New Update: Boost Social Proof with Reviews & Automation
Introducing RafflePress's new leave-a-review giveaway actions. Boost customer engagement and build trust effortlessly by incentivizing reviews in WordPress.
New Update: Boost Social Proof with Reviews & Automation
Stacey Corrin
Stacey Corrin
John Turner
John Turner
TL;DR: To run an Instagram giveaway, choose a prize your audience wants, set simple entry rules, share a clear post, and promote it. Track entries, pick a winner fairly, and follow Instagram’s contest rules when you announce them.
Instagram giveaways are a simple way to spark curiosity and get people talking about your brand. I love using them because they create instant excitement and give followers something fun to take part in.
In this guide, I’ll show you how to plan a giveaway that brings in real followers, boosts engagement, and keeps your workload simple from start to finish.
Running an Instagram giveaway means offering a prize in exchange for simple actions like following, tagging, or commenting. It’s a tool to grow your followers, boost engagement, and reach more people who are interested in what you offer.
Instagram giveaways help you reach more of the right people by encouraging comments, tags, and shares. They make your content easier to discover and give followers a clear reason to interact with your posts.
From my experience, the best giveaways also send traffic to your other platforms. When you use bonus entry actions, you pull people back to your website, blog, or store where they can learn more about what you offer.
Giveaways are one of the fastest ways to boost activity on your Instagram account. I’ve seen engagement jump overnight with a simple prize and a clear way to enter.
Accounts that run contests grow their followers 70% faster than those that don’t. With Instagram’s average engagement rate sitting around 1.22%, a giveaway gives you a simple way to rise above the noise and get people interacting with your content.
I like giveaways because they get people talking. When you offer something people want, it turns your usual posts into a moment your audience wants to join in on.
Instagram is great for visibility, but it has limits. You don’t own the platform, and tracking entries by hand gets overwhelming fast. That’s why I run my Instagram giveaways through WordPress using RafflePress.
Here’s why using WordPress gives you a big advantage:
Plus, you’re not stuck on one platform. You can promote your giveaway across Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and more, all from one place.
You might be wondering, “Can’t I just run my giveaway directly on Instagram?” And the answer is yes, you can. But I’ve found that using your WordPress website with RafflePress gives you way more control, more entries, and better long-term results.
| Feature | Instagram Only | WordPress + RafflePress |
|---|---|---|
| Entry Management | Manual | Automatic tracking with full reports |
| Email List Growth | Difficult (Relies on link in bio) | Easy to collect email addresses |
| Multiple Entry Methods | Very limited | 20+ entry actions (visit page, refer friend, watch video, etc.) |
| Fair Winner Selection | Manual/random comment picker | Built-in random winner tool |
| Branding & Design | Instagram’s look only | Customizable giveaway widget + landing page |
| Analytics | Basic post insights | Detailed performance data with tools like MonsterInsights |
| Cross-Promotion | Stuck on one platform | Share across all channels and boost site traffic |
Running your giveaway directly on Instagram might be faster to set up—but you’ll miss out on a ton of growth opportunities. With RafflePress, you build your list, boost traffic, and keep full control of your contest from start to finish.
Now that you know what an Instagram giveaway is, let’s look at the steps for running one on WordPress.
Table of Contents:
Every successful Instagram giveaway starts with a clear goal. Without a specific objective, it’s difficult to create a focused strategy or measure your results.
Before you begin, consider what you want to achieve. Do you want to:
You might have one primary goal or several that work together. The key is to make sure your goals are measurable so you can track your progress and see how well your giveaway performed.
For example, Agile’ Marketing’s goal for their client was to grow their email subscribers. They kept this goal simple and manageable, which made it easy to see the results.
By focusing on actions that grew their email list, like requiring users to subscribe to enter, they grew it by 52%.
Your entry criteria are the specific tasks people must complete to enter your giveaway.
Here are some popular criteria for entering a giveaway, with examples of the goals you might want to achieve:
| Goal | Action |
|---|---|
| Increase brand awareness | Share the contest post |
| Build your email list | Sign up for your newsletter |
| Grow your followers | Follow social media profiles |
| More blog engagement | Leave a comment |
| Get user-generated content (UGC) | Submit a photo |
This Instagram giveaway example from Carmex is an excellent example of clearly stating how people can enter. Their criteria are in caps to help it stand out from the rest of the content.
When thinking about your goals, also consider the type of giveaway you’ll run. Instead of a simple ‘tag a friend’ contest, you can make things more exciting with a theme.
