How to Do a Giveaway on Instagram to Gain Followers

Running an Instagram giveaway is one of the fastest ways to attract new followers, but doing it incorrectly can result in an unengaged audience that disappears the moment the winner is announced. This guide walks you through the entire process, step-by-step, to help you plan and launch a successful contest that grows your audience with the right kind of followers.

Step 1: Define Your Goals and Choose the Right Prize

Before you even think about writing a caption, you need to be crystal clear on two things: what you want to achieve and what you're willing to give away to get there. These two elements are deeply connected and will shape every other decision you make.

First, Know Your "Why": What Do You Want to Achieve?

Sure, the goal is to "gain followers," but a successful giveaway can do so much more. Being specific about your objective will help you structure the contest's rules. Common goals include:

• Follower Growth: The most common goal. The primary entry requirement will simply be to follow your account.
• Increased Engagement: You want more likes, comments, and shares on your posts. Your rules will focus on these actions.
• Building Your Email List: A fantastic goal because you own your email list. A bonus entry could involve signing up through a link in your bio.
• Promoting a New Product: The prize will be your new product, and the giveaway generates buzz and introduces it to a wider audience.
• Driving User-Generated Content (UGC): This is a more advanced goal where you ask entrants to post something using your product or a specific hashtag.

For this guide, our main focus is follower growth, but know that you can easily combine it with other goals, like boosting engagement at the same time.

Next, Pick a Prize Your Ideal Follower Actually Wants

This is easily the most important decision you'll make. A generic prize like a $100 Amazon gift card or an iPad will attract a huge number of people - but most of them won't care about your brand or your content. They're "freebie seekers" who will enter, unfollow after the contest, and never engage with you again. This low-quality follower growth can actually hurt your account's engagement rate in the long run.

The best prize is one that is highly valuable to your specific target audience but less appealing to the general public. Your prize should act as a magnet for your ideal customer.

Examples of Great Niche-Specific Prizes:

• For a Skincare Brand: A complete collection of your best-selling products, plus a virtual skin consultation. (Generic: A Sephora gift card).
• For a Fitness Coach: A bundle including three months of online coaching, a favorite set of resistance bands, and a branded water bottle. (Generic: Nike sneakers).
• For a Coffee Roaster: A high-end hand grinder, a starter pack of your three most popular coffee beans, and two branded mugs. (Generic: A Starbucks gift card).
• For a Business Consultant: A free 60-minute strategy session and access to your most popular digital course. (Generic: A new phone).

You can also partner with a complementary, non-competing brand to offer a more valuable prize bundle. This is a common and highly effective strategy because it exposes your account to their audience and vice versa. For example, a home decor brand could partner with a sustainable candle company to offer a complete "Cozy Room Makeover" prize package.

Step 2: Set Clear and Simple Entry Rules

Your entry rules are the bridge between your goal and your followers' actions. The sweet spot is a set of rules that is simple enough to encourage tons of participation but robust enough to achieve your growth objectives. If you make people jump through too many hoops, they'll just scroll on by.

The Best Entry Mechanics for Follower Growth

Here are the tried-and-true rules for an Instagram giveaway focused on gaining followers and boosting engagement, ordered from lowest to highest effort for the user.

• Must-Have Rules:
  • Follow our account: This is the non-negotiable rule number one for a follower growth campaign. If you are partnering with another brand, make it a requirement to follow all accounts involved.
  • Like this post: This is an incredibly low-friction action that signals to the Instagram algorithm that your content is valuable, helping it reach more people.
  • Tag friends in the comments: This is the viral engine of your giveaway. When users tag their friends, it introduces your account to new, potential followers organically. Specify "one tag per comment for one entry" to encourage multiple comments instead of one comment with a long list of tags. More comments = more engagement = more algorithmic juice.
• Optional "Bonus Entry" Rules:
  • Share this post to your Story: This dramatically expands your reach. You can ask people to tag your account in the Story so you get a notification. Some ask entrants to DM a screenshot as proof, but this adds a step and can reduce participation.
  • Save this post: Saving is a "super engagement" signal to Instagram's algorithm. It tells the platform that your post is high-value content worth returning to.
  • Sign up for our newsletter: A brilliant way to build an audience off of Instagram. Direct them to the link in your bio. You'll award an extra entry to everyone who signs up.

Step 3: Write Your Caption and Follow Instagram's Rules

A well-structured caption makes it easy for people to understand how to enter, what they'll win, and when it's all happening. At the same time, you need to include a bit of "legal work" to comply with Instagram's official Promotion Guidelines.

