4 Instagram Contest Ideas
Want to increase engagement on your Instagram? Would you like your Instagram followers to become engaged and give feedback?
Today, we are going to cover four Instagram contests that you can run to get engagement from your followers. To get more likes, thumbs up and comments on the posts you share. It will help you get more traffic to your site. These contests are primarily targeted towards Instagram, but you can also consider using them on Facebook or Twitter.
Here are four Instagram contest ideas that you can run to get engagement and interaction with your followers.
1- Like to win contest
In this contest, you put up a photo or an infographic about some product or service and on the side, you give the description of the contest. So, anybody who likes this photo over the next 10 days or 5 days will enter into our contest. A lucky winner is decided at the end of the contest.
Set a winning prize. Find something that’s $10 or $25 that you can give away for free. Basically you are just trying to get more likes and you are rewarding your followers for doing this. A small product or a discount is good to start with.
A lot of these giveaways are built around one post. You want to set a schedule for this contest. When you just do it one time, you have the opportunity to loose your audience, but if you do it over and over, the audience will expect the contest from you and will be more excited about it.
2- Selfie Contest
Launching a selfie contest is more fun. In this contest, you invite viewers to post a selfie of themselves as per the rules. The best thing about a selfie contest is that the content comes from users which give you enough free time to focus on other activities.
You want to have the viewer in the picture if possible to get a testimonial type feel for you but being able to engage with your product.
Maybe, you don’t have a tangible product that you can hold in the picture but you have a service that you can’t hold. For example, you can’t hold a house in your hand and take a selfie. Instead, you may take a selfie in front of the house. Few other examples to consider;
◇ You can have an ugly kitchen contest. Maybe, you take a selfie in the ugly kitchen and you point to a greasy dishwasher or the broken kitchen cabinets. ◇ Take a home tour and post a selfie and say something like, ‘here’s my dream master suite that I want’.
Then, you can ask viewers to do the same. Take a selfie in front of the environment you just showed and enter in the contest. You are getting people to post the picture of themselves and the environment that kind of resonates with the business.
Maybe, you want viewers to talk about the greenest, dirtiest pool. People can send you the pictures of their nasty green pools and they could win a free cleaning service for a month from you. So, a selfie of a person who has himself documented with an item that resonates with your brand is the goal here.
Another thing is to announce the winner. You choose the winner at the end of the contest. Show the picture of the winner. You also need to decide how you will choose the winner and let the viewers know about it.
In the end, announce the winner and tag the winner in your post.
3- Run a hashtag contest
Hashtags are big on Instagram. Unfortunately, not all platforms use hashtags the same way as Instagram. Unfortunately, with
Facebook, it’s not a big take off as Instagram and Twitter have been.
It really starts with building a hashtag around your business. Something that sort of resonates with your business and brand. In real estate, #realestate is probably well overdone. You can’t claim that one because it’s already used by so many people. For example, if I search #Sandiegohomes I can find all posts that were ever tagged with this hashtag. That makes a great search feature on Instagram.
Pick a hashtag that you want to use to promote this contest. Get your viewers to post certain types of photos with that hashtag. You want to have something that’s catchy and memorable that you can use to get viral and popular in your business.
Here are few things that you ask viewers to do to participate in the hashtag contest.
◇ Ask followers to post a photo. ◇ Ask them to use a hashtag that you want them to use. ◇ Use only one hashtag. ◇ Tag 3 or 5 other friends to like the photo.
Maybe, you post a dream kitchen and you say, ‘#upgrademe’ which means that you are upgrading people’s lives, upgrading their kitchens. Just find something that kind of encapsulates the overall business.
Don’t just use the hashtag for this particular contest but use it as a whole for all the business work.
Another thing is to ask the viewers to tag their friends. The goal of running contests is to get more engagement and interaction. So, when you ask viewers to tag their friends, you are basically increasing your reach to some new followers. If people participate, they will post a photo, use the hashtag, tag their friends which indicates your brand is getting more visibility and exposure from the followers.
With Instagram, you want to have 10 or 15 hashtags that you need for a post because you are trying to get searches from all over the area. Some examples are #weeklycontest, #kitchenupgrade, #realestate, #californiarealestate. Consider using hashtags that are going to tie in your business. By using hashtags, people will be able to search and come back to you
and find out what you do.
4- Design a voting contest
You are going to have viewers post a photo and use your hashtags and get their friends to vote for the best one. Basically, you are indirectly inviting people to come, visit and engage with your Instagram profile. By doing a voting contest, you are actually asking participants to invite their friends to do the voting. This one trick will also increase the engagement on your profile.
Instead of you as the business, you want your viewers to vote and decide which photo wins. The rule is, anybody who got more hearts wins the contest. In order to win the contest, the viewers will convince their friends to participate and vote for their photo.
It may take more time because it really takes time to invite people to participate and let their friends know about it. Maybe, do it once a month.
If every month somebody knows that they are going to get the opportunity to win an amazing discount, a one-month free service or a free product then they will definitely visit your page often and engage with you to participate in the upcoming contests.
You can actually do advertising for this voting contest to excite the followers to participate and win exciting prizes.
Contest ideas are a great marketing technique to build engagement. If you are not having a strong following on Instagram, start with one or two contests to get some engagement with your viewers.
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