Here are some different types of Instagram giveaway ideas to consider:
The prize you choose can make or break your giveaway. I’ve seen businesses pick generic items like iPads or AirPods, and while those get tons of entries, they attract freebie hunters who unfollow right after. This lowers your long-term engagement and hurts your account’s performance.
The best prizes are always tied to your brand. When people enter to win your product, your service, or a gift card to your store, you know they’re real potential customers who actually care about what you offer.
Bomb Cosmetics did a great job with this seasonal post, offering their own products which are perfect for their target audience.
Before you decide, ask yourself: “Does this prize attract my ideal customer?” If the answer is no, it’s the wrong prize.
If you need more inspiration, see these proven prize ideas I’ve curated. You can also find creative examples in our guides for seasonal promotions like Valentine’s Day or Easter.
Hashtags are an effective way to find things on your Instagram feed. Using a popular hashtag might result in your giveaway showing up in the Explore channel. This can further increase your contest’s visibility, making it easier for more Instagram users to find it.
Consider using some of these widely used hashtags yourself:
You could also consider creating your own branded hashtag to associate the contest with your business.
Coca-Cola’s #shareacoke branded hashtag campaign was wildly popular. They even ran it as a Facebook Ad with fantastic results.
With your hashtags in place, it’s worth setting up some contest rules. Let’s look at that next.
Before you host Instagram contests, you must have clear rules. Without any rules or terms, your contest can get messy, with users unclear about what you expect of them and their eligibility.
More importantly, Instagram has its own set of rules for promotional activity.
Instagram’s promotion guidelines require a disclaimer releasing Instagram from any responsibility. Over the years, I’ve seen businesses run into trouble by overlooking these guidelines, so we’re going to make sure you have all the bases covered.
Instagram’s rules exist to keep the platform fair and free from spam. By following them, you protect your brand’s reputation and make sure your giveaway feels genuine and trustworthy to participants.
You should include a disclaimer in your Instagram contest rules saying something like this:
“As per Instagram’s rules, this promotion is not sponsored, administered, or associated with Instagram in any way. By entering, you confirm that you are at least 13+ years of age, agree to Instagram’s terms of use, and release Instagram of any responsibility”.
As you can see from this Instagram giveaway post, they’ve followed Instagram’s promotional guidelines by clearly marking their rules and stating they have no affiliation with Instagram.
You should also avoid asking entrants to tag themselves in your content or something that isn’t in the photo. If you do, Instagram might penalize you for it.
Additionally, to avoid unnecessary confusion, tell people how long they have to enter your giveaway by stating your time limit in your rules.
For a complete list of Instagram’s rules and regulations, take a look at their promotional guidelines here.
You can also see our complete guide on how to write giveaway rules.
There are several ways to set up your giveaway on WordPress. You could use web-based giveaway tools for Instagram, or use a dedicated WordPress giveaway plugin.
Web-based giveaway tools can help with spam protection and entry management. However, it relies on using their platform, which can have limitations. For example, you’ll have less control over your giveaway domain name, design, and content.
With this in mind, I suggest using RafflePress to set up and manage your giveaway.
RafflePress makes it easy to create any giveaway type on your WordPress website. Plus, it has various giveaway templates to make the setup process a breeze.
Want to compare different options? Here’s our full breakdown of Rafflecopter vs Gleam vs RafflePress
Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get started:
Click here to get started with RafflePress and download the WordPress plugin to your computer. If you need help, here’s a step-by-step guide for installing a WordPress plugin.
Once you’ve installed the RafflePress plugin, navigate to your WordPress dashboard, click the RafflePress icon, and select Add New.
On the next screen, give your giveaway a name and choose a giveaway template. RafflePress offers a range of templates designed to meet specific business goals, such as Growing Your Facebook Page or Email List.
For this guide, let’s choose the Grow Your Instagram Following template. So hover your mouse over the giveaway template and click Use This Template.
After choosing a template, you’ll go to the RafflePress contest builder, where you can set up your giveaway. The first thing you should do here is to enter your prize details.
So go ahead and click on the pencil icon under the Giveaway Prize Details section.
In this area, you can enter your prize name and add a description so that participants can learn about the prize.
You can also include an image of your prize by clicking the Select Image button under the description box.
When you’re happy with the prize details, click Done Editing.
It’s also possible to set the giveaway duration under the Start and End Time heading on the left.
Click the Save button now and then to store your settings.
RafflePress makes it easy to add ways for users to enter your Instagram contest. Plus, by using the Instagram template, you already have several entry actions added automatically, such as:
These actions fully comply with Instagram rules for giveaways, as they don’t require anyone to like or share. It’s completely optional.
That said, the chances are anyone using those actions will like your profile out of instinct, making it a win-win situation.
