Tutorial: How to create a Mention + Hashtag Contest – Easypromos - Online Helpdesk

The Mention + Hashtag contest allows to monitor and track new photos or videos published on Instagram and/or Twitter with a brand mention and your campaign hashtag in real-time. When new content is detected, the photo or video will be imported to the contest automatically and it will count as a new participant.

The content of the tutorial is as follows:

1. General description

The "Mention+Hashtag" application will allow you to create a contest with all the content generated by your users on Twitter or Instagram, or on both networks at the same time. You will be able to import in real time tweets, photos and videos from Twitter and Instagram tagged with one or more hashtags and with mention of the organizing brand's profile.

All tweets, photos and videos from Twitter and Instagram will be automatically imported into the application, and you can make the gallery of photos and videos public and present it on your website, blog or on Facebook.

This contest allows you to carry out different actions according to your objectives:

Retrieve all the participants that have mentioned the brand on Instagram and Twitter and used the contest hashtag and obtain the username from the social network they’ve participated from.
Carry out one or several prize draws among all participants.
Display the entries in a public gallery that you can publish in your website, blog, Facebook page, etc.

2. What should you know before beginning

The integration of Instagram and/or Twitter must be activated from the beginning of the contest, since the entries must be imported in real time.
The system will only monitor mentions in real-time. It will not import past mentions.
The participating users’ profile should be public. Private profiles are not supported.
The publication dates of the posts should be within the entry dates of the promotion.
Furthermore, in the case of Instagram, you should also keep these following points in mind:
- The real-time mention monitoring is only available for Instagram business profiles.
- Only posts (photos or videos) posted on the profile will be imported. Stories are not supported. Not available for posts on Instagram TV.
- The mention should be in the description of the post, not in the comments.

3. Set up of the Mention+Hashtag contest

Below we explain all the steps you must follow to collect the participants who have published a photo or video on Instagram and / or Twitter, mentioned your brand and using the hashtag configured for the contest.

Step 1. Create the promotion

1. Access the Easypromos Control Panel and log in with your email address and password to manage and create your promotions.

2. Create a new promotion by clicking the green button.

3. You will be shown a list of the different products available. Choose 'Mention + Hashtag' to create a promotion which can import Tweets, photos and videos from your chosen hashtag.

4. As a next step, set up the following options:

Organizing brand. As a first step, you should select or create an organizing brand for your promotion. This organizing brand is independent of any social network and works as a folder within your Easypromos account, in order to help organize the promotions that you create.
Template version. Select which template you want to use to create your promotion: Premium or White Label.

Note: Compare here the features and functionalities included in each template.

5. After clicking on "Continue" button, you'll get access to the promotion management page, where you'll find all the promotion settings. Below, we outline the most important sections:

Header. This displays the title of the promotion and other relevant information, such as the promotion ID number. The promotion status indicates whether the promotion is Draft, Active or Expired, as well as if it’s about to start. Once the promotion period has ended, this field will be marked in red saying: Status: Expired. You can choose what to show on an expired promotion page.
Link to the promotion. Use this URL whenever you share the promotion. Learn more about sharing here. The copy link button automatically copies the link to make sharing even easier.
Activate Promotion. When the promotion is ready to launch, click this button to activate it. You'll be taken to the activation page, where you can review billing information and make payments.
Side menu. All your promotion settings in one place.
View tutorial. This tutorial guides you step by step through the creation and management of your promotion.
Promotion dates controls the phases and timezone of the promotion.
Languages indicates the default language of the promotion. You can edit this if you wish.
Localization limits participation to one or several countries. Learn more about country restrictions here.
Mention + Hashtag monitor: This section shows the status of Twitter and Instagram integration that allows you to import content posted on Instagram / Twitter with a mention + hashtag.
Next steps: Practical recommendations to guide you in the creation and management of your campaign.

Step 2. Enable Twitter and/or Instagram integration

Now go to Integrations in the left-hand menu to activate Twitter and Instagram integration. Integration works separately with each network, so you can decide which platform to import content from: from Twitter, from Instagram or both.

Access the "Integrations" menu:

Here you’ll find all the platforms with which you can integrate the application.

A) Twitter integration

The Twitter integration will allow you to import tweets that contain a mention to your brand with a hashtag that you have defined for the contest. You can import text-only tweets, or tweets with photo and/or video.

Users from Twitter can participate if they have an open Twitter account at the time of publishing the tweet.

Click on the "Twitter" section to enter the configuration panel.

