It is worth researching how much Instagram competitions can benefit your business. In fact, when you post something that is related to a particular contest, you will earn 64 times more comments than regular posts and you will also get 3.5 times more likes on that post. It seems like a simple marketing strategy at first glance but it takes a level of skill and knowledge to get it right and achieve the desired results. There are many ways that you can conduct an Instagram contest but each has a few common rules that you have to follow for success. Read on to learn these rules.
Identify your goal
Before you can begin, you need to identify your specific goals when running a competition on Instagram. Is your goal to gain more followers? Sell more products? Knowing your goals are important. A good idea is to use the S.M.A.R.T analysis meaning your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. Some of the information that you need to know is your audience, their age, location, and gender, and you can use Instagram analytics to help you uncover this information. In addition to this, you could also try a growth service such as Growthsilo, where that same information will be used by the service to target followers. You also have to create a budget and a time frame for your contest.
Explore your competitors’ social media content
You need to recognize the factor that impacts your social media reputation and you must analyze your competition on social media so that you can inform your own personal marketing strategy and so you can differentiate yourself from your competition. You can also monitor how their audience responds to their competitions and posts and by doing this you can assess what works and what doesn’t and then you can apply that to your strategy. Some tools can help you analyze the performance of your competitors on social media, such as SEMrush, Rival IQ, and BuzzSumo. Timing, form, the type of content, and the audience’s reactions are all important to note as well because these will assist your strategy.
Create your identity using collected data
When you have a business account on Instagram, you can access analytics that can benefit you and your strategy. Analytics gives you information reading your reach, engagement, impressions, gender, age group as well as the location of your followers. You have to have a recognizable identity which is how your brand or business will be identified. An identity is viewed externally and is built through interactions with your followers. You have to have an identity if you want to gain followers. People want to follow something relatable and real. This will help your business succeed online.
Have a clear guideline
The next step is to establish different entry methods for your contest. A few examples include:
- Like, follow and comment: this is the most popular method that is used for entry.
- Tag a friend: the more friends that are tagged by the user, the more entries creating more awareness around your competition as well as your brand.
- User-generated content: getting people to share images onto their feed with a certain hashtag or simply tagging your business.
- Collaboration: you can broaden your audience by collaborating in a contest with a brand that is similar to yours.
It is important to share clear guidelines so that there is no confusion and so that you can get legitimate entries. You also need to ensure that you share your guidelines in the promo material.
Create an engaging hashtag
A hashtag is when a word begins with the “#” symbol and it is used on social media to categorize content. Having a hashtag can help promote your contest because hashtags expose your content to a wider audience. When creating a hashtag make it simple and short, catchy and relevant.
Determine your award
Finally, you have to choose the right prize. You need to consider your audience with this one. If the prize is a new phone, for example, it will work for everyone but if your prize is a gift card, it might only appeal to a certain demographic. Make your prize creative to attract more people.
