Author: Giles Thomas

Like with most of the hottest marketing strategies on Instagram, major influencers started holding these contests – and they’ve caught on like wildfire.

You don’t have to be one of the Kardashians or Kylie Jenner to benefit though.

Loop giveaways of all sorts are currently killing it on Instagram but many brands still don’t even know what they are.

This post shows you the what, why and how of setting up your own loop giveaways so that you can drive huge volumes of new traffic to your store for more sales.

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What is an Instagram loop giveaway contest?

You know the concept of putting a little in to get a lot out, right?

Instagram loop giveaways fall into this bracket. They require some resources and no little time but the potential returns make the effort totally worthwhile.

Most of you already know that contests are one of the strategies that brands use to grow their followers on Instagram.

Where loop giveaways provide a sharper edge is in teaming you up with partner brands to hold a joint contest. Any Instagram user wishing to enter will have to follow each of the accounts involved in the loop, including yours.

What does that translate to? Followers – and potentially lots of them.

All participating brands give away something – generally a product, gift card, or other free gift but more about that later.

There are two basic types of Instagram loop giveaway. Let’s assume that you won’t be partnering with Gucci, Armani or Estee, so you’ll be most interested in the second type:

1. Big brand loop giveaways – usually run from the Instagram pages of huge influencers with hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers and massive prizes offered. These can generate tens of thousands of followers almost instantly.
2. Standard loop giveaways – this is where a group of smaller participating brands all tag each other and post the same giveaway graphic created by one of the organizers, promoting the contest and the prizes to be won.

As an example of a standard loop giveaway from smaller brands, here’s one from a company called Tiger Lily Tots:

Included in the caption are some rules for participating in the giveaway:

* Like this post
* Follow all four brands
* Tag 3 friends
* Go to @belbuntingsouthafrica next, follow their account, leave an emoji or a comment as to why you want to win.
* Repeat steps for each account in the loop.
* For an extra entry, share this post to your story and tag all four brands.

If you check the BelBunting South Africa account, you can see that exactly the same image is posted. It has the same caption except which account to visit and follow next.

Once an Instagram user completes the loop by visiting, following, and leaving an email/comment, they’ve entered the contest and have a chance to win the prize.

This is basically how an Instagram loop giveaway works.

Why give something away on Instagram?

Struggling to build follower numbers on Instagram?

It’s well-known that contests and giveaways boost followers – but did you know that you can achieve 70% faster growth of followers if you hold giveaways?

Tailwind analyzed over 60,000 Instagram accounts to assess how effective Instagram raffles, contests and giveaways are for follower growth. This is what they found:

For most ecommerce store owners, the key benefit of running a loop giveaway is the opportunity to “piggyback” on the success of other complementary brands, tap into their follower base, and make part of it yours.

Complementary brands generally have a similar target audience. So, you can attract new followers who will follow your account in the long term (not just during the contest).

You should, therefore, look to find partner brands, influencers, and bloggers and approach them to join you in holding a contest.

What’s the benefit for them in doing so? Well, they all grow their followers too – and if they’re not interested in doing that, why be on Instagram?

9 steps to setting up a successful loop giveaway on Instagram?

OK, so let’s get into the nine steps you need to take to run a successful Instagram loop giveaway.

1. Get familiar with how they work – join one!

Before you attempt to run a giveaway contest, you should join one or two and get familiar with how they work.

A loop giveaway involves much more than running a simple standalone contest on your feed. The loop element means that users need to visit multiple accounts. Setting this up will take coordination and management.

Get familiar with the workings of loop giveaways by checking a few old ones out here.

Look for interesting brands and check to see if they have a current giveaway running. If so, join it and do your spying there so that you get some ideas for your own contest.

2. Select a theme for the giveaway

Consider what the theme of your giveaway will be as this will help to decide who you want to partner with.

A few examples include:

• A particular product type – like blue dresses or silver accessories
• A special event or holiday e.g. Christmas, Black Friday
• A seasonal giveaway e.g. autumn, summer
• Business types e.g. businesses selling hand-made items or small family businesses in Chicago
• A particular cause – e.g. black women’s businesses or eco-friendly businesses

Here’s a good example of a summer giveaway for a well-defined target audience:

3. Reach out to your participating brands and connect them together

The main element that sets a loop giveaway apart from other Instagram contests is the involvement of multiple brands.

Usually, between three and 10 other brands should join you – but it can be done successfully with as few as two accounts and as many as 20, 30, or 40.

In general, the more brands that you want to participate, the more work there is for you as the organizer.

Keep away from competitors and instead approach businesses that complement yours.

For instance, if your theme is Mother’s Day gifts and you sell women’s t-shirts, you might partner with women’s accessories, shorts, or hat brands for your giveaway.

Once you know who you want to partner with on the contest, start reaching out to them:

• Message them directly, point out the benefits and ask if they want to take part, and/or
• Post an invite on your account, asking brands to participate and letting them know how to get in touch with you

Don’t expect many to leap at the chance. If you are trying to get five partners, you may need to send 50 messages. It does take some work.

