Let’s first begin with drawing a clear differentiation between the two. When you hear giveaway or contest, sometimes the lines are a little blurred. So here we go:

According to the Oxford dictionary, a contest is an event in which people compete for supremacy in a sport, activity, or particular quality. If you live in America and own a TV, you are pretty familiar with seeing contests. The Food Network hosts many contests like Chopped, Guys Grocery Games, Top Chef, and many others where people who are skilled in a specific area compete for a prize and title.

A giveaway is vastly different than a contest, a giveaway according to the Oxford dictionary is a thing that is given free, often for promotional purposes. Our transportation company in San Diego is called SDMTS and they often do giveaways where people enter to win prize(s) that are relevant to the company. Their last giveaway consisted of bikes, Padres tickets, and even bus passes for an entire month. How cool is that!

So now that we have defined what each is, let’s get into the advantages of using either one:

Contests

1. Build community. Often times people will share content with other people they know. This happens with contests and giveaways. With there’s a specific skill required to enter a contest, you’ll have those who are skilled enter who may have heard about it from someone they know. Once you get these people entered in, and the contest has ran its course, you can reach out to these people to become ambassadors for your brand. If you incentivize them with a discount code of their own, this may give your strategy the push it needs.

2. Incentivizes people to become active followers. When you have run a good contest, people will be looking out for the next contest that you hold.

3. Build awareness. When you create a contest using a pre-made tool, there’s usually a share button involved. When people share the contest with others, you gain brand awareness because your logo and other branding elements will be included in the page or post.

4. Build subscribers. One thing that we suggest to our clients who host contests is to require some type of requirement that the person who is entering will have to provide an email address. As mentioned earlier, once the contest has ran its course, you can use these emails to market other products and services. Make sure that you have them opt-in to receiving marketing emails at the point of them subscribing. You’ll be covering yourself on the legal side.

5. Increases sales. When you offer the winner(s) of your contest a gift that is one of your products or services, and a discount for those who didn’t win the contest, you have a chance of increasing your sales on both ends. The awareness alone will increase the sales of the product if it is not something exclusive to the winner.

6. Increases engagement. If you require someone to do something creative where they will have to use a skill to win and share it on their own social media channels, engagement is created. To track the actual engagement, have them use a hashtag in their posts.

Giveaways

1. Increases followers. When you require those who enter a giveaway to follow your accounts, you are gaining followers who are interested in what you offer.

2. Great ROI. That’s if you choose to invest in it. From personal experience, I see many different companies investing in Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads to build attention around their giveaways. Giveaways require less of the person entering unlike contests therefore if you invest in getting it in front of your target audience, people may be inclined to enter.

A few fun facts:

• Facebook giveaways are the most popular type of contest on social media—25.7 percent of respondents carry out giveaways exclusively on Facebook. (Agility PR)

• 45.5 percent of brands use both Facebook and Instagram networks to organize contests. (Agility PR)

• About a third (32.5 percent) of brands organize one giveaway a month on average. (Agility PR)

According to a recent study, Instagram accounts that hold a contest or giveaway grow 70% faster than those that don’t. It’s your choice. We are here to help! If you would like to run a contest or giveaway for your followers, let’s chat.