How to Do a Giveaway on TikTok

Running a giveaway on TikTok is one of the fastest ways to grow your followers, boost engagement, and create genuine excitement around your brand. This guide walks you through every step of launching a successful TikTok giveaway, from picking the right prize to announcing the winner without a hitch.

Why Run a TikTok Giveaway?

While gaining new followers is a great perk, a well-run TikTok giveaway does so much more for your brand. It’s a powerful tool for building a loyal and engaged community, not just a list of spectators. When you give something of value to your audience, you’re creating a positive interaction that makes people feel seen and appreciated.

Giveaways also work wonders for the TikTok algorithm. The sudden surge in likes, comments, shares, and saves on your giveaway video signals to TikTok that your content is valuable, pushing it out to a wider audience on the For You Page. This can lead to a huge spike in visibility that ripples across your entire account. Furthermore, you can structure your giveaway to generate user-generated content (UGC), where entrants create videos featuring your product, a specific hashtag, or a branded sound. This turns your audience into active brand advocates, providing you with authentic social proof you can use for weeks to come.

Step 1: Define Your Goal and Choose Your Prize

Before you hit record, you need to know what you want to achieve. A clear goal will shape every other decision you make, from the entry rules to the video creative. Don’t just aim for "going viral" - get specific. Your goal could be:

• Gaining 1,000 new, relevant followers in your niche.
• Boosting engagement (likes, comments, shares) on a specific video.
• Driving traffic to your website or a new product link in your bio.
• Generating user-generated content (UGC) with a branded hashtag.
• Building brand awareness for a new product launch.

Pick a Prize Your Audience Actually Cares About

The prize is a crucial part of your giveaway’s success. Giving away a generic item like an iPad might get you a lot of entries, but they'll be from people who just want a free iPad, not people genuinely interested in your brand. Once the giveaway is over, they’ll likely unfollow or stop engaging.

The best prizes are directly related to your niche or brand. This ensures that the people who enter are your ideal followers and customers.

Prize Ideas:

• Your Own Products or Services: This is the best option. It puts your product in the hands of a potential customer and showcases its value to everyone who enters. A skincare brand could give away a "Best Sellers" bundle, a coach could give away a free 1-hour session.
• A Gift Card to Your Store: If you have a wide range of products, a gift card gives the winner the freedom to choose what they want. It’s a great way to drive traffic to your website and potentially lead to bigger sales if they spend more than the card’s value.
• Related Products from another Brand: Partnering with a non-competing brand in your niche can double your reach. For example, a coffee brand could partner with a mug company. Both brands promote the giveaway, exposing each other to a new, relevant audience.

Whatever you choose, be sure to highlight its value. Don't just say, "win a makeup set." Instead, say "win a complete summer glow-up makeup kit valued at over $200!" This makes the prize feel more tangible and exciting.

Step 2: Set the Rules (and a Timeline)

To keep things fair, transparent, and compliant, you need to establish clear rules. Complexity is the enemy of participation, so keep your entry requirements simple and straightforward. You also need to protect yourself by following TikTok's policies and local laws.

Common TikTok Entry Mechanics

Choose one or a simple combination of the following actions. Don’t ask for more than three things, or people will lose interest.

• Follow Us: The basis of most giveaways. A direct way to increase your follower count.
• Like This Video: A simple action that boosts engagement on your giveaway post.
• Tag Some Friends in the Comments: This is the most effective method for organic reach. Every tag is a notification to a new person who might also be interested in entering. Ask for one or two tags to avoid feeling spammy.
• Comment with an Answer: Prompt users to answer a simple question, like "What’s your favorite product of ours?" or "Where would you wear this?" This sparks conversation and fills your comments section.
• Use a Custom Hashtag or Sound in Their Own Video: This is perfect if your goal is UGC. For example, a fashion brand could create a #BrandStyle challenge, where the best video wins.

Understand the Legal Stuff

You don’t need to be a lawyer, but you do need to cover your bases. TikTok's Branded Content Policy and Community Guidelines require you to be clear that you're running a promotion. More importantly, many regions have laws regarding contests and giveaways.

Include a brief disclaimer in your caption that says something like:

Giveaway ends on [Date] at [Time]. Winner will be announced on [Date]. Open to residents of [Your Country/Region] aged 18+. This giveaway is not sponsored, endorsed, or administered by TikTok. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.

Stating this protects you and builds trust with your audience because it shows you’re running a legitimate contest.

