Collaborating with influencers for successful Instagram giveaways

Why & how to partner with influencers to boost reach, engagement, and real results on Instagram

Running giveaways on Instagram has proven to be an effective way for brands to create authentic connections with their audience. Being a giveaway, it has the power to pull lots of people and make it easy to meet your goals, whether that’s creating a following or building awareness.

However, to have a better chance of success, the best way to conduct an Instagram giveaway is to collaborate with an influencer.

Why use influencers for an Instagram giveaway?

On Instagram, everybody scrolls down, trying to find something they’ll like. If they see a post from an influencer they follow, they are likely to stop and see what it’s all about. However, it’s not just all about a following, as Instagram collaborations have several benefits.

Their endorsement feels authentic

Influencers, and especially micro-influencers, already have a strong relationship with their audience. When they post, their followers pay attention and interact with their posts. And if it’s your brand they are endorsing, that builds instant trust as they already have the trust of their audience. It will feel more like a recommendation from a friend instead of an advert.

They bring you into new circles

By design, Instagram brings up stories and posts from people you already like to watch. This means that your brand immediately reaches an audience that you might not have reached on your own.

Better engagement, not just reach

When you partner with the right influencer, you’ll be going directly to people who are likely to care about your brand. That means you’ll get an instant engagement boost through more likes, comments, and shares than if you posted via your brand page.

Shared success

Influencer marketing also benefit your influencer. Besides the collaboration agreement, they also get to reward their audience through free items. At the same time, you gain brand exposure and new followers. Everybody wins.

Crafting a successful influencer giveaway

Creating a successful Instagram collaboration isn’t guaranteed by an influencer’s following, so you’ll need to get several things right from the start.

Choose the right influencers

An influencer may have a huge following, but if most of them are into tech while you are in the beauty industry, the campaign won’t be as successful as it should be. From the start, look for influencers who align with your niche or values.

Apart from that, you can look at whether their audience is actually active. For this, scroll through around 10 of their most recent posts and look at the likes, shares, and comments. The activeness will determine the success of your campaign.

Besides this, you can look at the style they use in their content and probably consider their demographics. Ensure everything aligns, as this will set the foundation of the collaboration.

Set clear goals together

You should already have an idea of what you are looking for in your campaign, whether that’s followers, traffic to your page, brand awareness, or an email list.

When discussing the Instagram collaboration, set this out to the influencer and then come up with goals for the different targets. Try to make them as focused as possible as this makes it easy to measure success.

Craft relevant content together

After picking out your influencers, it’s time to plan the actual content. While you might want to give them the target and freedom to work, you need to ensure that the talking points align and the visuals and tone reflect your brand. However, ensure you let them add their own voice so that the content feels authentic. The caption should also feel natural, not like an ad.

Track the results

Once the giveaway goes up, you should already start looking at the data. Is it achieving what you intended, or do you need to change something (that you can legally) midway?

During and after the campaign, collect data about the new followers, likes, comments, shares, story views, website clicks, and sales/sign-ups (if it’s part of the campaign). You can then use this data to fine-tune your next influencer marketing campaign for more success.

Want to make your next Instagram giveaway a success? Partner with us to handle the details, from getting the right influencers to legal compliance. With our expertise, you can focus on growth while we take care of the strategy, setup, and execution.