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47 Tips: Instagram Contest Success

47 Tips to Instagram Contest Success

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Page 1: 47 Tips to Instagram Contest Success

47 Tips: Instagram Contest Success

Page 2: 47 Tips to Instagram Contest Success
Page 3: 47 Tips to Instagram Contest Success

Table of Contents

Pre-Contest Planning1

2 Build Your Contest

Promote Your Contest3

Monitor Your Contest Results in Real Time4

Post-Contest Follow-up5

Repeat6

Page 4: 47 Tips to Instagram Contest Success

Pre-Contest Planning1

Page 5: 47 Tips to Instagram Contest Success

Pre-Contest Planning

To make your contest a success, you need to plan it out.

The better you prepare, the better chance your contest will give you the results you need.

Hey, it might even exceed your expectations.

Here’s a few contest planning tips to get you started.

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Pre-Contest Planning:

1

Make goals: Without them, you won’t be able to measure your results, or your return on investment (ROI) - which means you won’t know how successful you are with your Instagram contest.

Define your target market: Think about your customers, and the particular target markets you want to engage with on Instagram.

2

Make your budget: Know your budget - and stick to it!3

Your contest will be vastly different if you’re marketing to teenage girls in the 13-15 year old range than if you’re marketing to college aged males.

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Pre-Contest Planning:

4Choose your prize: Determine your prize. The prize of a contest is what gives people motivation to enter. It’s one of the most important elements to success.

Choose the type of contest: There’s many kinds of contests you can use to generate consumer interaction. There are sweepstakes, group offers, vote contests, essay contests, video contests, and tons more.

On Instagram I'd suggest a photo contest, to get your Instagram fans doing what they love - sharing photos.

5

Make sure your incentive:

● spurs action in your consumer● fits with the ask from entrants (if you're asking for

one photo, that's pretty easy for your market, and your incentive can be fairly simple; if you're asking for a creative video, you'll want to give away a bigger prize)

● is related to your business (give away a gift card to your store or a new product you’re promoting)

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Pre-Contest Planning:

6

Run and manage your contest: On Instagram, you could set up a contest by simply using a specific hashtag, and getting entrants to use it in their photos to enter, but…

You’ll gain a lot more in-depth contest management tools by use a third party app (well, with Wishpond’s apps you do). It makes it easy to set-up, and use on your other social sites, too. There’s even easy email and customer management tools.

7

For example, If you are a travel agency, run a photo contest to get great photos of people on vacation.

Make a theme for your contest: If you’ve chosen an Instagram photo contest, for example, choose a topic required for contestants. Keep in mind the market you want to attract, and your goals. With a photo contest, you can gain user-generated content (UGC).

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Pre-Contest Planning:

8Determine your Instagram contest time frame: How long will your contest be? Does it give you time to promote? Does it create quick action?

Determine rules and guidelines - Yup, you need to get all your rules and regulations sorted out. For example, if you’re looking to use the UGC later you need to make sure you’ve got the proper legalize for it.

10

Determine the frequency of your contests: If your contest is one week long, will you make weekly contests?

Tip:

Weekly contests build momentum for you, as the contest spreads through “online word-of-mouth” via your contestants social networks. If you’re giving something away every week, you’ll build a habit in your consumers.

9

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Pre-Contest Planning:

11Decide on your entry method: Decide how your contestants will enter your Instagram contest.

● Can they enter only via Instagram? ● Will you allow them to enter through

Facebook, too - or Twitter, your website, and so on?

● Do they need to use a specific hashtag to enter?

Sort out your tools for measuring success: Get your analytics tools set up prior to the start of your promotion. This gives you a baseline to measure your achievements.

Instagram doesn’t have built in analytic features, so:

● set up a Google analytics campaign● use Facebook Insights (if you’re running in conjunction with

Facebook)● use a third party contest app that has in depth analytics - like

Wishpond

12

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Build Your Contest2

Page 12: 47 Tips to Instagram Contest Success

Build Your Contest

Now that you’ve got the foundation set for your marketing campaign...

it’s time to build your Instagram contest.

Let’s look at best practices to build your contest.

