8 Social Media Giveaway Ideas + Examples For 2024
Need a few successful social media contest ideas to use as inspiration for your next giveaway?
Giveaways have long been used as a strategy for boosting engagements across a variety of different social media channels.
This is due to their simple nature: participants get a chance to win a free product or service, and all they have to do (usually) is like a tweet or follow someone on Instagram.
This is the general social media giveaway idea most brands use but it’s not the only way to do it. That’s why in this post, we’ve listed a handful of additional social media giveaway ideas you can use.
Let’s check ’em out.
The best social media giveaway examples
1. Engage to win contest
Recommended tool: SweepWidget
Engage to win contests are social media contests you can run in which your target audience enters your giveaway by completing specific actions, namely engaging with your social media posts.
Here are some of the entry methods you can require for this type of giveaway:
- Visit your Facebook page or group.
- View your Facebook post.
- Follow you on Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram.
- Comment on your Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram post.
- Repost your Instagram content.
- Subscribe to your YouTube channel.
These are just some of the engagements you can receive when you run this type of social media giveaway, especially when you use a tool like SweepWidget, which offers over 90 different entry methods.
Participants enter for a chance to win whatever product or service you decide to give away, and you receive a huge boost in engagements and follows.
Most giveaway apps let you choose which entry methods should be mandatory in order to enter.
When you use this feature, only make one social media platform mandatory for best results.
Better yet, only use entry methods for a single social media platform.
This will prevent participants from being overwhelmed, which will increase your engagements per giveaway campaign.
An example of an engage to win contest
A YouTuber named Greg The Gameaholic was able to use an engage to win contest to increase his subscriber count by 11,000 subscribers and his follower count by 24,000 social media followers.
He was also able to increase his ad revenue by 400%.
Greg did this with a SweepWidget giveaway form that had entry methods like “Visit Our YouTube Channel,” “Instagram Follow” and “Twitter Follow.”
He also allowed participants to receive bonus entries by completing specific actions, such as entering a password only given during a livestream.
2. Photo, Video or Caption Contests
Recommended tool: Contests by RewardsFuel
These types of contests are really effective at generating a lot of buzz for your brand across whichever social media channels you run them on.
They allow you to receive user-generated content, or content about your brand that customers upload themselves.
A photo contest is an effective giveaway strategy for Instagram.
It works like this: you come up with a theme for your target audience to use, which could be as simple as asking them to upload a photo of themselves using your product or service.
You could even turn it into a challenge, such as a clothing company asking its customers to show how they wear their latest designs.
A video social media contest works in a similar way, only customers are asked to post videos instead of photos.
It’s best to run these types of challenges on social media as they’ll increase your brand mentions, and in turn, brand awareness.
Have participants use a brand-specific hashtag when they upload their submissions.
In fact, our recommended tool for this type of giveaway, Contests by RewardsFuel, allows you to use hashtags as an entry method.
When you use this entry method, participants will not be entered into the giveaway unless they upload an Instagram post that includes a hashtag you specify.
Captions are another form of user-generated content.
When you run a caption contest, you’re challenging customers to submit a witty or meaningful caption for a photo you upload.
Fortunately, almost all giveaway apps offer social media comments as an entry method.
An example of a photo contest
Here’s a simple example of a photo contest from Domino’s Pizza:
The company announced a giveaway in which participants could enter to win $10,000 by uploading a photo of themselves enjoying a slice of pizza from Domino’s.
They also had to use the hashtag #PieceofthePieContest.
The contest post itself received over 25,000 likes, and the hashtag received hundreds of posts on Instagram.
3. Hashtag challenges
Recommended tool: Contests by Rewards Fuel
Using hashtags for giveaway posts isn’t just for photo contests.
You can create a variety of different hashtag challenges for customers to complete in order to be entered into a giveaway.
For example, you can run a digital scavenger hunt by having participants upload a photo completing a specific action, all while using a specific hashtag.
The challenge could be brand specific, but you can also make things more fun and interesting by having participants complete random challenges, such as having them take a photo of themselves holding a specific book in a bookshop.
This could be your book, a book published by a collaborator or simply a book you like.
Sure, it’s a lot more difficult for consumers to enter giveaways like these, but you’ll attract engaging fans who are most likely to convert.
Again, we recommend using RewardsFuel for its hashtag entry methods.
