27 Social Media Contest Ideas: Run Giveaways That Get Results
Looking for social media giveaway ideas? I’ve got you covered.
Giveaways are a powerful social media marketing strategy and can be a great way to boost your brand awareness.
In this post, I’ll be sharing 27 unique and interesting ideas to help you get started. We’ll cover all kinds of giveaways including sweepstakes, contests, and competitions.
Note: Want an easy way to run giveaways? Use SweepWidget to create your giveaway in a few moments, then embed on your blog or launch on a hosted landing page. Select from a huge number of entry-methods. Click here to try it for free.
#1 – ‘Engage to enter’ giveaway
One of the most popular types of social media giveaways are those in which users have to engage with the post to be entered for a chance to win. That includes ‘like to enter’, ‘comment to enter’, and ‘share to enter’ giveaways.
This type of giveaway works especially well if your main goal is to boost engagement.
#2 – Flash giveaway
Flash giveaways are short, time-limited giveaways. For example, a 24-hour giveaway, or even a 1-hour giveaway. Users have to act fast to enter while they still can, and that sense of urgency serves as a powerful incentive for them to enter.
#3 – Tag-a-friend giveaway
Ask your followers to tag their friends in the comments—or DM them the giveaway—in exchange for entry into the contest.
If your goal is to boost brand awareness, this one works a treat. All those referrals from friends will help get your brand name in front of tons of people that you wouldn’t have been able to reach organically.
#4 – Tag-trail competition
This one’s a super interesting take on the tag-a-friend format. Once again, ask your followers to tag their friends in the comments of your giveaway post. The friend they tagged can then tag another friend, and so on, creating a trail of referrals.
But this time, instead of randomly selecting a winner from the pool of applicants who tagged a friend, the prize goes to the longest ‘tag chain’. Making it a competition incentivizes people to keep that chain of referrals going and can help your giveaway to go mega-viral.
#5 – Nominate-a-friend giveaway
Instead of tagging their friends, ask your followers to nominate someone they think deserves the prize to enter that person for a chance to win.
Not only does this help to spread goodwill and give your followers the chance to do something kind for someone they care about, but it also helps to reinforce your brand values. It shows you care.
#6 – Photo submission contest
Ask entrants to submit their best photo around a particular theme. For example, you can ask them for a photo of ‘the most mouth-watering meal’ or ‘the cutest pet’. You could even ask them to submit a selfie using your product.
The prize goes to the person who submits the best photo in the category. You could judge this yourself or have it judged by a panel of judges—it’s up to you.
Users can submit their photos through the giveaway portal on your website. This is a great way to drive traffic to your site while also collecting user-generated content (UGC).
#7 – Branded hashtag contest
This is the same as the ‘photo submission contest’. But this time, instead of submitting photos through an online portal, users post them on social media platforms, making sure to use your campaign hashtag in the caption so you can find then. Requiring entrants to use your branded hashtag helps to boost brand awareness.
#8 – Voting competition
This is another twist on the photo contest. Instead of picking the winner yourself, you let other entrants vote on their favorite.
For example, you could organize submissions into a gallery on your site and let visitors select their favorite. Alternatively, you could count each social media like as a vote—the photo with the most likes wins.
#9 – Video contest
Instead of submitting/posting a photo, entrants have to post a video about whatever theme you specify. Short-form video is the most popular content format right now, so a video social media contest has the potential to perform much better than photo contests.
#10 – Caption contest
Share a photo to your feed and ask your followers to add their own hilarious caption. The best/funniest/most creative caption wins the prize. You can choose this yourself or pick the caption with the most likes.
#11 – Fill in the blank challenge
Share a social media post featuring an incomplete sentence, and ask your fans to complete it in the comments. The most creative end to the sentence wins.
As with the caption contest, it’s up to you whether you’d prefer to pick the winner yourself or award the prize to the comment with the most likes.