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Build Your Contest

13 Use an app: Ok, I’m biased, but I would use a contest app to build your Instagram contest.

Make an attention grabbing title: Make a title for your contest that grabs people’s interest. Include the prize you’re giving, your company name, and your contest theme.

Keep it short, with a clear Call to Action (CTA).

14

Why?

● makes it so much easier to manage ● takes about five minutes to set up a contest● you get real-time analytics and customer management tools● easy options to host through other social sites like Facebook, Twitter or

your website

It’s your choice of course. Try with and without an app, and see which you prefer.

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Build Your Contest

Make a campaign specific hashtag: Create a hashtag for your promotional campaign. Hashtags are super important on Instagram - it’s an amazing way to connect with any Instagrammer.

Using a unique tag for your campaign, you make a community for your entrants and everyone who enters can see the other photos directly on their mobile Instagram search.

Double check the usage of your campaign tag. If it’s already in use, choose something different and unique for your contest.

15

Here’s how Pepsi uses a unique, simple and witty hashtag for their Instagram photo contest.

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Build Your Contest

Create an appealing visual of your prize: The prize is very important for the success of your marketing. Make it look good too!

16

Here’s how Whistler Water shows their prize for entering a recent Instagram contest. Their prize includes their products, and is in keeping with their healthy brand image.

17 Include details about your contest rules: Make sure you include the details of your contest, such as when it starts and ends, what the photo theme is, and the mandatory use of your campaign hashtag.

Include rules about UGC - Yes, this is more about rules and legalese stuff. But if you want to get user-generated content to use later for promotional purposes - be upfront about it, and make sure you get entrants’ permission.

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Build Your Contest

Include details about how a winner will be chosen: Are you choosing your winners randomly, through a panel a judges, or through a vote?

Be clear, and let your entrants know.

● This is true particularly with a voting aspect. ● A vote element adds virality to your contest, as entrants will spread

the word to get their friends to vote for them!● Be clear that the photo with most votes will win your prize.

19

20Tell how contestants can enter: Include information about how people can enter your contest.

Some apps (like Wishpond Instagram contest apps) let your contestants enter through Instagram only, through other social sites (such as Twitter or Facebook), through computer, through email and more. You can choose how to limit or expand the ease of entry. For example, you can make it exclusively available to Instagram users, or you can open it up to others too.

A clear CTA will increase the number of entrants you get.

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Promote Your Contest3

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Promote Your Contest

You’ve planned your Instagram contest, you’ve built it - now you need to market it, because well…

just because you’ve built it, the reality is, your market may not come.

Here’s few tips to spread the word to your targeted consumers.

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Promote Your Contest

21

22Cross promote on social sites: Post your contest on your Facebook Page, Twitter, Pinterest, and any other social sites you have. ● Highlight your update on Facebook. ● Include your hashtag in your Twitter and Pinterest postings.

Use email:● Use personalized, segmented emails to reach your target and get

them to engage with you on Instagram ● Create subject lines with clear and enticing CTA’s ● Include visuals of your prize, your company name, and how to

enter

Here’s an example of how Pilot Pen USA promoted their Instagram contest on Twitter too.

Pilot pen hosted this Instagram contest to market their pens. They asked entrants to write a handwritten note, take a photo and post it to Instagram with their #PowerToThePen hashtag.

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Promote Your Contest

23

24Guest blog to promote your contest: If you have the chance to write guest blogs on industry related sites, do so. (Don’t spam though)

Post an article on your blog:

● Write an article about your contest, with direct links to your Instagram contest

● Include visuals about your prize and your photo theme● Make easy, clickable CTA’

25Use earned media through a press release about your contest: A lot of businesses miss this opportunity to go through the more traditional media method.

If you’re a locally based business, try writing a short press release and send it to your local paper.

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Promote Your Contest

26

27

Use Twitter ads: Use Twitter ads to reach your mobile market. Use sponsored posts. Include your hashtag.

Use Google ads: Use targeted ads through Google to reach your market.

● geo-target your ads if you are a geographically based (not an online store)

● make sure your ads are seen on mobile● A/B test your ad copy

28

Use Facebook ads: If you’re hosting your Instagram contest on Facebook, or even if you update a post about it, use Facebook ads to reach your Fans and beyond. Use Promoted Posts, or other ad types.