Example of a hashtag challenge
Here’s a simple example of a hashtag challenge, which was posted to Twitter:
Investor NnKay teamed up with Maven Trading to offer three $10,000 investor accounts.
Entry methods included following both accounts on Twitter, retweeting the post and tagging two friends.
However, Investor NnKay also challenged participants by asking them to share why they believed they should have been chosen as a winner by using a specific hashtag in the comments of the tweet.
4. Milestone giveaways
Recommended tool: SweepWidget
Milestones provide some of the perfect opportunities for hosting giveaways.
Your brand is already celebrating whatever accomplishment you achieved, so why not extend the celebration to your customer base by offering them a chance to win a free product or service?
Typical milestones include anniversaries, such as the date your company was founded, and subscriber/follower counts.
However, if you have niche-specific goals you share with your audience or customer base, be sure to celebrate those as well.
You could even tease a giveaway by challenging your following to get the word out about your brand, such as promising to give away a free product once you hit 100,000 subscribers on YouTube.
Fortunately, the giveaway itself can be quite simple: just combine this theme with an engage to win giveaway by asking subscribers to like your giveaway post, follow you on all relevant social media platforms, subscribe to your YouTube channel, etc.
SweepWidget offers plenty of entry methods for this type of giveaway.
As for what you should give away, simply pick one to three copies of your best product or service to offer participants, or find a brand to collaborate with.
More on this in the next list item.
An example of a milestone giveaway
Fashion and lifestyle creator Janette Ok gave away $100 to a follower when she reached 100,000 followers on Instagram.
To enter, participants had to like the giveaway post on Instagram, follow Janette on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, and leave a comment about one thing she influenced her followers to do or buy or why they follow her.
The post received more than 9,700 likes, which was double the average number of likes Janette received at the time.
5. Collaborative giveaways
Recommended tool: SweepWidget
A collaborative giveaway is a giveaway you host in collaboration with a partner, typically a brand that complements yours.
This could be due to your target audiences aligning or your products and services pairing well together.
Whatever the case may be, it can be a much more effective way to host a giveaway as you get the opportunity to leverage the power of another brand’s target market as well as offer more to your giveaway’s participants without spending more.
Hosting social media giveaways like this means finding a partner to collaborate with first and foremost.
If you’re an influencer, put together a media kit that details metrics for your engagements and target market (age demographics, country of origin, etc.).
Use this when you pitch your collaboration idea to brand partners. It’ll show them exactly how collaborating with you on a social media giveaway would be beneficial for them.
If you are a brand, consider what products and services you offer, and search for brands (or influencers) whose products and services (or content) match yours or complement them.
You can put the same media kit together for your pitch, but fill yours with more details about your conversion rates and demographics of your customers.
We recommend SweepWidget for this type of giveaway because of its simplicity and affordability: at $29/month or $290/year, you can use up to five of what’s called a “repeatable action.”
This is what it’s called when you use more than one entry method per giveaway.
Because you’ll be collaborating with another brand, you’ll want to list both parties’ social media accounts as entry methods.
Repeatable actions allow you to do that.
An example of a collaborative giveaway
To promote the launch of Diablo IV, video game company Blizzard teamed up with streamers to give copies of the game away.
Here’s an example from YouTuber and Twitch streamer MrGM. It’s a giveaway post on Twitter:
You can see that MrGM was gifted a standard edition of the game to give away.
He’s tagged the official Diablo Twitter account and asked participants to like the tweet, follow him on Twitter, retweet the social media post and leave a comment in order to enter.
MrGM has over 50,000 followers on Twitter, and in eight hours, the post received 102,900 views, over 2,400 likes, over 2,100 retweets and over 30 quotes.
As the majority of MrGM’s tweets receive between a few dozen to a few hundred likes per post, you can see just how effective collaborative giveaways are at giving you a boost in engagements.
6. Seasonal giveaways
Recommended tool: SweepWidget
This is a classic style of giveaway, one you should consider using at least once a year.
Seasonal giveaways, just like seasonal sales, should be one of your biggest giveaways of the year.
This either means offering your most expensive product or service or simply a large quantity of them.
You can even get in touch with a few brands to see if they want to partner on a big holiday giveaway.
Combining this type of giveaway with an engage to win giveaway should do just fine.
Just ask your subscribers to like your giveaway post, follow you on all relevant social media platforms and tag a few friends.
