Instagram Archives - This is Sian Ellis

So I recently held an Instagram Giveaway. It cost me products, time and cold hard cash, What did it get me? Let’s find out.

There seems to be quite a few giveaways going on at the moment. I hadn’t tried one before. It’s the sort of thing you need to try to see if it suits you, but you need to try at the right time. Working out when that is, is tricky.

You might wonder if there’s a reason I used Instagram. It’s the main place I’ve seen giveaway happen and it’s where my biggest audience is, so it made sense to me. I did advertise it on Twitter and Facebook though. It would be a shame not to include those platforms even if it’s not where the giveaway action is.

Eyes on what prize?

I offered the chance to win a big bunch over goodies worth over £60. Choosing the prize is a consideration in itself. The prize needs to be incentive enough for someone viewing the post to want to interact with it. You can’t give away a £1 badge and expect people to like a post, share it and tag 20 friends. It also worked as advertisement for my Mystery Hauls. They are a new product I launched that includes a surprise selection of goodies worth at least £50. This giveaway advertised them and illustrated what they are.

What did it cost?

My investment in the giveaway was not just the stock. I invested my time in promoting it and creating artwork for it. I paid the postage to send it to the winner (congratulations Bella!) and I sponsored the post. Where I went wrong was that I didn’t set any goals for the giveaway, so in terms of expectations and outcome I don’t have much detail. However, I felt it was a success. The post got lots of engagement and I got new followers. About 100 of them. I can’t tell you if I got any sales out of it, I can’t really trade that. Plus I might have got new followers whose sales or commissions are yet to come.

What did YOU win?

Since the giveaway I have had steadily rising followers and surprisingly I don’t think I lost any after the giveaway was drawn. I think followers potentially feel more valued if you reward them with things like the chance to win free loot. The increase in followers is difficult to track how helpful that is too from a business perspective. Are recent stockist and fair successes partly due to a strong social media presence? Who knows. I have noticed a huge boost in the likes my unsponsored posts get too. And when I say huge I mean HUGE. One post of mine recently got nearly 700 likes. It really shows you the power of the Instagram algorithm.

Ultimately, I was pleased with the giveaway. It was nice to engage with my followers in this kind of way. Thank them for taking this journey with me. Give someone a free bundles of goodies in the post. I’ll definitely do more, so make sure that you’re following me for the chance to celebrate my next landmark and see what you could get your hands on next time.

I have been thinking for a while that once I hit 1,000 fans on Instagram that I’d like to do a giveaway. There are a combinations of reasons for this. Firstly, and most mushily, it’s a thankyou. When I set up my Instagram account it did that thing where it automatically finds followers for you from your Facebook friends. I think it got a grand total of 60 followers or thereabouts from this. It’s not very much when you look at other people’s personal accounts. Probably because I am such an old lady with regards to social media these days at the ripe old age of 32. What it does mean though is that the majority of my followers have followed me to follow my art.

That’s worth a thankyou right?

And a giveaway is just that. Yet it’s about business too. Followers are more likely to stick with you if you incentivise them. These days you can read a lot of about new types of business models. One of these is the freemium economy. It’s the idea that freebies are a huge way to engage potential customers. It also creates value for money if you are willing to throw in extras for your customers. I do this throughout the year by offering free stickers with certain purchases from my store.

You had me at hello

Of course. A giveaway should help you to find new followers too. The trick is finding the right ones. You want to gain good reach for your post to engage people who might not know your work. By including interaction with your post as an integral part of entering the running to win the giveaway this should certainly improve the reach of your post. I’d avoid using hashtags like #giveaway if you don’t want to invite folk who might follow and unfollow once the competition ends, but if it improves your reach then that’s up to you. The giveaway will cost you the same to run whether you get 10 entries or 1000 but I’d just feel better about the winner being someone who I think would genuinely appreciate my work.

But what to giveaway?

This takes more thought than just picking a random item from your arsenal or something that hasn’t sold yet that you’ve had for a while. If you want your giveaway to have a high engagement, the prize has to be what people want. It also has to be worth whatever you are asking entrants to do for it. Following ten accounts, tagging five friends and sharing a post in their feed isn’t really worth it for a five pound mini print or a pack of stickers.

I’ve taken the approach of promoting a new product through my giveaway which is a great haul of a prize too. The product is my Mystery Hauls. Each one has unique contents which include at least a mini print, an A4 Print, original sketch, a badge pack, a sew on patch and a sticker. Phew! That’s just the minimum as well, each one will have extras within too. Each pack is worth at least £50. A Mystery Haul seemed the perfect value of prize for the engagement I was seeking for entry. Plus the chance to advertise a new product is great too.

Remember, it’s great to thank your fans and it helps to create a wonderful sense of community in Instagram. Just don’t give away anything that you can’t afford, and think about hidden costs too. Do you want to offer the prize worldwide? Would you cover the shopping cost if someone on the other side of the world won? The choice is up to you. Good luck!