Crafting the Perfect Giveaway Caption

Don't overthink it. Clarity is everything. Use emojis to break up text and make it easy to scan. Here’s a simple structure you can follow:

1. The Hook: Start with a bold, exciting phrase. "GIVEAWAY TIME!" or "WIN A..." works perfectly.
2. The Prize: Get specific and sell the benefit. Don't just list the products, describe the experience they'll get. "Win the ultimate morning routine package to make your weekdays feel like the weekend!"
3. The Rules: Use a simple list format with emojis.
   To Enter:
   ✨ FOLLOW us @YourHandle (@PartnerHandle if applicable)
   ❤️ LIKE this post
   👯‍♀️ TAG a friend in the comments below (more tags = more entries!)
4. The Deadline: State the exact end date and time, and include the time zone. "Giveaway ends on Friday, November 10th at 11:59 PM EST."
5. The Announcement: Tell people how you'll pick and announce the winner. "Winner will be randomly selected and announced on our Instagram Story on Monday, November 13th!"
6. The Disclaimer: Add the required disclaimer from Instagram.

Don't Forget Instagram's Promotion Guidelines

Instagram is very clear that you are responsible for running your promotion lawfully. This includes releasing them from any liability. To stay compliant, you MUST include this statement in your post (or a variation of it):

"Per Instagram rules, this promotion is in no way sponsored, administered, or associated with Instagram, Inc. By entering, entrants confirm that they are 13+ years of age, release Instagram of responsibility, and agree to Instagram's terms of use."

Yes, you see massive accounts run giveaways without this, but it's not worth risking your account. Just add it to the bottom of your caption every time.

Step 4: Promote Your Giveaway Everywhere

Posting your giveaway and hoping for the best is not a strategy. You need to actively promote it to maximize its reach and get the best possible return on your investment in the prize.

Beyond the Post: How to Maximize Reach

• Leverage Instagram Stories: Create a daily cadence of Stories to remind people to enter. Use the countdown sticker to build urgency. Create a shareable Story template that others can use with a "New Post" sticker linking directly to the giveaway.
• Create a Reel: Short-form video is the best way to get organic reach on Instagram right now. Make a fun, quick Reel showing off the prize in an interesting way. Add the text "GIVEAWAY - See our latest post to enter!" and use trending audio.
• Add It to Your Bio Link: Use a tool like Linktree or just update your website URL in your bio to direct people straight to the giveaway post. Announce this update in your Stories.
• Cross-Promote: Share the giveaway with your audiences on other platforms. Post it on TikTok, mention it in a Facebook status update, and most importantly, send it to your email list.
• Partnerships: If you're collaborating with other brands, the promotional lift should be shared. You should all be cross-promoting on all platforms to tap into each other's audiences.

Step 5: Choose a Winner and Announce the Results

When the giveaway period ends, your work isn't done. How you wrap things up matters for building trust and keeping your new followers engaged.

How to Pick a Winner Fairly

Transparency is your best friend. A random draw is the fairest method.

• For comment-based entries: Use a free, third-party "Instagram Random Comment Picker" tool available online. These apps pull all the comments from your post and randomly select one.
• For multi-platform entries: If you include bonus entries like email signups, you may need to export the comment list to a spreadsheet, add your email subscribers, and use a random number generator function or formula to select a winner.
• Record the Process: A simple screen recording of you using the tool to select the winner, shared to your Stories, is an amazing way to build trust and show everyone the process was fair.

Announcing the Winner and Next Steps

1. Verify the Winner: Before making a public announcement, check that the randomly selected winner followed all the rules (e.g., they are following all required accounts). If they didn't, draw again.
2. Contact Them Privately: Send the winner a DM to congratulate them and arrange for prize delivery. This is also a good time to warn them about potential scam accounts that might pose as you.
3. Announce It Publicly: Create a new Story and/or post congratulating the winner by tagging them. Don’t share any personal information beyond their username.
4. Update the Original Caption: Edit the original giveaway post to add "[CLOSED]" at the very beginning of the caption and publicly name the winner's handle so anyone visiting the post knows the contest is over.
5. Thank Everyone: In your announcement story, be sure to thank everyone who participated and hint that you might do another giveaway soon. This encourages your new followers to stick around.

Step 6: Measure Your Success

Look back at the goal you set in Step 1. Did you achieve it? Head into your Instagram Insights to check the numbers and see what worked.

• Follower Growth: How many new followers did you gain between the start and end dates?
• Engagement: Look at the post's likes, comments, shares, and saves. How did it perform compared to your typical posts?
• Reach & Impressions: How many unique accounts saw your post?
• Follower Retention: In the week after the giveaway, keep an eye on your follower count. It's normal to lose some, but if you see a mass exodus, it might mean your prize wasn't aligned well enough with your brand's core offering.

Final Thoughts

An Instagram giveaway is more than just a post-and-pick-a-winner event, it’s a full marketing campaign. By carefully planning your goal, choosing a relevant prize, setting clear rules, and promoting it effectively, you can turn a simple giveaway into a powerful engine for building a community of engaged, loyal followers.

We know that planning and executing a multi-day promotional campaign for your giveaway - from scheduled posts to Reels and Stories - can be a lot to juggle. That's why we built Postbase with a visual calendar that lets you map out your entire giveaway promotion at a glance. You can schedule everything you need in advance across all your platforms and trust it will go live, giving you more time to engage with your new followers instead of getting bogged down by content logistics.