How to Create a Sweepstake on Instagram and Choose Winners

1. Introduction.

2. Step by step.

2.1. Publish the sweepstakes on Instagram.

2.2. Create the sweepstakes in Cool Tabs.

2.3. Select winners.

2.4. Winners page and certificate of validity.

2.5. Winners video.

2.6. How to contact the winners.

3. Other specifications.

4. Related content.

1. Introduction.

Instagram Sweepstakes app allows you to select winner/s among users who comment on a post, mention other people and/or use a certain hashtag. You can run actions like: "To participate, leave a comment and mention a friend". You can require any or all of these actions.

The use of this application is included in all our plans. You can also use it within the trial days, which allows you to try for 7 days free any of our plans.

Keep in mind that, due to changes made by Instagram's API, in April 2018, it is no longer possible to check in an automated way that users have liked or followed your profile/s. You will be able to ask for it in your sweepstakes because these are not actions that it prohibits, but you will have to check it manually, by accessing the winner's profile.

It is important not to confuse this type of sweepstakes, in which the participant has to interact with a publication, with the mechanics of an Instagram contest, in which a landing page and a participation form are configured to collect data.

2. Step by step.

2.1. Publish the sweepstakes on Instagram.

It is a mandatory requirement to have published the sweepstakes post on your Instagram account, in order to use the Instagram Sweepstake app. Then create that sweepstakes in your Cool Tabs account, to tell us from which account and from which publication or publications you have to collect participations.

If you want to run an Instagram Sweepstake between several accounts, check this tutorial: How to Create an Instagram Sweepstake With Posts That Belong to Different Profiles>>

2.2. Create a sweepstake in Cool Tabs.

Access Cool Tabs, create a new campaign and choose the Instagram Sweepstakes app. 

 

The next step is to choose the type of sweepstakes on Instagram: organic or promoted.

• Organic sweepstakes: select this option if you have not promoted your sweepstakes post or if you have promoted it on Instagram after publishing it.
• Promoted sweepstakes: select this option if you have run ads and managed them directly from Facebook Business Manager. 

 

Access to the data of an Instagram account is done through Facebook. Therefore, it is necessary to associate the Facebook account and accept permissions, so that we can collect the participants in your sweepstakes publication. Click on the 'Connect' button to associate your Facebook account.

 

 

Once the Facebook profile is associated, select the Instagram user in which you are going to run the sweepstakes. If the profile does not appear, follow the steps in this tutorial, where we explain how to add it. If you click on 'I can't find my Instagram account', you will see the information to convert your personal profile into a company profile.

 

 

If you are having any problems creating the sweepstakes, it could be due to two reasons:

1) Instagram doesn't allow sweepstakes with personal profiles. If your profile is personal, we explain how to convert your personal Instagram profile to a business profile >>

2) Instagram requires business profiles to be associated with a Facebook fanpage. In addition, you will have to check the permissions of the profile where you want to run the sweepstakes on Facebook Business. How to Add an Instagram Account in Facebook Business for my Sweepstakes >>

 

After selecting the Instagram profile of the sweepstakes, you must complete certain information related to your sweepstakes:

• Campaign name: this is a name to identify your sweepstake.
• Time zone.
• Start and end date when the app will start and stop collecting data.
• Publication or publications on which you want to run the sweepstake. By default, your last 200 posts will be displayed.

 

 

 

Instagram Sweepstake app also allows you to edit your sweepstake and include new posts. This way, all the comments made on the new posts will be collected as well.

To add the new posts, just edit the campaign by clicking on the edit icon. Choose, from the list of your publications, the ones you want to add and save the changes made.

 

 

2.3. Select winners.

To select winners, it is mandatory to have an active plan on the platform, either paid or trial. The trial period allows you to try any of the platform's plans for free (and, with it, to use the Instagram Sweepstakes app), for 7 days and without any usage limit.

Read more about the Free Trial>>

Start your Free Trial here>>

To start the selection process, click on the 'Winners' section. You can access it from the main list of your campaigns by clicking on the icon with three horizontal stripes. If you want to access the list of participants, click on the icon with the three stripes and then on 'Leads'.

 

 

 

It is important to remember that sometimes when we create an Instagram sweepstake, the number of comments that Cool Tabs shows don't match the number we can see on the Instagram app. Check out this tutorial for more information: Why my Instagram sweepstake doesn't show all the comments?

 

2.3.1. How to apply filters.

You can select the winner or winners among the users that meet the conditions of your sweepstakes. You can apply filters which will remove users who do not meet the requirements. 

Keep in mind that it is only possible to filter those actions allowed by Instagram's promotions policies.

Some filters may not apply to your sweepstakes. Leave empty those you don't want to use.

• Unique users. Each user will have only one opportunity in the raffle regardless of the number of comments made.
• One opportunity per comment. Each comment will count as a new opportunity in the draw for the user.
• Participants who have mentioned one or more friends (up to 10 mentions). Currently, it is not possible to filter comments by people mentioned and avoid repeated mentions. For example, in a sweepstake where you have to mention 3 friends and each comment counts as an additional participation. If a person leaves 10 comments and always mentions the same 3 friends, if you check the option 'One opportunity per comment', that user will have 10 participations.
• Participants who have included the hashtag, word/s or mention required in their comments. You can write various words separated by spaces, so the comments which include any of them are filtered. 

2.4. Winners page and certificate of validity.

You will get a link to the public winners page, so you can share the results with all your followers.

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 the participants to see the winners page, don't forget to set it to public mode (as shown in the image).