Giveaways. You’ve seen them around on social media and probably even participated in one at some point. They usually have hundreds to thousands of entries depending on the kind of giveaway and the account. If you’re looking to build more traffic to your brand, gain new followers, and pick up some overall momentum on social media, a giveaway is a great way to do it.

You can host one on virtually any social media platform you’re on, but the two most popular ones are Instagram and Facebook. Which platform you choose to host it on, though, depends on where your ideal clients are.

It may seem overwhelming to organize, plan, and host a giveaway, but the results can be truly remarkable. There are a couple of different ways you can host a giveaway– either by yourself or with others– and we’ll be walking you through both methods so you can have the most clarity when deciding which type to go with.

Self-Hosted Giveaway

This will be the simplest method if it’s your first time ever hosting a giveaway. Because you’re hosting it yourself, it’s easier to plan, organize, and keep track of entries. Here are the steps broken down:

Choose your product or service that you’re going to give away. This could be a free photography shoot of X amount of photos, a free bouquet to a newly engaged couple, a discount of services as a planner, a discount on a venue, etc. The options are limitless.

Decide the rules for entry. The most commonly seen rules are people needing to follow, share, and tag a number of friends. Usually, they can be counted as “extra entries” if they tag more friends (hello, exposure!)

Plan the timeline of your giveaway. What date is it going to start? What date is it going to end? The amount of time your giveaway lasts is up to you, but we’d recommend 5-7 days.

Organize your promotion. What will you need to promote? If your giveaway is on Facebook or Instagram, you may want to create graphics for your posts and stories. You could even create a cover photo for Facebook to draw more attention.

Keep track of entries. A spreadsheet will be easiest for this. You can have a column for names/usernames of those who enter, a column for how many times they entered (i.e. how many friends they tagged), and two other columns to check off if they’re following you and have shared the post. This can be the most tedious part of the process, but the most important to pay attention to as you want to make sure you’re being completely fair.

Choose a winner. There are websites, like Random Name Picker, Wheel of Names, or Comment Picker, that will allow you to enter names and it will randomly select one for you. Because you’ll have to enter a name multiple times depending on how many times they “entered”, you can assign numbers to each name and type those instead to make it easier on yourself.

Follow through with your giveaway. Once the winner has been selected, all that’s left to do is announce the winner and follow through with your delivery of the giveaway item! Do this as soon as possible.

Group or “Loop” Giveaway

This is a more complicated method of hosting a giveaway as it involves multiple people. It could be a giveaway of the same item or multiple items from each of those involved, this just depends on what’s easiest for everyone or what everyone can spend (if everyone contributes to the cost of the item). Each person will post the giveaway announcement at the same time, and people are directed to follow each account in a “loop”.

For example, If Becky, Sarah, and Anne are hosting a group giveaway, Becky will direct people to follow herself and Sarah, then Sarah will direct people to follow herself and Anne, and Anna will direct people to follow herself and Becky. So, as someone goes to one account, they’ll be directed to follow the next account, and so on until they come back to the original account they first saw the giveaway on.

The steps are primarily the same aside from that variation in the rules, and each person will need to keep track of their entries. There should be a dedicated person to have the winner selected, and another dedicated person to ship/deliver the item. It’s important to make sure each person has the same giveaway graphic posted to their account to make sure that the post is easier to find as entrees sift through each account, which means there will need to be a dedicated person to create the promotion graphics as well.

Although this type of giveaway is more intricate than self promo, it usually leads to the best results as it involves more people coming to your account, which equals more exposure and more followers.

Just Have Fun!

Most importantly, just remember to have fun! Although giveaways are strategic, they can be super enjoyable and fun for everyone involved. So, just follow the steps above, and before you know it, you’ll have tons of new traffic and one more happy customer!

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to use our contact form or just DM us on Instagram!