Last updated: 11 March 2021 Giveaways can bring several benefits to your brand, including:
- greater brand and product awareness
- profiled contacts and leads for your CRM
- higher social engagement
- follower growth
- customer loyalty
Success depends on how the initiative is delivered and managed in practice.
Here are three ideas and practical lessons from giveaway campaigns.
1. Facebook giveaways
Facebook giveaways can run directly on your brand’s page and encourage sharing around the campaign.
For this type of campaign, the format is Comment Picker:
- during a defined period, the promoter publishes one or more posts with the giveaway hashtag. A post may ask a question or invite a comment containing a thought, idea or photo caption
- the historical mechanic asked people to follow the page, comment and tag friends according to its terms; current platform conditions must be checked when planning a new campaign
- winners are drawn at random among eligible participants when the giveaway closes
A simple Facebook giveaway using the Comment Picker format can be structured for compliance in Italy. The promotion’s social content is copied to servers in Italy through data mirroring. Our Webing Plus giveaway and contest platform supports these requirements.
Alternatively, Facebook campaigns can connect with a microsite or landing page. Examples include photo contests, quizzes, tests, Instant Win and other mechanics. Registration, sharing and entry features are planned around the channel’s supported functionality in the contest we manage.
2. Giveaways with influencers
Involving influencers in a prize promotion can work especially well when they become an active part of the entry mechanic.
Assess influencers beyond vanity metrics, focusing on performance: their ability to move a relevant community towards your brand or products.
How to involve influencers in a giveaway
Influencers can be particularly effective when they create content. One suitable approach is a hashtag Instagram contests photo or video contest, including challenges between influencers and participantsbuilt around the promoting brand.
One possible mechanic is:
- the brand introduces a creative theme and an original campaign hashtag
- participants publish content with the hashtag and a mention of the promoter’s profile
- participants who discovered the contest through an influencer also mention that influencer’s profile
The content attributed to each influencer helps measure their contribution to community participation.
3. When a giveaway falls outside prize promotion rules
In many cases, giveaways and contests are treated as regulated prize promotions in Italy. Some initiatives may instead be exempt from that framework , subject to assessment of the actual mechanic and other applicable obligations.
Examples to assess:
- a reward offered to every participant, such as a dedicated discount code for an online store, may fall outside the prize contest framework. Eligibility for exemption depends on how the initiative is structured
- purchase incentives such as free delivery may qualify for an exemption, subject to the initiative’s conditions
- low-value rewards may fall within an exemption. The original article referred to €1; the applicable conditions should be checked before relying on a value threshold