The first step is to connect with the Twitter account where you want to organize the contest. To do this, click on the "Twitter" button:

Then, you'll see the integration options with Twitter:

1. Account connected. By default, the system will configure your account according to the Twitter account you selected in the previous step. Click on "change" if you need to change your account.

2. Hashtag(s). Add the hashtag that Twitter followers have to use to submit their photos, videos, and comments. You can list a maximum of 3 hashtags. The system will import any Tweet that includes at least 1 of your chosen hashtags.

Using multiple hashtags can insure you against spelling variations, mistakes, and typos. Some examples are: #ContestDesign and #ContestDesing or #GrammyContest and #GrammmyContest.

Important: You can not require users to use two hashtags to enter. When you add hashtags to the list, don’t include the # symbol or any blank spaces. Check in this link the tips that we offer to define the hashtag of your contest.

3. Promotion status. In case the promotion is not activated, the system will warn you, because it is necessary that the promotion is activated to enable the integration.

4. Type of content to import. Choose the type of tweet you wish to import:

All types: the application will read and import all tweets, irrespective of whether they have photos and videos attached.
Images only: the application will only read and import tweets that contain images.
Videos only: the application will only read and import tweets that contain videos.
Images + videos: the application will read and import all tweets that contain images and videos.

5. Excluded users. Name any Twitter users whose content you don’t want to import. For example, it’s a good idea to add the name of the Twitter user who is organizing the contest. If there are any users making inappropriate use of the hashtag, you can keep them out of the competition by adding them to the list.

6. Tweet must include mention to brand (recommended). This option is enabled by default but it is optional, so you can require users to participate by simply publishing a tweet with the contest hashtag, but that the mention is not mandatory.

7. Only one entry per user. Check this option if you want to limit Twitter users to a single competition entry.

Note: It's not possible to import more than one photo or video from the same tweet. If you want users to post multiple photos or videos, each entry should be posted separately in independent tweets, and you should uncheck the box "only one entry per user".

8. Exclude retweets. Check this option if you don’t want to publish retweeted images in the competition gallery. This means that only original tweets will be published. Users will be prevented from repeating competition entries.

9. Enable reply message. Check this option if you would like to create an automatic response to participants on Twitter. You should write your message after “@username”, because this will automatically substitute "@username" with each user's Twitter handle.

B) Instagram Integration

The integration with Instagram will allow you to enable a monitor that will track new photos and/or videos on Instagram in real-time that contain a mention of your brand with a hashtag that you have defined for the contest. When a new content is detected, the photo or video will be imported into the contest automatically, and will count as a new participant.

Users from Instagram can participate if they have a public Instagram account at the time of publishing the photo/video.

Click on the "Instagram" section to enter the configuration panel. The first step is to connect with the Facebook profile with which you manage the Facebook page that is linked to the Instagram profile where you want to organize the contest. To do this, click on the "Facebook" button.

If this is the first time you connect that Facebook account with Easypromos, it will ask you to authorize the permissions of the Easypromos application so that we can show the accounts you manage.

Once accepted, you can now select the Instagram business profile with which you want to organize the contest:

Note: In case your Instagram company account does not appear, check this tutorial.

Your Instagram integration settings will be displayed. Choose the options that suit you:

1. Mention. By default, the system will configure the mention according to the Instagram account you selected in the previous step. Click on "change" if you need to change your account.

2. Hashtag(s). Add the hashtag that Instagram followers have to use to submit photos or videos to the competition. You can list a maximum of 3 hashtags. If you list multiple hashtags, the system will import any post or comment that contains at least one of them.

Use several hashtags as insurance against spelling variations, mistakes, and typos. Some examples are #ContestDesign and #ContestDesing, or #GrammyContest and #GrammmyContest.

Important: You can not require users to use multiple hashtags to enter. When you add hashtags to the list, don't include the # symbol or any blank spaces. Check in this link the tips that we offer to define the hashtag of your contest.

3. Promotion status. In case the promotion is not activated, the system will warn you, because it is necessary that the promotion is activated to enable the integration.

4. Type of content to import. Choose the type of post you wish to import:

All Types: the application will read and import both photos and videos from Instagram.
Only Photos: the application will only read and import photos.
Only Videos: the application will only read and import videos.

5. Excluded users. Name any Instagram users whose content you don’t want to import. For example, it’s a good idea to add the name of the Instagram user who is organizing the contest. If someone is using the hashtag inappropriately, you can exclude their posts from the contest by adding them to this list.

6. Only one entry per user. Check this option if you want Instagram users to have a single competition entry only.

Note: It's not possible to import more than one photo or video from the same post. If you allow more than one entry per user, each photo or video should be posted separately in independent posts.