Once you have the desired number of participating brands, start a group DM on Instagram so that you can exchange ideas on strategy, images to be used, prizes, etc.

4. Select prizes for the giveaway contest

The prizes you offer will depend on your theme, what products you sell, and how many winners you want.

It goes without saying that for your giveaway to achieve the desired results (more followers and more potential buyers), the prizes must be of value to your target audience.

Here’s what the TailWind says about prizes:

Nominating one winner is standard but sometimes each participating brand offers a prize and ships to separate winners.

Here are a few ideas…

• Participating brands contribute towards a gift certificate:

• Participating brands donate gifts and you create a gift bundle:

• Participating brands all offer and ship their own gifts (to more than one winner):

5. Create your giveaway contest image and caption

You get the general idea of how your giveaway post will look from the numerous examples we’ve included already.

You may feature an image of the prizes or just a text announcement that states the value of the giveaway, for instance.

However, you can get more creative to make your giveaway stand out. This one included video, for instance, and generated thousands of views:

There are also some fundamentals to bear in mind. Remember that all participating brands will post the same image and more or less the same announcement in the description.

So, be sure to include the following essential details in order to generate engagement:

• The announcement of the giveaway
• The theme
• Which brands are participating
• When the contest starts and ends
• What the prizes are (and their values)
• What the rules are for users to enter
• The date of the winner announcement
• How prizes will be shipped
• Any geographical limitations (e.g. U.S. only)
• Disclaimer to cover Instagram’s terms and conditions
• Relevant hashtags

 

6. Send the giveaway details to all participants

All participating brands need a copy of the image and the caption text that they will post to announce the giveaway to their own audience of followers.

Send it to them at least a few days before the giveaway starts and make sure that they know what to do from there – what time it starts and finishes and who needs to be tagged and when etc.

Without each participating brand following the guidelines, there will be a broken loop and entrants to the giveaway may be confused and become disengaged.

Walk each participating brand through the process.

7. Post, promote, and follow up

Before you launch, you might like to create a “teaser” post that prepares your followers for the prizes they can win in your giveaway…something like this:

Then, post the contest image and caption at the time that the contest is due to begin. Your fellow brand participants should do the same.

You can promote your loop giveaway on other social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter, with a link back to the Instagram post.

Ideally, your post will immediately gain traction. However, if the response isn’t what you expected, don’t hold back from reminding your followers to check out your giveaway post and follow the instructions to win a prize:

8. Announce the end of the contest and choose a winner

You can announce the end of the giveaway with a “contest over” or “now closed” image and/or by announcing it in a caption where you also announce the winner(s).

All the participating brands should also follow your steps and post the same images/announcements to keep things consistent.

Then, the moment your followers have all been waiting for – announcing the winner.

To do that, you’ll probably need to choose a random number between one and the number of entrants. Then match this number with the order of likes for your giveaway announcement post.

So, if you choose 13, the 13th person who liked your post wins the prize.

Here’s a great way to announce it:

Then contact the winner, get their shipping information, and ship the prize.

For everyone else, it doesn’t hurt to remind them where they can buy the items included in the giveaway (on your store or participants’ stores).

You could even offer a follow-up discount or free shipping on the items for a limited time as a way of thanking them for entering the contest.

9. Review and reach out after your giveaway

The loop giveaway is over but your work is not complete until you’ve reviewed the campaign and reached out to the new followers you’ve attracted.

It’s important to consider the lessons you learn from your first loop giveaway so that you can tweak your next one.

Start by asking your participating brands how they thought it went. Considering their feedback is important if you want to partner with them again for future contests.

Perhaps your partners have some ideas for improving future contests?

Or maybe you decide that these partners were not effective and you want to try a new batch of brands next time.

As you review your giveaway contest, some of the key questions to ask yourself include:

• How much time did it take to organize the contest?
• How much did we spend on the giveaway?
• What was the participation rate?
• How many new followers did we attract?
• What was the cost per new follower?
• How many new followers did participating brands gain?
• Was the entry process clear enough?
• What feedback (comments) did we get from participants?
• Was it promoted well enough?

This should at least provide some benchmarks for future giveaways and highlight where you may be able to fine-tune the process.

It should also help you consider whether it was a good use of your time and resources.

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What results can you expect?

It’s unlikely you’ll be worrying about the cost of what you gave away when you see the returns from a successful Instagram loop giveaway.

Instagram contests are said to generate 3.5 times as many likes and 64 times more comments than regular posts, on average.

With the loop format, these stats really can go into overdrive and generate hundreds or even thousands of new followers overnight if you get it right.

Some new followers will join for the giveaway and you’ll never hear from them again but that’s to be expected.

If you follow the steps above and structure your loop giveaway using the ideas that have worked for other successful brands, you will attract high-quality new followers – and shoppers. You will forget the ones who go quiet on you.

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Instagram loop giveaway for Shopify

If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, right?

Instagram loop giveaway contests take some time, planning, and management to be successful. You can’t just throw them together.

But considering the potential results should show that whatever you put into your contest, you will get much more out of it.

Are you ready to start experimenting with your own loop giveaway?