Step 3: Create a Compelling Giveaway Video

Your video is your advertisement for the giveaway, and it needs to stop the scroll. You have about three seconds to grab a viewer's attention before they swipe away.

Elements of a High-Converting Giveaway Video:

1. A Strong Hook (First 3 Seconds): Don't bury the news. Start with high energy and make it immediately clear what's happening.
   • Text Overlay Hook: "GIVEAWAY!" or "You Want This. FREE."
   • Visual Hook: Start with a shot of the amazing prize. Unbox it, use it, show it in action.
   • Verbal Hook: "To celebrate hitting 10K followers, I’m giving away [The Prize] to one of you!"
2. Showcase the Prize: Dedicate a few seconds to making the prize look irresistible. If it’s a physical product, use good lighting and show it from different angles. If it’s a service, explain the amazing transformation or benefit the winner will get.
3. Explain the Rules Clearly: Don’t just put the rules in the caption. Use both a voiceover and text on screen to walk people through how to enter. For example:
   • On-screen text: Step 1: Follow @YourUsername
   • On-screen text: Step 2: Like this video
   • On-screen text: Step 3: Tag a friend who needs this!
4. Create Urgency with a Deadline: Always include a clear closing date. For example, "The giveaway closes This Friday at 5 PM EST!" and "We'll announce the winner in a new video over the weekend." This motivates people to enter *now* instead of saving it for later (and forgetting).
5. Use Good Music and Editing: Use a trending (but fitting) sound to increase your video's reach. Keep your cuts quick and dynamic to hold attention.

Step 4: Promote and Manage Your Giveaway

Once you post your video, your work isn’t done. Now you need to make sure people see it.

Leverage Hashtags

Use a strategic mix of hashtags in your caption to reach different audiences:

• Broad Giveaway Hashtags: #giveaway, #contest, #giveawayalert (These are highly searched).
• Niche-Specific Hashtags: #bookgiveaway, #skincaregiveaway, #techgiveaway (These attract a relevant audience).
• Branded Hashtags: #[YourBrand]Giveaway (This helps you track UGC if you go that route).

Promotion Strategies

• Pin the Video: Pin the giveaway video to the top of your TikTok profile. This makes it the first thing anyone who visits your page will see.
• Cross-Promote Shamelessly: Share the TikTok video on your other social platforms. Post it on your Instagram Stories with a "link in bio" sticker driving people to your TikTok. Announce it to your email list.
• Post Reminder Videos: Don't just rely on one video. Two to three days before the deadline, post another short video reminding people to enter. You can stitch the original video or just create a new one saying, "Only 48 hours left to enter!" This builds hype and catches anyone who missed the first announcement.

Step 5: Choosing and Announcing the Winner

How you handle the end of your giveaway is just as important as how you start it. Transparency is everything here, people need to feel that the process was fair.

Picking a Winner Fairly

Scrolling through hundreds or thousands of comments to pick one at random isn't just inefficient - it can also look biased. The best method is to use a free, third-party "Random Comment Picker" tool online. You simply paste the link to your TikTok video, and the software randomly selects a winner from the comments section.

Here’s the process:

1. Use a comment picker tool to select a comment.
2. Verify that the user followed all the rules. Did they follow you? Did they like the video? If they didn't, draw another name until you find a valid winner.
3. Screen record this process. This is your evidence that the drawing was truly random.

Making The Announcement

The best way to announce the winner is with a new TikTok video. Your announcement video should:

• Show the screen recording of you using the comment picker tool.
• Clearly announce the winner’s handle using an on-screen text overlay.
• Tag the winner in both the video caption and the video itself.
• Thank everyone for participating and hint at future giveaways to keep them engaged.

After posting, send the winner a private DM to arrange prize delivery. Do not ask for any sensitive information, like credit/debit card numbers or a shipping fee - this is a very common tactic used by scammers.

Final Thoughts

A successful TikTok giveaway is a fair exchange of value: you offer an exciting prize, and your audience provides their attention and engagement in return. By setting clear goals, choosing a prize relevant to your niche, and maintaining transparency, you create a powerful marketing event that builds your community and grows your brand.

Planning an announcement video, deadline reminders, and the final winner announcement can be a time-consuming task, especially when you're also managing comments and DMs. We created Postbase to streamline this exact workflow. Using our visual calendar, you can plan your entire giveaway from start to finish, schedule all related TikToks in advance, and see how your content is performing in one place. This helps you stay organized so you can spend less time on logistics and more time creating real excitement with your followers.