How Do You Set Instagram Giveaway Rules?

How Should Giveaway Rules Be Set?

While writing the rules you decide which comments count as valid. You can go over it in six items.

• How to enter the giveaway: Write clearly the requirements you expect from the entrant, such as following, commenting and tagging friends. For example: tag 2 friends in the comment and follow my account.
• How many times can someone enter: Is a single comment enough, or can an entrant raise their odds by making more than one comment?
• When entries close: Stating the last date for entry clearly will prevent confusion.
• How the winner will be picked: Writing which method and which tool the winner will be picked with adds trust to your giveaway.
• Which comments count as invalid: You can eliminate the comments that do not follow the rules you set.
• What happens if the winner cannot be reached: You can give the winner a period such as 48 hours to reach you after you announce the result. State that their right passes to the substitute winner if they do not reach you in that time.

How Are the Rules Applied in the Giveaway?

You can use Simpliers to easily apply the rules you wrote in your post caption. Simpliers retrieves every comment and picks the winner according to those rules.

• Name Of Your Contest: You give your giveaway a name. This name shows on your giveaway page, in your past giveaways list and in the winner list you download.

  

• Number Of Winners and Number Of Substitutes: You set the number of winners and the number of substitutes to be picked. If you cannot reach the winners, you can give their prizes to the substitute winners.
• Minimum Tags: You set the minimum number of tags required in each comment. When you leave it at zero, no tag rule applies.

  

• Must Include Phrases: You add the phrases a comment has to include. If you add more than one phrase, comments containing any of them count as valid. For example, if you add the word "blue", the winner is picked only among those who wrote "blue" in their comment.

  

• Get Unique Users: Counts users with more than one entry only once.

  

• Avoid Duplicate Tags: Counts comments carrying the same tags from a user only once.

  

• Set Fair Participation Limit: You set how many comments from each user count as valid at most.

  

• Set a Date Limit: Only the comments up to the date you select are included in the participation. The date and time you select are applied in your country's time zone.

  

• Advanced Rules: Rules such as follower check, minimum posts and minimum followers are checked after the winners are picked. You can edit these rules on your giveaway page as well.

  

How Do the Rules Look in the Post?

A giveaway post has four parts: the prize, the rules, the date and the result.

• 1. Prize line: Since this is the first line seen in the feed, writing the prize here will draw more attention.
• 2. Entry rules: If you write two or three items on average as a numbered list, it will not get long and it will draw more entrants.
• 3. Deadline: Write clearly which day the giveaway ends.
• 4. Result line: Write how the winner will be picked, where the result will be announced and how long the winner has to respond.

If you would rather not write these four parts from scratch, try the Caption Generator. When you enter your prize and entry requirements, the tool prepares the post text in your brand's tone.

Pick the Winner by the Rules

After you set your rules, Simpliers retrieves every comment made on your post in full, eliminates the comments that do not follow the rules and the winners are picked at random among the remaining entrants.

The pick is made on your own screen, independently of the server, and until you see the winner nobody can know the result. The result page, the certificate and the winner video are ready to share. You can find all of these steps in the comment giveaway guide.

Which Entry Rules Work?

Every extra rule lowers the number of entrants a little more. Setting two or three rules instead of a long rule list can give a better result.

• Follow requirement: The entrant follows your account. After the winners are picked you can verify this with the Must Following Accounts rule.
• Comment requirement: To run a giveaway on Instagram you need to ask the entrant to leave a comment.
• Tag requirement: The entrant tags someone else in their comment. One or two people is enough. Once the number goes up to three, comments start to look like spam.
• Word requirement: If you set a phrase you want in the comment, sorting out invalid entries gets easier.
• Story requirement: The entrant shares your post in their story. This rule cannot be verified automatically, you have to check the winner by hand.

Common Mistakes

Common mistakes about giveaway rules:

• Leaving the prize vague: A surprise prize lowers entries, write clearly what you are giving.
• Not writing the time: When it is not clear whether it is the evening or the midnight of the last day, whether the comments in the final hours are valid stays in doubt.
• Making the rule list long: The longer the list, the more invalid comments and the fewer entries.
• Not writing where you will announce the result: The entrant cannot know where to look for the result and your announcement can be missed.