2.3. Public winners' page and certificate of validity.
2.4.1. Monitoring a hashtag on Instagram.
2.4.2. Monitoring a hashtag on X.
1. Introduction.
The Social Listening & Analytics tool from Cool Tabs allows you to run a sweepstake on Instagram and/or Twitter/X, among users who have used a specific hashtag. This type of sweepstake is based on content monitoring.
You will have to monitor the hashtag of the sweepstake to collect the content and then run the sweepstake among the participants.
2. Step by step.
2.1. Create your monitoring.
1) Log in to your Cool Tabs account. If you are not registered yet, check the tutorial: How to create an account on Cool Tabs.
2) Go to the 'Monitoring' section, which you will find in the left side menu.
3) You can select a monitoring you already have active, on which you will run the sweepstake, or create a new one by clicking on 'Instagram Hashtag' or 'Twitter Content', depending on the social network you have chosen for your sweepstake.
To create the monitoring, you can follow the tutorials below:
How to create an Instagram hashtag monitoring.
How to create an X content monitoring.
We also recommend reading the tutorial Instagram hashtag monitoring: API changes and limitations, which explains all the limitations set by the Instagram API when collecting content with a specific hashtag.
There are several aspects to consider:
- Once the monitoring is created, the start date cannot be changed.
- The Instagram API only allows you to collect content from a hashtag up to 24 hours old. It is not possible to collect any content published before this period.
- The X API only allows you to collect posts up to 7 days old.
To avoid losing posts in your monitoring, it is important to create the monitoring as soon as you publish your sweepstake. This way, no data will be lost and the content including the hashtag will be collected in Cool Tabs as users publish it.
4) Access the monitoring content.
Once the monitoring is created, it will appear in your monitoring list. You can access it again from the 'Monitoring' section.
To view the monitoring content, click on the 'View' icon, as shown in the following image.
On that screen, you will have access to all the monitoring statistics.
If you wish, you can download a monitoring report. From the left panel, click on 'Download reports'.
2.2. Select winners.
To start the selection of winners, go to the 'Sweepstake & winners' section, located on the left panel.
2.2.1. Twitter/X.
When selecting winners on X, you can apply the following filters. You can leave empty any filters that do not apply to your sweepstake.
- Start and end dates
- Unique users. Each participant will have only one opportunity in the draw, regardless of the number of comments/posts made.
- One opportunity per comment/post. Each comment/post will count as a new opportunity in the draw for the user.
- Exclude winners from previous campaigns. Check this option if you want users who have won other campaigns not to be able to win again.
- Exclude users from the blacklist by email or username. With our "Blacklist" feature you can block users to prevent them from being selected as winners. Users included in the list will not be able to win.
Once you have completed the filter fields that apply to your sweepstake, click on 'Step 1: Filter'. Filtering will be performed among the participants who have met all the requirements you have set.
Finally, indicate the number of winners you want to draw and, if applicable, the number of alternates. Click on 'Step 2: Launch sweepstake'.
2.2.2. Instagram.
When selecting winners on Instagram, you can apply the following filters. You can leave empty any filters that do not apply to your sweepstake.
- Start and end dates
- Unique users. Each participant will have only one opportunity in the draw, regardless of the number of comments/posts made.
- One opportunity per comment/post. Each comment/post will count as a new opportunity in the draw for the user.
- Exclude winners from previous campaigns. Check this option if you want users who have won other campaigns not to be able to win again.
- Exclude users from the blacklist by email or username. With our "Blacklist" feature you can block users to prevent them from being selected as winners. Users included in the list will not be able to win.
On Instagram, it is not possible to filter by the condition of being a follower, since its API does not allow access to this information in an automated way. You will need to manually check that the user is a follower.
Once you have completed the filter fields that apply to your sweepstake, click on 'Step 1: Filter'. Filtering will be performed among the participants who have met all the requirements you have set.
Finally, indicate the number of winners you want to draw and, if applicable, the number of alternates. Click on 'Step 2: Launch sweepstake'.
2.3. Public winners' page and certificate of validity.
Once the draw has been carried out, you will get a link to the public winners' page, so that you can publish it and communicate the result of the draw.
The winners' page includes the certificate of validity, which certifies that the process has been carried out in a random and transparent way.