#12 – Meme contest
Tap into cultural moments by challenging your fans to create their own funny variation on a popular meme. The best entry wins the prize. Not only is this a fun and engaging take on a giveaway, but it also helps to humanize your brand and make you more relatable to your target audience.
#13 – Leaderboard competition
Create a social media contest where users accrue points for each entry action they complete, and let them track their progress on a leaderboard. At the end of the giveaway, the entrants at the top of the leaderboard win prizes.
Bonus tip: Add locked prizes and tiered rewards when social media users reach point milestones. You can set up leaderboard competitions and add prize tiers easily on SweepWidget.
#14 – Guessing game
Challenge your social media audience to guess something related to your business. For example, you could ask them to guess how many employees you have, or how much you’ve donated to charities this year. The closest guess to the correct answer wins.
You can even use this to subtly promote your products or services. For example, if you’re an accounting firm, you could have entrants guess how much money you save your clients, on average You get the idea.
#15 – Visual guessing game
Make your guessing game visual by sharing a photo or video prompt and asking users to guess something based on that image.
For example, ‘Guess how many pebbles are in this jar’.
#16 – Trivia contest
Ask your audience a tough trivia question. Correct answers are entered into the entrant pool for a chance to win the prize. Try to make the question relevant to your brand or industry.
#17 – Scavenger hunt
Challenge your audience on social media to a flash scavenger hunt. For example, you could ask them to quickly go and find an item or a collection of items from around the home.
The first person to submit photo or video proof of them with the items wins the prize. Alternatively, you could enter the first 100 people to submit the proof into the entrant pool and then pick a winner randomly.
#18 – Digital scavenger hunt
This is a novel twist on the idea above. Hide clues online and challenge your social media followers to find them. The first person to do so wins the prize.
A good way to set this up is to run a Secret Code giveaway with SweepWidget, in which users have to enter a secret code to enter.
Then, hide that secret code in one of your previous social media posts or in a graphic on your website and offer hints to help them find it. This is a great way to drive traffic to your site or social accounts, and to get people talking about your brand.
#19 – Holiday-themed giveaway
Why not theme your giveaway around an upcoming holiday? That way, you can tap into the buzz around the holiday to maximize your reach and engagement.
For example, if it’s Halloween, you could ask users to share a photo of their spookiest costume or decoration for a chance to win a prize. If it’s Christmas, ask them to comment what they want for Christmas, then pick a winner at random and buy them it. You get the idea.
#20 – Event-themed giveaway
Theme your giveaway around a popular event, like the Super Bowl or the Olympics. Tapping into cultural moments like this both boosts your reach and makes your brand more relatable. Make sure to use hashtags related to the event in your contest post to boost discoverability.
#21 – Wishlist giveaway
Ask users to leave a comment telling you what their favorite product in your store is for a chance to win it. Then, select a winner at random and make their wish come true.
#22 – Suggestion contest
Challenge your social media followers to leave a comment with their suggestions about an important business decision. For example, you could invite them to name your mascot or choose the color for your new product.
If you wanted to, you could promise to use the winning suggestion, and then pick a winner at random. Alternatively, you could select the ‘best’ suggestion and award the person who suggested it a different prize.
#23 – Live giveaway
Go live on Twitch, YouTube Live, or any other social media channels to promote your giveaway or contest. This is a great way to foster a closer connection with your audience and generate a buzz around the contest. Once your giveaway is finished, you could go live again to announce the winner.
#24 – Partner giveaway
Team up with influencers or brands to co-host a giveaway together. Set it up so that users have to follow both partner accounts to be entered for a chance to win.
#25 – Mystery giveaway
Incorporate an element of surprise into your giveaway by offering a ‘mystery prize’. You can drop hints throughout the giveaway to give entrants clues as to what might be included while keeping the mystery going. Once you’ve picked a winner, it’s time for the big reveal.
#26 – Recurring giveaway
Giveaways don’t have to be a one-time thing. Why not run recurring giveaways at set dates? For example, you could run a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly giveaway.
