Big brands have always been pioneers of adopting actionable social media strategies. As one of the fastest-growing social media networks with the highest engagement rate, Instagram has become a powerful marketing tool for 86% of top brands like Nike, H&M, and Victoria’s Secret, to name a few.
According to Business Instagram, the platform has over one billion users are active on the platform, 80% of users follow at least one brand, and 60% of Instagrammers discover new products in-app. All in all, it’s no wonder that 25 million business profiles and 2 million advertisers use Instagram to promote their products and services.
However, Instagram marketing is not just about big brands; it’s also increasingly important for small businesses that want to promote their products and reach the target audience. Why? Instagram not only is powerful but also is affordable for small businesses, so 39% of small businesses plan to increase their investment in Instagram marketing.
Whether you’re a small business owner or marketer, you know that it can be daunting to cut through the noise unless you have an army of loyal fans. Luckily, you can run a successful Instagram giveaway to get the desired results fast. Here are seven reasons why small businesses should run Instagram giveaways.
In this article
1. Build Brand Awareness
It’s no secret that every company aims at growing revenue. The more customers you have, the better. If you run a small business, it’s more likely you haven’t gained many customers yet as your brand is lesser-known. Thus, it’s crucial to build brand awareness.
According to Venngage, brand awareness is the top goal for 89% of marketers and 77% of brands believe that having an online community is a way to increase the level of consumer consciousness of a company.
Since people love free stuff, running an Instagram giveaway is a proven way to grab your target audience’s attention and spread the word about your company. Plus, you can ask your participants to tag their friends in the comments which help to boost organic reach and attract more interested users who can become your followers or even customers with time. Here’s an example of this strategy from Remedy Organics:
If you want to cause a buzz around your giveaway and make it go viral, it’s important to stay creative and choose a valuable prize that is worth participation. The more valuable the reward, the more participants you’ll attract. Being on a limited budget, you can collaborate with another brand to offer better prizes.
2. Increase User Engagement
Here comes the ugly truth: having a solid Instagram following isn’t enough to monetize your profile; only engaged followers convert. The higher user engagement is, the more new users you can attract. Why? The Instagram algorithm shows popular posts, so getting likes and comments is a must. But if you’re not a large company with an army of fans, boosting user engagement can be difficult unless you run Instagram giveaways.
People love unexpected gifts and freebies. According to one study on the effectiveness of a call to action (CTA), including the word ‘free’ increases clicks. Since most giveaways require participants to like and comment, these posts generate higher engagement. What is more, Instagram giveaways also help to make a strong first impression. Hemsley Organics knows it, so the company often organizes giveaways to cut through the noise:
This company isn’t popular on Instagram: an average post gets 25 likes. However, running giveaways, helps Hemsley Organics get 4x more engagement. Whether you want to get multiple benefits in relation to the Instagram algorithm or convert engaged followers into customers, boosting user engagement is a must for businesses of all sizes and shapes. Since it doesn’t take much time or effort to like a post, giveaways generate a ton of engagement.
3. Get More Instagram Followers
When it comes to Instagram, most small businesses focus on growing their follower base as having a solid Instagram following helps to get social proof and add clickable links to Instagram Stories. Since attracting your target followers can take much time and effort, you need to run Instagram giveaways to speed up the process, and most small businesses use this technique.
Let’s take All for Small, for example. The company knows that running an Instagram giveaway a great way for a new audience to follow you on the platform.
Taking into account the above-mentioned participation requirements, it’s no doubt that the primary purpose of the giveaway is to grow the follower base. Since the company wants to promote its giveaway and attract more participants, it invites participants to tag a friend and share the post via Instagram Stories for extra entries. Not only does it help participants increase their chances of getting something for free, but it also helps to attract more followers. Pretty smart, huh?
If you want to increase the number of followers, it’s important to create a marketing plan as it’s a proven way to understand the primary goals of your marketing campaigns and make sure you’re moving in the right direction. Plus, it also helps to understand which Instagram giveaway ideas you should adapt to reach your target goal.