For an effective holiday marketing strategy, pair your giveaway with a huge seasonal sale on your products or services.
Some members of your target market may just skip the giveaway altogether and take advantage of the huge discounts you’re offering.
This is one reason why a giveaway tool like SweepWidget is so useful.
Instead of simply asking subscribers to like and follow in your post, you can insert your giveaway widget on a page that also advertises products you have on sale.
An example of a seasonal giveaway
Here’s an example of a seasonal giveaway from food blogger Tieghan Gerard:
The post was part three of a month-long giveaway Tieghan was hosting during the month of December.
She was giving away a handful of kitchen gadgets and cookbooks.
To enter, participants simply had to tag a friend in the comments of the Instagram post.
This particular post received more than 172,000 likes.
The entire campaign generated over 400,000 likes for Tieghan.
7. Recurring giveaways
Recommended tool: Contests by RewardsFuel
Recurring giveaways are continuous contests you run on social media in which you choose winners on a daily or weekly basis.
You can also use a custom schedule depending on the tool you use.
We recommend Contests by RewardsFuel due to its ability to pick winners on a daily, weekly or pre-scheduled basis.
This feature is reserved for the app’s highest pricing tier, which is still quite affordable at a monthly rate of around $29.
When you use this type of giveaway, be sure to choose prizes that are reasonable for your brand to give away multiple times per month.
Merch is a great choice for this, but feel free to offer whatever products or services you sell yourself.
Use general entry methods for this type of giveaway: liking the giveaway post, following you on social media, leaving a comment, etc.
Daily giveaway example
Here’s a simple example of a daily giveaway, which was hosted by Kinsley Armelle, a store that sells stone jewelry.
Most of the store’s posts only receive a few likes each, but this giveaway post received hundreds.
The giveaway featured a different product than the previous day’s giveaway.
Nevertheless, the entry methods remained the same.
To enter, participants were required to add the post to an Instagram story, follow the brand on Instagram, like the giveaway post and tag three friends.
The most effective part of this type of giveaway is the deadline.
Typically, the time that participants have to enter giveaways is quite long.
With daily giveaways, participants must enter the day the giveaway is announced.
This encourages social media users to actually engage with your giveaway post.
8. Trivia contests
Recommended tool: Contests by RewardsFuel
Our final giveaway idea is a trivia contest, a giveaway campaign in which participants must answer a question in order to win.
Contests by RewardsFuel has this feature, which you can use on all plans.
The question you use is entirely up to you.
Ask participants a trivia question about your brand, one that only loyal customers would know.
Alternatively, ask participants a niche-specific trivia question.
Lastly, consider asking them a random trivia question instead, one they can easily look up if they get stumped.
Along with a question entry method, you can also have participants like your post and follow you on relevant social media channels.
An example of a trivia contest
Here’s an example of a trivia contest from Wilson Golf on Instagram:
Participants were asked a brand-specific trivia question.
To enter the giveaway, participants simply had to leave a comment featuring the correct answer.
These users were then added to a pool, which the company chose three lucky winners from.
Final thoughts
This post is full of social media giveaway ideas, but they don’t cover one of the most important aspects of giveaways: the product or service you give away.
If you’re an influencer, we highly recommend finding brands to collaborate with. They’ll decide what products or services they want to give away through your social media accounts.
If you can’t find a brand to collaborate with, you’re going to have to put your own money toward a product or service to give a way.
Be sure to stay up to date with your niche so you know what products are launching soon or what products are currently popular.
These are the best candidates for a giveaway.
If you’re a brand yourself, offer your most popular product or service, or hold off on giveaways until you’re ready to launch a new product.
Then, choose a giveaway idea that makes sense for your product type or one that’s manageable to you.
Lastly, consider using a dedicated giveaway plugin or app, such as SweepWidget.
It’ll save you time in confirming whether or not the winner you choose has completed your required entry methods as the tool will only add participants who have completed every mandatory entry method to your list of possible winners.
Plus, the tool’s widget is much more interactive than a social media post, and it even has a countdown.
Other than that, check out a few additional posts we’ve published on this topic. They’ll even help with your social media marketing strategy.
Related posts:
- The Best Social Media Contest Tools
- The Best WordPress Giveaway And Contest Plugins
- Top Social Media Statistics
- How To Build A Social Media Marketing Strategy
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