You’ve tried every social media marketing trick to spread the word about your event and build long-term relationships, including edgy Instagram reels and creating a Discord fan page. But you’re still not seeing the results.
So what’s the answer? Social media contests and giveaways.
Because there’s only one thing people love more than friendly competition: getting free stuff. At Eventbrite, we love experimental social media marketing that generates engagement and ticket sales.
That’s why for this article, we put together a list of our favorite cutting-edge social media contest ideas that real event organizers use to sell more event tickets.
Jump ahead to the best social media giveaway ideas
6. Social media influencer giveaway
11. Refer or tag a friend to win
What is a social media contest?
A social media contest is a marketing strategy where you ask social media users to engage in a game, competition, or user-led activity, such as sharing a post or tagging a friend.
In return, participants go in the draw to win an awesome prize.
Social contest prizes can look like:
- Bundle packages
- All-inclusive experiences
- Free tickets or VIP passes to an event
The trick to social contests is to tap into your unique target audience’s preferences and offer them a contest and prize they’ll find appealing.
Great social contests:
- Connect with recurring attendees
- Expand your reach to new followers
- Boost social media engagement with your following list
All without coming across as ‘too promotional.’ This is a handy tool now, as 34% of audiences believe brands are too focused on self-promotion.
Let’s explore the psychology behind social media contests and how tapping into returning the favor can help you generate more leads and engagement (in a non-pushy way).
How social media contests help increase brand loyalty
In his book, ‘Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion’ American psychologist Robert B. Cialdini outlines that there are ‘six universal principles of influence.’
Cialdini specifies that these principles dictate how a consumer:
- Perceives a business
- Makes purchasing decisions
- Forms emotional attachments to a brand
And guess what? Social media contests utilize all six — especially the principle of ‘reciprocity.’
The reciprocity principle highlights that humans feel obligated to return the favor to someone who’s helped them.
Offering a valuable prize to your target audience can create a sense of reciprocity and loyalty among your existing fans. This gesture also helps you establish a reputation as a generous and reputable brand in the eyes of new followers.
One social media contest example that used this strategy well is fashion brand boohoo’s March 2024 campaign. They encouraged users to like their post, follow their Instagram account, and comment a ‘✨’ emoji to enter the draw to win a product bundle.
It’s important that brands use social media contests as a way to receive more engagement and don’t miss out on the opportunity to showcase their products or services in their social media contests.
Why? Because social media contests aren’t just about giving away free tickets or products but are an opportunity to expand reach. Brands should ensure they have the appropriate text and imagery and video they want non-followers to see.
For instance, Boohoo’s contest was set against a video showcasing the products and beauty appliances that could be won. You might use a detailed infographic about your event or an image from a previous one, offering a free ticket up for grabs so that non-followers can easily see the value that you’re offering as their followers share your post.
How to use social media contests to boost your engagement rates
There’s endless competition for space in event-goers’ newsfeeds. Social media platforms surface only the most relevant content for their users — which can significantly reduce your organic reach as a brand. For your content to rise above the fold, you must increase your engagement rates (the number of likes and shares you get on a post).
When people like, comment, or tag their friends in your post, it increases engagement. If followers share your social media posts, it extends your reach exponentially because their friends will also see it.
The first step in setting up your social media contest to boost engagement is deciding what behavior you want to incentivize.
For instance, do you want participants to share and tag friends in your content to promote your event to more potential customers, or is your focus on boosting engagement with your existing community through likes and comments?
There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to engagement tactics. You don’t have to invite people to share your social media contest if it doesn’t match the overall intent of your campaign.
For example, New Haven Nights boosted their outreach by encouraging participants to tag two friends in the comments and follow two separate Instagram accounts to win a cash prize and bar tab voucher.
This helped them:
- Increase their number of comments on this post (30 ), surpassing their regular comment average (below five)
- Boost their reach and authority in the eyes of Instagram’s algorithm
- Collect a list of new potential attendees who they can retarget in the future
Social media contests are a cost-effective strategy to break through the noise on social media. You can give away free tickets, VIP upgrades, or sponsors’ products to incentivize engagement at no or little cost.
But with more and more contests popping up, you need to give away a truly unique experience to catch event-goers’ attention.
Let’s explore some exciting and unique social media giveaway ideas that’ll capture attendees’ attention.
1. Sweepstakes
Sweepstakes are a quick, easy, and familiar way to collect entries and add to your email list by grabbing potential attendees’ email addresses.
Keep it simple, and go with a classic, such as, ‘like, share and comment an [insert emoji of your choice] on this post to go into the draw to win.’
Then, turn your attention to the holy hierarchy of prices. Ask participants to sign up and provide their email to be notified if (or when) they win.