4. Build an Email List
Email marketing has always been an efficient and affordable way to reach out to potential customers, build brand reputation, and increase sales. The numbers speak for themselves: 89% of marketers claim email is their principal lead generation channel and email is 40x more effective at gaining customers than Facebook and Twitter combined. When you’re just starting out, it’s more likely you need to grow your email list. Luckily, running Instagram giveaways is a great way to collect your target audience’s emails in exchange for an opportunity to win something useful.
Collecting emails with giveaways is easy: When working on the “how to enter” section, add “enter your email” as one of the participation requirements. Simply put, create Instagram giveaways that encourage participants to share emails, like the one below:
You can also ask people to subscribe to your email list or sign up for your newsletter instead of asking them to enter their emails via the link. All in all, there are many ways to grow your subscriber count. Want to know the best part? Since giveaways get a higher engagement rate, it helps to attract new followers who you can then guide towards your email list in other ways.
5. Secure Collaboration with Influencers
Influencer marketing is a goldmine for small businesses who haven’t built their solid following yet. Working with opinion leaders who have an influence on their loyal followers is a great way to enter an already-established community and spread the word about your product without running paid ads. With a great number of competitors on the market, it can be difficult for small businesses to get brand endorsements.
However, you can turn to nano- or micro-influencers to offer mutual collaboration, and running an Instagram giveaway is a perfect way to establish a connection with an opinion leader. Why? Since most influencers want to increase the following count and user engagement, teaming up with small brands helps to offer better prizes, and therefore get more contest participants.
Here’s an example of the collaboration between Shea Moisture and Melissa Butler, founder of The Lip Bar:
Not only does it help to offer better prizes for your participants, but it also helps to establish long-term connections with influencers who can promote your brand in the future. And if you secure collaboration with opinion leaders who have switched to Instagram creator accounts, it gives you even more opportunities to achieve business results faster as some of them can sell promoted products in-app.
6. Get User-Generated Content
Instagram marketing is all about visual content. While there are many ways to use stock photos creatively, it’s also important to feature fan-made content to increase brand trust. The importance of user-generated content (UGC) is on its rise, as specified in one report by Stackla: 90% of customers say authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support, 79% of people claim that user-generated content highly impacts their purchasing decisions, and incorporating UGC in social campaigns leads to a 50% lift in engagement.
For small businesses, it can be daunting to encourage your customers to generate UGC. However, your customers will be more likely to take photos of your product in action if you offer something valuable in return. Thus, some brands organize photo contests that help to get user-generated content. Just look how GoPro did it:
In the era of sponsored posts, people crave authenticity more than ever, so featuring user-generated content is a must for small businesses who want to provide Instagram visitors with social proof. To get UGC photos faster, run an Instagram giveaway that motivates participants to create UGC.
7. Boost Ecommerce Sales
Wouldn’t it be great if you could use Instagram to make money online?
No matter your business niche and size, practically every company aims at growing revenue. With the introduction of ecommerce features on Instagram, brands believe Instagram has a strong sales potential.
However, it takes much time and effort to sell products on Instagram. Luckily, Instagram giveaways help to speed up the process, and it’s not about asking your participants to buy something from you to enter the contest. To avoid violating Instagram’s different policies, it’s important to remember about the ‘no purchase necessary law’ as it’s forbidden to ask entrants to purchase something as a means of entry.
However, you can givea way gift certificates that allow winners to choose something that suits their needs and wants. What is more, it also helps to boost ecommerce sales as 72% of customers will spend more than the value of their gift certificate.
Let’s take Gather, for example. To promote its new collection, the company is giving away a $300 gift card:
With an average engagement rate of 0.65%, the giveaway generated a 25x better engagement rate as the post got 7692 likes and 27.1k comments. While giving away $300 is more affordable than collaborating with an influencer, you can still decide how much your gift card should be worth. In other words, you can choose the gift card amount that suits your budget.
Your Turn
With the highest engagement rate and great sales potential, Instagram marketing is just right for small businesses. To stand out from the crowd of competitors who hope for the attention of the same target audience, you can run Instagram giveaways that have many benefits for small businesses when done right. From attracting new followers to boosting ecommerce sales, there are many reasons to give them a try.
Want to know the best part? If you don’t have experience in running Instagram giveaways, you can always use Woorise to make your life easier. It’s high time to jump on the bandwagon and organize your Instagram giveaway!
