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

The “Hashtag + Entry Form” contest allows you to organize a contest where users can participate with the photos they have posted on their own Instagram profile with a specific hashtag. The users have to identify with their Instagram profile and automatically they can select the photo from their account that has the contest hashtag. They should also fill in the entry form which is completely customizable.

The content of the tutorial is as follows:

1. General description

The Hashtag+Entry form contest will allow you to create a photo contest for Instagram users and followers. Users will take a photo with your campaign theme and will share it on their profile with the campaign hashtag. Then they will confirm their competition entry by filling in a form, choosing which photo to enter, accepting the terms & conditions, and agreeing to any other requirements listed in the form.

The Hashtag+Entry form contest will allow you to:

Completely customize the registration form with the data you want to obtain from the participants.
Publicly display the photos uploaded by users in the contest gallery and enable the voting system so that the photos can be voted.
Pre-moderate competition entries to control which images appear in the gallery.
Decide how you want to determine the winner/s of the contest: by votes, through a jury or by a random draw.

Note: Do you want to organize a photo or video contest on Instagram but without entry form? Then have a look at the “Mention + Hashtag” that allow users to participate directly from Instagram by posting a photo or video with the contest hashtag and a mention of the organizing brand.

2. What’s the user experience like?

To participate in the contest, the users should access the contest through the link that the organizer provides. On accessing the entry form, the users will be asked to fill in all the required fields. In this step the user will be able to connect his Instagram profile and select the photo with the hashtag that he has published on his Instagram profile.

You can see the user experience of participating in a Hashtag + Entry Form contest in the following video:

3. Set up of the Hashtag+Entry form Contest

Here we explain all the steps to create your Hashtag+Entry form 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'll be presented with the products available. Choose ‘Hashtag + Entry Form’ contest to create your promotion.

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 have all the options for configuring the promotion. Below, we outline all the most important sections.

Header. Here you'll see the promotion title, the version you've chosen (Premium or White Label) and other relevant information such as the promotion ID number of the promotion. You'll also notice the Promotion status, which indicates the status of the promotion: 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 you want to show on an expired promotion page.
Link to the promotion. This is the URL that you should use for sharing on all channels. Learn more about sharing here. You'll also see the Copy link button, which instantly copies the link to make sharing easier.
Activate Promotion button. When the promotion is prepared and ready to launch, click this button to activate it. You'll be taken to the activation page, where you can review billing information before paying for the promotion.
Test mode. This tool will allow you to carry out a real test of the promotion before activating it, in order to participate in it as users will when it is activated and thus be able to check that the promotion works as expected before launching it. More information.
Side menu. This displays all the promotion settings options.
View tutorial. This tutorial guides you step by step through the creation and management of your promotion.
Promotion dates and time zone allows you to set the boundaries of your promotion
Languages indicates the default language. You can change this if you need to.
Localization enables you to limit participation to one or several countries. (Localization is included by default). Learn more here.
Next steps: Practical recommendations that steer you through the creation and management of your campaign.

Step 2. Configure the Hashtag + Entry Form contest

Next you should configure the hashtag of the contest that the users should add in their Instagram post:

1. Enter the ‘Editor’ of the promotion.

2. When you access the Editor, a pop-up window will open where you can quickly configure the two following settings:

Contest hashtag. Write is without the #.
How will you use the images? (mandatory field). In this field you need to write what you will use the images from the participants to. For example: We will only use images internally, in order to check that their content is appropriate and conforms with the requirements in our Terms and Conditions; We will publish all images from the contest in a public gallery, to be displayed on our social media and our website.

The system will save the hashtag that you write in this first step but you can modify it later if necessary. Now you can concentrate on customizing the different pages of the contest as we explain in the following step.

Step 3. Participant registration system

In order to participate in the Hashtag+Entry form Contest, users must register by filling in the registration form with the requested data.

To do this, go to the Editor > Pages > Registration Form, to customize the fields that you want to ask users to be able to participate:

You will see that the registration form comes with the "Media" field enabled. This field will allow users to upload their Instagram photo. The "Comments" field is also enabled, which will allow to obtain the text of the Instagram publication itself, as it will be pre-filled with the text of the photo, although the user can edit the content if they wish.

Check the tutorial where we explain how to configure the promotion registration form.

Step 4. Customize the Gallery page

Set up a public gallery where all the participants' photos will be displayed. In this section, you should focus on the following tabs:

1. Contents: You can upload a header image to give the gallery a more corporate touch. You can also add an introduction message.

2. Layout: By default, pictures are presented in a vertical gallery, one below the other, but you can activate the tiled gallery layout, which displays more than one picture on the same line, making a more visually attractive collage.

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

3. Options: You will find the following options:

Entries per page. This option allows to set up the number of pictures displayed per page within the Gallery.
Order entries. This option allows to set up how you want the pictures to be ordered on the Gallery:
- - Most recent first.
  - Randomly.
  - Most voted first.
Anonymous participation. Activate this if you don’t want users' names and profiles displayed in the gallery.

Step 5. Enable the voting (optional)

Access the "Votes" tab if you want to allow users to vote on entries.

By default, the Hashtag + Entry Form contest comes with the voting system enabled. You can set up what type of voting system you wish to use. You can also disable the voting system from here. Check here how the voting system works and all the configuration options.

This section allows many other possibilities:

4. Customize the design and finish the settings

Once you have configured the Hashtag+Entry form 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 Hashtag+Entry form 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.

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