12 Proven Giveaway Ideas
Are you looking for interesting ideas to engage a new audience and grow your business? Congratulations! They’re right in front of you. Yes, these are giveaways — social media contests that, with a minimal budget, help expand your customer base and strengthen connections with your audience.
In a previous article, I told you about the advantages of contests for small businesses, and in this material, I’ll share 12 ideas that you can use as a basis for hosting a giveaway on your social media page. Perhaps these ideas will help increase brand awareness or attract even more subscribers!
#1. Branded Products as Gifts
A gift set can achieve two results — promoting products among existing and new audiences and increasing brand recognition. To do this, post on your social media page, attracting subscribers’ attention and encouraging them to participate in the giveaway.
This is exactly what Heritage Store did on their Instagram, announcing the Autumn Glow giveaway with the caption “Get ready to embrace the warmth of the season in style!” The brand offers followers a chance to win a set of skincare and hair care products, as well as essentials for autumn adventures. Rules and giveaway details are outlined in the post.
From time to time, the brand of children’s furniture, Crate and Kids, conducts giveaways with the draw of its products:
#2. Themed Gifts or Giveaways for Specific Holidays
Holidays and gifts are the perfect combination! Therefore, try celebrating with your subscribers. If you have thematic collections or related products, you can make them the main prize or add them to a gift set. Organizing themed holiday giveaways can increase subscriber engagement and attract new ones.
For example, the gaming accessories developer, ExtremeRate, recently announced the Spooky Desk Setup Giveaway in collaboration with partners. The winner receives gaming accessories themed for Halloween, with a total value of $1100.
#3. Voucher for a Specific Amount to Purchase Products in the Store
This is a flexible option for both parties: the organizer allocates a certain amount, and the winner gets the freedom to choose within the predefined value. The advantage of such a gift is that the purchased item will remain relevant for a long time. The process of choosing products will encourage the buyer to explore your product or service range in more detail, perhaps making additional purchases or returning later.
In the example below, the organizers of the giveaway, interior_by_helena, and kindermaxx_, offer a €150 voucher.
#4. Organize Gift Giveaways Without a Specific Occasion
You don’t have to wait for holidays or a new season to delight subscribers or boost activity on your social media page. ‘Tag a friend’ or ‘Share to Win’ conditions are quite useful, as people share your posts on their profiles. This helps you gain new subscribers.
The kitchen appliance brand, Breville UK, occasionally organizes giveaways, offering its branded products or items from partners as gifts, enabling winners to create culinary masterpieces or brew incredible coffee at home.
To announce giveaways on social media, you can also send emails. This encourages customers who currently receive only email newsletters to subscribe to your social media.
#5. Collaboration with Social Media Influencers
Collaborate with influencers whose audience could become your potential customers. It’s not necessary to choose million-dollar bloggers; it’s more important that the followers are active. The advantage of such integrations is that the influencer already has an audience that can learn about your brand.
Danish brand Hairlust, which produces hair care products, collaborates with various bloggers. There’s even a special form on the official website for potential integrations and promotion of products through influencers on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or directly through blogs.
#6. Free Item with Purchase
The BOGO (Buy One Get One Free) formula works seamlessly. To participate in the giveaway, customers need to purchase one item, and they receive an additional product as a bonus! You can also offer customers branded gifts. This simple combination helps increase the average order size and quickly boost sales. You can announce the BOGO offer on social media, in email newsletters, or on the website using pop-ups.
#7. User-Generated Content
By searching for hashtags #ugccreator and #ugccontent on Instagram, you can find hundreds of thousands of creative photos. It’s an interesting way to make your audience more active and fill social media with content related to your brand. The brand Crate & Kids asks its followers to share photos and videos using the hashtag #CrateKidsStyle. There are already 2500 photos on Instagram. Organic content increases brand recognition on the internet. Periodically, the company organizes giveaways of gift cards for specific amounts for subscribers who post photos with this hashtag.
This is a very effective way to engage with your audience. According to a Bazaar Voice study, 64% of millennials and 53% of baby boomers want more opportunities to share their opinions about brands. Wyzowl data shows that 9 out of 10 consumers trust content created by other users rather than brands.
#8. Partnership with Other Brands
The brand @brevilleuk often conducts contests in collaboration with other companies in its niche. Partners announce the giveaway on their pages. This kind of “exchange” of subscribers provides an opportunity to reach a wider audience and attract new customers.
#9. Products or Services for a Whole Year
If customers regularly use your brand’s products or services, why not give them a chance to win a yearly supply? Such a contest will motivate winners and loyal customers to continue using your products after the promotion. For example, the supermarket chain Sprouts Farmers Market organized a giveaway of a year’s supply of vitamins.
#10. Launch or Giveaway of New Products
If you have a new product release planned, it’s a great opportunity to host a giveaway. The buzz, discussions about the novelty before it even reaches the shelves, increased subscriber count, and the opportunity to be among the first to receive the new product or service — what could be better for the brand and its devoted fans?! Cosmetic brand Wildcraft decided to celebrate the launch of a new product and conducted a contest where the prize was a bonus skincare set:
#11. Gratitude Giveaway
A giveaway of gifts with gratitude to your customers is usually announced with a post saying, “It’s our birthday!” and the contest terms. Celebrating birthdays or other events with a giveaway of valuable prizes demonstrates that you value your audience. It also helps attract new subscribers and turn them into loyal customers.
The aforementioned brand Wildcraft celebrated its 9th anniversary with a giveaway, offering a set of favorites as a prize.
#12. Photo Contest
In general, photo contests can be considered a variety of User-Generated Content (UGC). It’s a great way to not only engage subscribers and interest people in your products but also to create a community around your brand. The conditions are simple — ask your audience to create their own photos with your products. The best photo receives a reward.
In 2015, Starbucks launched a campaign on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter with the hashtag #RedCupContest. In Instagram alone, there were almost 35,000 posts with this hashtag. The focus was on the unique red Starbucks coffee cup. The authors of the five best photos received five $500 prizes.
Conclusion
Simple solutions are sometimes impressive in their effectiveness. This applies to giveaways. You can use the ideas provided to organize a contest or come up with your own. Discounts, giveaways, interesting gifts — these are excellent ways to captivate subscribers with your products or services, increase brand awareness, audience loyalty, and attract them.
Choose interesting and valuable gifts, create beautiful posts on social media, add hashtags, track engagement and reach metrics to analyze how successful the giveaway was. Your business can outshine competitors by implementing effective giveaway strategies.
Have you already chosen an idea for a giveaway? Share your experience of organizing contests on social media in the comments!
