In a world where we instinctually reject a lot of advertising (For example: Skipping YouTube ads or going for its premium version to avoid ads), Instagram stories offer a saving grace. It is like a conveyer belt. You innocently click on a photo on your friend’s status and get tapped to see a 30-seconds Instagram story. These stories are so influential that you click on the promotional link and finally question yourself where the last 20 minutes of your life has gone.
Most of the brands have started using Instagram stories to attract people towards a promotion or promote a contest. The addictive design of these stories makes people view them for longer period of time. It is much easier to clicking through rather than simply exiting.
Contents are a fun way to engage with your online audience. The users get more active with when they see a business profile and are more likely to share or recommend it to their friends. Contests can even give you deeper insights on what users are interested in by judging their entry responses, user-generated content and feedback about the prize.
Brands make use of live streaming feature of Instagram to promote contests. The brands can go live, tap to share and then choose to save it to the stories (replay is available for 24 hours only). Live streaming can be used to announce the contest, announce winners, or discuss on the prize package. If brands download the video after streaming, they can leverage it by sharing on different platforms like Facebook or YouTube.
How they do it?
Many brands run contests on their profiles and pick a winner based on comments, but the promotion starts from their stories as they have a large fan base associated to their profiles. The feeds can be missed by a fan, but stories are not often ignored.
Highlighting the contest on Instagram stories encourage more participation and direct users to your profile. If a brand promotes contests on its story, it reaches a bigger audience and gets more visibility. Moreover, stories give them a great chance to be creative with stickers, filters, drawing tools and questions.
The evolution of Instagram stories has elevated it from a novel and fun feature to an awesome opportunity for businesses to interact with their audience.
Tips to Promote Contests via Instagram Stories
Contests have become a key parameter of every social media manager’s toolkit. Why? Because they are quick, easy and effective. Your audience awaits you on Instagram and contests are the best way to connect with them.
Share Contest Posts on Instagram Stories
Every Instagram contest starts with a post and that’s where you invite the comments, announce prizes and tell users about the terms. But you can increase the reach of your post by sharing it on your stories. You can even add call to action, such as a direct link to your profile or post.
Promote Contest with Countdown Stickers
Publish your story on your Instagram profile having the countdown stickers. The story gets updated instantly, showing the live count down to end of the contest to your followers. The followers can also add reminder to calendar and share it as well with their friends.
Add Hashtags
While promoting contests on Instagram stories, you can always add hashtag ‘contest’ or ‘giveaway’ to improve the reach of your story. It will make the story more discoverable by your followers and it will be visible on the top.
Add mentions
You can leverage your contacts to promote your contest on Instagram with stories. You can easily team up with other influencers or brands and then tag them in your stories, encouraging them to post about your contest too.
The Bottom Line
Brands are utilizing the true power of Instagram to promote contests to the fullest. They are making use of Instagram stories to reach larger audience and make their contest a hit. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook have become the best sources to promote any contest and generate healthy leads for your business. If you are a brand owner and looking to promote your contest, give Instagram stories a try.