Moreover, the View Instagram Post/Video action lets you embed your post right inside the giveaway widget. That means users won’t need to leave your website to claim their entry, but it will still count as Instagram engagement.
Here’s an example I put together of how this looks to end users:
Depending on your contest goals, you might want to add bonus entries to your contest, such as visiting your Facebook page, referring a friend, etc.
Click the Actions tab and click any action to add it to the giveaway builder.
You can then click each action in the widget to access the entry options. These include changing the action label, choosing a value (how many entries the action is worth), making the action mandatory, etc.
Repeat this process for each entry action and click Save to store your settings.
Next, click the Design tab to customize the look of your giveaway. You can choose from 2 different layouts and several font and button colors.
If you’re creating a standalone giveaway landing page, you can select a page background color or upload your background photo.
When your contest looks how you want, click the Save button.
Upon clicking the Settings tab, you’ll see several options you can configure. It includes your giveaways’ general settings, rules, success tracking, social logins, and more.
One of the most important settings you’ll need is the Giveaway Rules. This helps you write clear guidelines for participants.
RafflePress makes creating rules for your giveaway easy. While it doesn’t offer a specific Instagram giveaway rules template, it does have a rules generator to get a head start on creating your rules quickly.
Clicking this button allows you to type in the sponsor name, email, address, eligible locations, the minimum age to enter, and more.
See how quickly I generated rules on my test website:
Once you’ve finished editing your settings, click the Save button.
Now it’s time to make your giveaway live. RafflePress offers 3 easy ways to publish your contest in WordPress, including:
Publishing your contest on a dedicated Giveaway Landing Page is the easiest option. Since it has nothing to distract page visitors from entering, you’ll generate many entries and leads.
Creating a landing page for your giveaway is also an excellent way to help your website rank on Google.
Go ahead and choose the Giveaway Landing Page option. Then click the View button to see how your giveaway looks.
Here’s an example of a giveaway I created on my website for Instagram:
Once you’ve set up your giveaway in RafflePress, it’s crucial to create an engaging Instagram post to announce and promote it.
Here are some key elements to include in your giveaway post:
Keep your post relatively short—aim for 150–300 characters in the main text. You can add more details in the first comment if needed. Remember to make your post visually appealing by using line breaks and emojis to break up the text.
Here’s a template you can adapt:
You can’t just sit around and wait for people to enter your giveaway. You should start promoting it right away to build excitement and get more entries.
The easiest way to promote your Instagram giveaway is to add your giveaway page link to your Instagram bio and share an announcement post on Instagram, asking people to check the link in your bio to enter the contest just like this example:
For a detailed plan, check out these contest promotion ideas that have worked for other small businesses.
You can also promote your giveaway by:
Start promoting your giveaway weeks before it goes live to generate interest and entries from day one.
There are several ways to choose a winner for your Instagram giveaway. Some businesses use a random number generator, but that can get overwhelming when you have a lot of entries.
I prefer using RafflePress because it picks a winner for you automatically. You can draw the winner inside your WordPress dashboard and email them right away.
When you announce your winner, don’t forget to thank everyone for entering. A simple coupon or discount for non-winners is a great way to turn that excitement into new sales.
To measure a giveaway’s impact on web traffic, the most effective solution is an analytics tool like MonsterInsights. It’s the best analytics plugin for WordPress and lets you track results directly from your dashboard.
With it, you can track traffic to your giveaway landing page, see referral traffic from your Instagram account, monitor product sales, and more.
You can also easily compare how many new followers you gained over the competition’s duration. The same goes for growing your email list. Just measure the difference in subscribers from when your giveaway began to when it ended.
To learn more, see our full MonsterInsights review.
If you’re new to tracking, see our tutorial on how to add Google Analytics to WordPress.
RafflePress also has a built-in Entries Report, which shows you which giveaway actions drove the most entries. Simply click the ‘Users’ link for your completed contest, then select the Entries Report link.
This report will show you a pie chart breaking down which actions were most popular. As a result, you’ll know what worked best and can use those tactics in your next giveaway.
And that’s it. Once your giveaway wraps up, take a moment to review what worked well so you can make your next contest even better.
Instagram giveaways are a simple way to connect with your audience and bring more people to your website. With RafflePress, you can manage entries, pick a fair winner, and track results without any extra work.
If you’re ready to keep growing, try adding a new giveaway to your content calendar or running a seasonal contest during busy shopping months.
I hope this guide helped you learn how to create an Instagram giveaway. If you’re interested in running a contest using RafflePress, take a look at this step-by-step guide.
You might also find the following Instagram tips helpful to grow your Instagram followers with contests:
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