Start at the top with an epic gift. We’re thinking a trip to your event location with all-inclusive accommodation. Follow this with a mid-range prize, such as a merchandise package or a VIP experience, and then gradually move down to smaller rewards, like a free drink coupon for the next event.
2. Share a photo contest
If you aim to engage your existing community and followers, like Nonsense ALT, you can ask participants to share a photo of their favorite memory at your venue.
Set up some rules beforehand — you don’t want to host a social media photo contest with inappropriate images that will send off alarm bells to the content police (the algorithm).
3. Puzzle contest
When boosting engagement over multiple posts, one of the greatest social media contest ideas is a good ol’ puzzle contest.
To set it up, utilize your Instagram page as a puzzle board. Post different ‘pieces of the puzzle’ each day for a week, with each one revealing the ‘secret location’ of your upcoming event.
Then, ask contestants to piece these puzzle pieces together, and figure out the secret location of your next event.
Let participants know beforehand about the specific rules they’ll have to follow. For instance, ask them to like and comment on each one of the posts that appear throughout the week, but refrain from sharing their answer to the puzzle in the comment section, to maintain the challenge for others.
Instead, ask them to direct message (DM) you once they think they know the ‘secret location’.
For these social media giveaway posts, we recommend using a low-cost prize, like a discount code or merchandise, so you can reward anyone who correctly solves the puzzle within the given time frame.
4. Design contest
Tap into your followers’ artistic sides by asking them to design a poster for your next event.
If you already have an ultra-cool design style, like GBH, challenge contesters to build an event poster ‘that encapsulates the heart’ of your event.
You can then showcase the ‘poster of the day’ on your Insta story, and offer all participants a free ticket to your next event as a ‘thank you for playing’ gesture.
5. Identity quiz
Looking for social media giveaway ideas that are a bit different from the typical ones floating around Instagram and Twitter at the moment?
Two words: Identity quiz.
Here’s what you do: Use an AI-powered contest platform, like ViralKit, to quickly generate a short quiz. Then, post the link across your social channels.
The quiz will be a ‘guess who’ game that ultimately rivals the headliner of your next event. For instance, one question might be ‘who had the number one indie rock album in the US this year’ and include a list of options.
When participants get to the end of the quiz, they’ll submit their answers and see their scores. Those above a certain score get to find out who the headliner for your event is — and receive a pass for a 1:1 meeting with said headliner at your event.
6. Social media influencer giveaway
Micro-influencers are the new kings and queens of promotion. So who better to promote your giveaway than them?
For instance, Blavity House Party collaborated with festival influencer avibecalledfest for a ticket giveaway contest. Leslie, the influencer, hosted a competition where followers could win a free ticket if they followed her account and commented the name of the performer they were most excited to see.
A great part about this social media contest is that Leslie included an image of the performers who will be at the event — so followers choose who they’re most excited about out of the options. So it’s also exposure to promote the event as people follow and comment.
Influencer giveaways are a great way to reach new potential attendees who share the same interests and values as your target market.
7. Hashtag contest
Hashtag challenges might not be the most creative type of contest, but how could we not include them in our social media contest ideas list?
The first step to kickstarting a great hashtag contest is creating a branded hashtag that’s catchy and unique.
Once your hashtag is ready, it’s time to incentivize some great user-generated content by having your fans use the hashtag on any live photos they post from your event on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram with a branded hashtag.
Then, to ensure absolute fairness, gather all the entries and put them into a random name selector, like Wheel of Names. The lucky individual whose name is chosen from the digital hat gets to claim the prize.
8. Daily prize
How do you get potential attendees to blow up your comment section, share your post, and engage with your contest every single day of your promotional campaign? By offering a different prize daily for a week/month.
One day, it could be a set of free tickets to your next event. The next, it might be a voucher for free-flowing cocktails for the contest winner and their two best friends.
But here’s the catch: There can only be one winner each day. How you decide who that winner will be is totally up to you. You might host a ‘first comment wins’ contest, or set up a live quiz and then use a random name selector to decide who is the champion if there’s more than one top scorer. Either way, only one can be victorious.
9. Caption contest
To host an exciting caption contest, post a live event photo of your event. Make sure it captures a real-life moment — like this one from Deathfest.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s the lighting, the subject or the location that’s striking. You want to provide an unoriginal image that will spark followers’ reaction and make them want to create a caption.
Then, simply ask participants to ‘caption this photo’ — the best caption wins a VIP experience at your next event.
10. Voting
Social media giveaway ideas involving voting polls or surveys are a fantastic way to engage your wider audience and learn what events they want to see from you.
For instance, you could host an Instagram poll asking followers to choose a theme for your next event.