7. Enable reply message. You can enable an automatic reply message, which will be automatically sent to the users after posting the photo/video on their Instagram profile.

Important! Users are allowed to edit an existing post to add the mention and the hashtag, but the system will only be able to import this post if it was published within the participation dates of the promotion.

Step 3. Set up the content to import

The application comes preconfigured to present tweets with images (photos and videos) and text and images (photos and videos) from Instagram in the gallery

To configure the content you want to import to the contest, you must access the Editor > Pages > Registration form> Fields and edit the following fields:

If your contest is only for tweets without images, delete the "Media field".
If your contest is only on Instagram, and you are not interested in including text in the gallery, delete the "Comments field".
By default, the contest will import both pictures and videos, but you can change this behaviour, you can modify the "Media field" by clicking on the "Media type" option.

Attention! Make sure your settings on this page match your settings in Integrations > Twitter and Integrations > Instagram.

By default, the Form page is disabled, as the contest template is configured to only accept entries from Instagram and Twitter, where users do not need to go through the registration form to upload their photo. In order to edit the previous fields, you must first publish the form page to discover the form fields that you will need to configure based on the type of content to import:

Once the necessary fields have been edited, you can unpublish the form page again if you only want to accept entries from Instagram and Twitter:

Note: If you also want to enable participation via Facebook or microsite, you only have to keep the Registration Form page published.

Step 4. Set up the gallery (optional)

If, apart from importing the entries that use the hashtag you are interested in showing the content in a gallery and being able to spread it, you can configure the following sections:

1. Contents: Upload a header image to give the gallery a more sophisticated design. You can also add an introductory message, to welcome viewers to the gallery.

2. Layout: In a Hashtags Contest, the gallery has a "mosaic" layout by default. Multiple photos are shown on each line, creating a visually attractive collage.

You can edit the following settings:

Switch to Tiled Gallery. If you’d prefer to present each participation (photo, text, and video) on a separate line, uncheck this box.
If your contest is text-based, or it accepts text-only tweets, you can choose to display texts as quotes. Learn how to set up these quotes in a range of colours.
You can edit the maximum height of images in the gallery. Find out how to resize images in a tiled gallery layout.

Note: You can enable pre-moderation so that the entries are not published automatically but remain as pending so that you can review them before.

Note: If you want to create a gallery of hashtags with automatic presentation, use the Full Screen tool.

Step 5. Enable the voting (optional)

Increase engagement by asking users to vote for their favorite entries. Start by updating the gallery settings in Editor > Pages > Gallery > Votes.

By default, Mention+Hashtag contest has the voting system disabled. Use this page to enable it, and configure how you want the voting to work:

Learn more about how the voting system works.

4. Customize the design and finish the settings

Once you have configured the Mention+Hashtag contest, the next step is to finish the configuration of the other options of the promotion, such as customizing the design template with your own colors and texts, introducing the legal bases, the viral content settings, etc. Check the tutorial to finish the configuration and customization of your promotion.

5. Manage and publish the winners

Easypromos provides a complete Prize and Winners Management system that will allow you to create the prize or prizes that you want to give to the users who participate in the contest, as well as configure how you want to assign the prizes and select the winners.

Specifically, for the Mention+Hashtag Contest you have two ways to assign the prize to the winners, according to your choice:

1. Randomly: You can run one or more draw among participants, or among a segment of participants, and obtain a certificate of validity with the results. Follow the steps of this tutorial to run the draw.

2. Manually: You can assign one or more prizes manually to your chosen winners. This is useful in voting contests and skills tests. We also recommend this option if your winners are selected by a jury, notary public, or the organizing brand. Follow the steps of this tutorial to assign the prizes manually.

Learn how to create prizes and select winners in the Prize management tutorial.

When you have the winners page ready, you can communicate it by sharing it on social networks. You can use the "Share" button to directly spread the URL of the winners page:

Recommendations:

In order to announce the winners on Instagram, we recommend the three following actions:

1. Publish a link to the Winners Page in the Bio of the organizing brand's Instagram account.

2. Publish a post or a story where the results of the giveaway are announced, so that viewers can find the link in the Bio.

3. Use your social media channels to share the link to the Winners Page.

4. Share the presentation of the draw in Broadcast Mode to communicate the winners in a more dynamic way.

Check here other ideas and recommendations to communicate the winners of your contest on Instagram.

Note: Keep in mind that links in Instagram comments and photo descriptions are not active, and can't be clicked on.

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