In order for participants to see the winners' page, don't forget to set it to public mode (as shown in the image).
In hashtag sweepstakes on X, next to the winner's username, you will find the X icon. If you click on it, it will take you directly to their profile. You can then send them a private message, congratulating them and giving them instructions on how to receive or collect the prize. If you click on the magnifying glass icon, you will be redirected to the post with which they participated.
On the other hand, in a hashtag sweepstake on Instagram, the Instagram API does not provide the winner's username, but it does provide a URL. When you click on the icon below it, you will be redirected to the post the winner made.
2.4. Other filters.
Sometimes, before selecting winners, you may want to pre-filter the collected content from the sweepstake hashtag. For example, to remove content that, although it includes the hashtag, does not include a photo, is in another language, or is from a specific user you do not want to allow to participate.
2.4.1. Monitoring a hashtag on Instagram.
Before selecting winners, go to the 'Photo Manager' section, located on the left side.
You will find the following filters to apply, related to:
- Keywords. Write terms that have to appear in users' posts. By default, only content containing all the words you enter will be included in the analysis. If you want to analyze content containing any of the words you write, use the 'OR' separator between them. Example: 'mallorca OR ibiza'.
- Users. Exclude users or set that only certain users can participate.
- Hashtags. Include or exclude posts that include a specific hashtag.
- Content type. Include only posts with a photo, video or carousel.
Once you have completed the filters you want to apply, save this filtered content, give it a name to identify it and click on 'Save filter and view report'.
Then, you can select the winner, following the steps indicated in point 2.2. of this tutorial. In this case, the winners will be chosen from among users who have participated with the sweepstake hashtag and, in addition, meet the conditions you have set in the filters.
2.4.2. Monitoring a hashtag on X.
Go to the 'Posts Management' section, located on the left side.
You will find the following filters to apply, related to:
- Keywords. Write terms that have to appear in users' posts. By default, only content containing all the words you enter will be included in the analysis. If you want to analyze content containing any of the words you write, use the 'OR' separator between them. Example: 'mallorca OR ibiza'.
- Users. Exclude users or set that only certain users can participate.
- Hashtags. Include or exclude posts that include a specific hashtag.
- Content type. Include only original posts or reposts, replies, posts with or without links, geolocated posts, content with photo, video...
- Language. Include only posts in the language you specify.
Once you have completed the filters you want to apply, save this filtered content, give it a name to identify it and click on 'Save filter and view report'.
Then, you can select the winner, following the steps indicated in point 2.2. of this tutorial. In this case, the winners will be chosen from among users who have participated with the sweepstake hashtag and, in addition, meet the conditions you have set in the filters.
2.5. Winners' video.
After the selection of winners, you also have the possibility to generate a video with the result of your sweepstake, showing the title, prizes and winners/alternates.
This video can be published via URL or downloaded in different formats, for posting on social networks, blog...
More information: Winners' video: how to show the result of your sweepstakes.
3. Other specifications.
Instagram sweepstake limitations
- Due to the limitations of the Instagram API, you will not be able to obtain the user ID. Therefore, the automation of participant data collection will not reflect unique users.
- For privacy reasons, you will not be able to obtain information from private Instagram profiles, only data from public profiles. For example, it may happen that Instagram shows us that there are 300 publications with the same hashtag and your Cool Tabs monitoring only shows 250. This is because the remaining 50 have a private profile and we cannot access that information.
You can check all the limitations of the Instagram API in the following tutorial: How the changes in the Facebook API affect sweepstakes and Instagram monitoring.
You can also read more about the Instagram API in this Facebook Developers document: Instagram Graph API.
- The use of the Social Listening tool for Instagram, which allows you to run a hashtag sweepstake, is included in all our plans (from our most affordable plan: the Stone plan). You can also use it within the trial days, which allows you to try any of the plans for free for 7 days.
X sweepstake limitations
- The use of the Social Listening tool for X is available, on demand, in all paid plans and has an additional cost.
- The maximum limit of content monitored on X is 10,000 posts per month per Cool Tabs account.
If you have any questions, contact us at help@cool-tabs.com.
4. Related content.
How to create a sweepstake on Instagram.
How to create an Instagram hashtag monitoring.
How to select winners and get your certificate of validity.
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