Offer participants between two to five options and keep the number of votes concealed to prevent influence by the popularity of one category. Set a clear cutoff date and time for voting. Afterward, tally the votes. Those who voted in the most popular category will win an exclusive prize at the event you’ll be hosting, such as a complimentary drink upon arrival.
11. Refer or tag a friend to win
We’re seeing the same stock standard ‘refer a tag a friend to win contests’ everywhere these days.
So what if you spice it up a little bit and ask your participants a hilarious prompt?
For example, Avalon Hollywood could ask their participants the following: ‘Tag your top 3 @’s who think they can move like Jagger (but totally can’t)’ or ‘tag your top 3 @’s most likely to lose their phone on the dancefloor.’
12. Fill in the blanks
Host a classic ‘fill in the blanks’ social media game, where you post a sentence in your caption and leave blank space for contestants to fill in — but give it an ‘event twist.’
Ask your followers to ‘fill in the blanks’ of a cheeky question. For example, ‘drinking on Sunday is lame, except when ____,’ and then crown the most hilarious answer (or the one with the most likes) the winner.
13. What’s in the box?
Create anticipation by having contestants guess what’s in your ‘mystery giveaway box’. Each day, have a clue ready and reveal a new hint about what’s in the box. For instance, you could share a clip of what the item sounds like or a video of how the item is.
What’s actually in the box? Well, that’s up to you, but we recommend sticking with an item close to your event brand.
For instance, a club like House of Yes that celebrates sexual freedom and liberal expression might consider including high-heeled shoes from a local fashion designer, and a brand with a strong merch brand could offer a hoodie or t-shirt from their clothing line.
3 tips that’ll help you nail your social media contest or giveaway
A poorly structured social media contest can feel like a waste of time and resources. While contests, as a rule, are fairly low maintenance, they still require some upfront work that’s well worth the effort.
Here are some tips on running a successful social media contest and what to keep in mind during planning.
1. Use data to choose the right platform for your target audience
The best way to determine which platform is right for your social contest campaign is to look at your previous data.
With Eventbrite, you can create unique tracking links to monitor where ticket sales come from and track page visits and conversion rates.
For example, Duck Club has 12k Instagram followers and only 350 TikTok followers. While comparatively, Instagram looks like the better place for wider audience engagement, Duck Club needs to track its engagement rate, as this is a true indicator of whether its followers interact with their content.
Using Eventbrite, Duck Club can place a tracking link on their Instagram and TikTok bios and posts to test which platform drives ticket sales. They can then track this across multiple events to determine which followers are more inclined to participate in their competition.
Master your social media event marketing
2. Invest in tech to support your campaign
If you’re not using social media tools to help you schedule and publish your social media posts, it’s definitely time to start. Social media tools can help save you time and money, and they remove the headache of having and maintaining a social presence.
If you’re looking for a tool to run viral giveaways, we recommend a platform like SweepWidget. With SweepWidget, you can use ready-made contest templates and ads, edit them to fit your brand tone, and then distribute them across different platforms, with just a click of a button.
For event promotion, on platforms like TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, use Eventbrite.
Our new Share on Social tool helps promote events on TikTok and LinkedIn with just a few clicks, using our advanced AI writing tools to create engaging event descriptions.
Additionally, you can integrate your Eventbrite account with Facebook and Instagram to promote events and see valuable data and insights all within the same place. This integration can help you keep track of event performance and stay on top of any real-time changes occurring in your campaign.
3. Include legal terms and conditions
Each social platform has different contest rules. Facebook, for example, doesn’t allow you to give away physical goods in exchange for a promotion, and Instagram specifies that inaccurate tagging is not allowed. For instance, you shouldn’t encourage contestants to tag themself in a photo that they aren’t in just to win a contest or boost engagement.
It’s also important to know the local legal regulations for giveaways, such as minimum age requirements and CAPTCHA guidelines. In general, it’s best practice to develop contest guidelines that clearly indicate the structure of your contest, including:
- Contest entry dates
- How you will choose the winner
- When, where, and how you’ll contact the winner
Be sure to link to these rules every time you promote your contest. Most importantly, run it all by your legal team long before you start your contest.
Want more social media contest ideas?
Think of social contests and giveaways as your chance to become ‘event Santa.’ You might not always give away free stuff to your community, but when you do, it’ll surely be one item on their wishlist.
The secret to running a successful social media contest isn’t just in the prize you give away; it’s how you package the offer and where you promote it. That’s why it’s important to keep an eye on your event data and examine what your campaign results reveal about your target audiences’ wants and desires.
With Eventbrite, you can create discount codes and VIP tickets, and use data insights to make better social media marketing decisions.
