Instagram win campaigns: overload or smart tool?

Does a win campaign on Instagram work?

It has been scientifically proven that images are stored by the brain 60,000 times faster than words. If you want to make your brand or product visible online, instagram is an effective medium (source: OPTIMOOSE.NL, 2018).To be highly visible, you want lots of followers and interaction. But are contests on instagram still the right way to get active, relevant followers? It gets you more followers, a high engagement rate on the post and attention for your brand/product. But many of the followers are happiness seekers. In the end, it’s about quality, not quantity.

Results of a win action

So what does work to create brand awareness on instagram? NEIL PATEL, the new york times best-selling author, has done some research on this and shares the following facts:

• A win campaign drives a 70% faster growth in followers on Instagram.
• It produces 64x more comments on your post and 3.5x more likes than on normal content.
• 91% of posts on Instagram with more than 1,000 comments are contests.

According to Neil, win campaigns do have an effect on online brand awareness. Of course, there are some lucky people who unfollow after a win, but there are also people who get more affinity with the brand because it is generated by the contests. As a result, they will continue to follow the brand and also respond to the regular content.

Conditions of a win action

For setting up a win action on Instagram, the following points are important:

• Rules: clearly state what they need to do to have a chance of winning the prize.
• Set a deadline which you clearly state in the post. Also let people know when the winner will be announced.
• Don’t constantly post contests, alternate them with regular content.
• Take the gaming tax into account. When a prize with a value of more than € 449 is given away, 30.1% gaming tax must be paid.

Source: NEILPATEL.COM, 2017

This article was written by Michelle van Donge, PR consultant at Mooi The Agency.