Ask a Social Media Manager: Should I Run a Giveaway?

Question: Should I run a giveaway to promote my business or organization on social media?

Answer: Giveaways can be great ways to engage your followers, offer something back to your community, and grow your following on social media. However, there are three main reasons that you might NOT want to run a giveaway:

• You don’t have something significant to offer. If you don’t have a product, service, or special offer to give the winner of your giveaway that will attract interest, then your giveaway won’t gain much traction, and it likely won’t be as successful as you’d like.
• You don’t have the budget for a special prize. The bigger the prize, like a free product or service package, the more people are likely to be interested in your giveaway. However, if you don’t have the budget to be offering free prizes for your winners, then you might do your business or organization more harm than good by running a giveaway.
• You don’t have a lot of followers. While giveaways are a great way to increase your following on social media (ex. offering an entry to your giveaway in exchange for a follow for your page), if you only have a handful of followers, it’s unlikely that your giveaway will pick up a lot of traction to make it really worthwhile.

Before running a giveaway, you should also double check the rules of the social media platform you’re running it on, as well as the rules for your state.