tool for easily creating contests on social networks.
SweepWidget literally allows you to create complete contest campaigns and therefore goes beyond simply selecting a winner from Instagram comments, but allows you to track all actions taken by a potential subscriber.
With this tool, you can create complete campaigns on Instagram or even by email in order to grow your contact list for example.
In short, we advise you to test the free plan!
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In this section, we will see the different steps to correctly carry out your next Insta draw.
Choose a goal for your Insta sweepstakes
The first step is to set a goal for your raffle.
For example, you might want:
- Generate more engagement on your posts.
- Increase your number of followers on Instagram.
- Get more people to sign up for your newsletter.
In general, sweepstakes are a great way to grow your audience and expand your reach on Instagram.
When you use the contest rules to “tag a friend in the comments,” your existing audience does the work of sharing your content with their friends.
And if their friends have similar interests and like your Instagram contest, they will participate and tag their friends too. Your number of followers then grows exponentially. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
Instagram contests will typically boost engagement on your post, leading to multiple benefits over Instagram’s algorithm.
With your post performing well, it can rank higher in hashtag searches, allowing new audiences to find your content.
And if your audience isn’t generally receptive to your normal posts but engages in a contest post, this can help get your content up in their feeds regularly for a while.
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Schedule your draw online
Once you’ve chosen a goal for your raffle, you’re ready to plan it.
Select a relevant gift
Your Instagram contest giveaways or prizes should be something related to your business or brand.
Don’t give away an iPad just to get traffic; it won’t bring in quality attendees that will actually benefit your business.
You want to choose a prize that is large enough in value to justify the level of participation.
The more valuable the reward, the more participation and participants you will get. (in theory)
For example, asking people to take a photo with your product or perform an action and post it on their profile is a big ask and warrants a higher price.
Conversely, asking people to like a post and tag a friend in the comments is a small ask and would justify a low value price.
Set a limit on the value of your prize or number of winners.
For example, if you allow everyone who reposts your photo within 24 hours to receive a free prize.
The campaign could easily go viral and you could end up with hundreds of thousands of people sharing your message and making significant communication for your company.
Be careful though, make sure you can fulfill your part of the contract and not have to pay thousands of euros in refunds or shipping costs.
Setting a contest limit for “the first 1,000 people” is an easy way to control your exposure and liability and avoids unpleasant surprises.
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You also need to decide how users will participate in the competition. This could be following your account, liking the post, @mentioning one or more other users in the comments, posting something with a hashtag, going to your website, etc. The conditions for participation may be one or a combination of these criteria.
The main thing is to make it easy for users to participate. So limit the conditions of participation to three or four stages.
Select a hashtag for your draw
Your campaign hashtag is essential for promoting your contest and finding content shared as contest entries, as well as tracking your success and analytics.
Choose a hashtag related to the campaign, theme, product or service, and/or your business.
The campaign hashtag must be exclusive to this individual campaign. Also make sure no one else is using it.
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When planning your campaign, you also need to decide how the winners will be chosen and how you will notify them. To make your life easier, you can use one of the tools mentioned previously in this article.
Once you have notified the winner(s), you can announce it publicly on Instagram via a post. (this will also officially close the draw)
Please note, it is recommended to inform the winners privately before announcing them publicly on Instagram.
Launch your Instagram sweepstakes
In your draw announcement post, you can use a real/video, a photo or other but the most important thing is to indicate the details of the competition in the Instagram caption.
Choose an image or video related to the theme of the draw. In the caption of your contest post, include the conditions of entry and legal disclaimers.
How you promote the campaign will depend on its duration. Decide whether you are going to post several times a day or once a day. Based on your Instagram stats, determine the best times of day to post (which may differ depending on the day of the week).
It’s important to note that most contests won’t go viral and generate massive results for you overnight. Your first contest may only attract a few entrants. If your audience is not used to you running contests, they may be hesitant to participate or not even notice that you are running a contest. Repetition and consistency in running contests will help build momentum for your brand.
To make sure more people see the contest, cross-promote it on your Instagram Stories, Facebook group or page, newsletter, or in your store.
If this is your first competition draw, it may be interesting to partner with an influencer to make your competition known on a larger scale.
Evaluate the results of your online draw
Track the results of all your online competition to measure engagement, follower growth, clicks to your website and other criteria.
You can start comparing data from each contest to determine the types of prizes, times of year, content, and types of participation that yield the best results for your business based on your individual goals.
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