This consistency is great for brand loyalty as all the new followers you gain through your giveaway are less likely to unfollow once it’s over if they know it’s going to happen again. You’re giving them a reason to stick around.
#27 – Milestone giveaway
Launch a giveaway to celebrate a major milestone. For example, maybe you’ve just reached 100,000 followers. Or maybe you’ve just reached the 10th anniversary of your business. Whatever the occasion may be, invite your followers to celebrate with you through a giveaway.
What is a social media giveaway?
A social media giveaway is a type of marketing campaign in which brands or creators ask their audience on social media to complete a task in exchange for a chance to win a prize.
That task could be tagging a friend, following an account, completing a form, sharing a post, or anything else you can think of.
Winners are typically selected at random from the entrant pool.
However, in social media contests—a specific type of giveaway—winners can also be manually selected based on performance. For example, the prize might be awarded to the person who submits the best photo or comment.
How to run a social media contest
Before we wrap up, I’m going to quickly show you how to actually set up and launch your social media giveaway using SweepWidget. Here’s a brief overview of the basic steps.
Click here to activate your free SweepWidget account.
Step 1: Determine your goals
First, think about what your social media marketing goals are—what is it you’re hoping to achieve through your giveaway? This will determine the entry conditions you set in the next step
Here are some examples of common giveaway goals to give you an idea:
- Improve brand awareness
- Grow your social media following
- Drive website traffic
- Generate more engagement
- Boost brand sentiment
- Grow your email list
Step 2: Set your entry conditions
The next step is to set your entry conditions—these are the actions users have to do to be entered for a chance to win the prize. They should align with the goals of the campaign.
For example, if your goal is to grow your social media following, then an entry condition might be ‘follow our Facebook page’. If your goal is to drive more engagement, then an entry condition might be ‘like this post’ or ‘comment on this post’. You get the idea.
SweepWidget supports 90+ entry methods. Just click Add Entry Method and then choose between them.
It’s possible to add more than one entry method per giveaway if you want entrants to complete multiple tasks.
Step 3: Pick a prize
You’ll need to offer up a prize to incentivize people to enter your giveaway—and the better it is, the better your giveaway will perform.
It’s up to you what prize you offer and will depend largely on your marketing budget and the nature of your business.
A lot of brands offer a package of their own products as the prize. For example, if you’re an online retailer, you could give away a box full of your best-sellers. Other options include cash prizes, gift cards, exclusive discounts, and digital products.
If you don’t have any products or services of your own to offer as a prize, you could also consider partnering with a brand that does. A lot of influencers co-host giveaways this way.
Step 4: Launch and promote
Next, add the finishing touches to your giveaway by changing the design and colors as needed, adding a title and description, uploading a cover photo, setting a start/end date, and so on.
Then, publish your giveaway to a landing page to launch it. This is easy on SweepWidget—just click Save & Publish.
After that, you’ll need to promote it by sharing it on your social media accounts. Make sure you clearly explain what users need to do to enter the giveaway in posts, along with any other relevant details, like contest rules & terms and conditions.
Step 5: Pick a winner
Once your giveaway is finished, pick a winner from the pool of entrants. You can do this on SweepWidget in a couple of clicks.
Most of the time you’ll want to select a winner at random. But for contests and competitions, you might award the prize to the best entry.
Step 6: Measure your results
Finally, dig into your analytics to measure the results of your giveaway and gather insights that will help to inform your future campaigns.
The main question to ask here is: Did I achieve my goals?
The metrics you’ll want to look at to evaluate that will depend on your goals. Some key performance indicators (KPIs) you might want to keep a close eye on include your follower count, engagements & engagement rate, website visits, and brand mention volume.
Final thoughts
Hopefully, this post has given you plenty of social media giveaway ideas for your next campaign.
An effective giveaway can provide a major boost to your social media presence. The key to success is choosing a format that aligns with your goals. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different ideas to keep things fresh and engaging.
We’ve got plenty of other posts with advice to help you grow your social media presence. Make sure to check them out while you’re here.