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Promote Your Contest

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30Put QR codes on your printed promotions: Print QR codes that link directly to your Instagram contest. Use on:

● in-store promotional pieces● any other print marketing

Entrants scan the code with their phones, and get to your contest.

Put a banner on your website: Promote your contest with a banner on your homepage.

31 Include the contest details in your e-letter: Include visuals and clear, clickable CTA’s.

32List your contest on contest sites: Here’s 19 popular contesting websites

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Monitor Your Contest Results in Real Time

4

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Monitor Your Contest Results in Real Time

Once you’ve got your contest up, and promoted, measure and keep track of your successes.

Tweak your tactics to optimize your results.

Here’s a few tips to monitor your Instagram contest.

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Monitor Your Contest Results in Real Time

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34 Use Google Analytics: Monitor clicks. Monitor Google ads. A/B test ads for optimization. Reword your copy, tweak your target, etc.

Use Google Alerts: Monitor company and campaign hashtag mentions through Google Alerts.

35 Use Facebook Insights: Monitor Facebook updates and any Facebook ads you runs. Tweak to optimize results in real time.

36 Use Twitter/ Pinterest analytics: Monitor your tweets and posts about your contest. A/B test any ads you’re running on Twitter.

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Monitor Your Contest Results in Real Time

38Tweak your marketing campaigns: Based on your real time results, tweak your ads and other promotional methods.

For example, send out a second email blast to market your contest, and measure the results.

39 Tweak your contest: Get the best contest results. Optimize your contest to improve, based on real time results.

For example, add better keywords to describe your Instagram contest, or post better visuals of your prize.

Use third party app analytics: Here’s another massive benefit to using a third party contest app. Use the application’s analytics to easily monitor your contest.

37

Wishpond’s Social Marketing Suite, for example, gives you comprehensive real time analytics to monitor your entrants, collect emails, view potential reach and more.

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Post-Contest Follow-up4

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Post-Contest Follow-up

When your Instagram contest has finished, your work has not ended.

Now is the perfect time to keep connected with your participants to further develop your relationship and gain more potential customers.

Here’s a few ways to follow-up after your contest is done.

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Post-Contest Follow-up

41Promote your winners’ photo on Instagram: Give you winner a bit of fame. Promote their photo by reposting it to your company Instagram.

Choose a winner, and notify them: Once your Instagram contest has ended, choose your winner or winners. This could be done through public voting, random draws, or a panel of judges.

Let your winner know they have won. @mention to them on Instagram. Send them info on how to collect their prize.

40

Here’s an example from Whistler Water, using customer photos on their Instagram feed.

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Post-Contest Follow-up

43Promote your winners on Facebook - Facebook and Instagram have a seamless integration. Post your winners Instagram photos to Facebook to further value your winners, and promote your next contest to your Facebook Fans.

Promote the winning photo on your website: Instagram now lets you embed Instagram photos onto your website.

Use this feature to showcase your winner(s) and runners up too! Write a short article about how the winners won, and to promote your next Instagram photo contest.

42

Starbucks does an amazing job at promoting their Instagram fans on their Facebook Page. They choose their favourite customer Instagram images and use the photos as their Facebook cover. They always give a shout out to the Instagrammer.

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Post-Contest Follow-up

45 Promote your winning photos on Pinterest: Pin your winners’ photos on your Contest Board on Pinterest.

46

Promote your winners on Twitter: Tweet to your winners via an @mention (if you have their Twitter handle). Give them a shout out. Showcase their photos in a few of your tweets.

44

Email all participants: Send a follow-up email to all of your participants.

● Thank them for taking part ● Give them a small discount to your store ● Keep the connection between your business and your potential

customers ● Invite them to your next contest, and keep the momentum going

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Repeat4

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Post-Contest Follow-up

Run Instagram contests regularly:

● Repeat your contests, with varied themes.● Tweak your campaigns to optimize as you go. ● Run your contests every week on Instagram. ● This builds habits in your consumers, and momentum for your

contests.

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