Instagram is one of the most successful social networks and is now in the very top of the social networks that come to mind when asking users. That's why organizing an Instagram Giveaway is an excellent opportunity to grow your community. But while it allows you to host giveaways with a lot of engagement, it's important to know Instagram's policy on promotions to make sure that we comply with the good practices of this social network.

In this guide, we describe all the steps you should follow to publish your giveaway on Instagram, complying with Instagram's policy and following the good practices.

• Step 1. Create your Easypromos account

• Step 2. Select a template

• Step 3. Download the template

• Step 4. Edit the text from the template

• Step 5. Design the giveaway image

• Step 6. Download the terms and conditions' template

• Step 7. Publish the post on Instagram

• Step 8. Add the link to the terms and conditions in the BIO

• Step 9. Tips to manage correctly the giveaway while active

• Step 10. And how do I select the winners?

Step 1. Create your Easypromos account

Is it your first giveaway with Easypromos? Then the first thing you should do is to create an account to get access to your own private control panel. It's free to create an account. To do this, click here and register with an email address and a password:

Note: If you already have an Easypromos account, click here to log in.

Step 2. Select a template

To help you create your giveaway, we offer a range of ready-made giveaway templates with the following characteristics:

• Pre-configuration with texts ready to finish and publish.
• Reviewed texts that guarantee that the participation requirements follow the policies and good practices for each social network.
• Royalty free predefined images free for you to edit, use and share.
• Detailed tutorial to configure the giveaway.

To see the templates, once in the control panel, go to the "Utilities" menu in the top and find the menu item "Templates". Click there and you will see the full list of available templates.

To make it easier for you to find the template that fits best with your giveaway, you'll be able to filter by type of campaign, so in case you are creating your giveaway for a special occasion, event or holiday, you can see the templates we have prepared for the occasion: summer campaign, Halloween, Christmas, etc.

Step 3. Download the template

When you have decided on the template you want to use for your Instagram Giveaway, place your mouse over the template and click the button "More information" that appears:

A pop-up will open where we explain what you get with the template and how it works.

When you click on the "Preview" button, you will see what the content of the template will look like in an Instagram post and also the image that you get to promote the giveaway in Stories:

Note: Downloading and publishing the template is free. To select the winners with Easypromos, check the payment plans.

Step 4. Edit the text from the template

Click on “Start now from this template” to access the tool to create the post:

In this tool, you can:

1. Edit the text of the post to adapt it to your giveaway. You will see that there are words in {{}} which are the words that you should change to make the text right for your specific giveaway, for example the description of the prize you’re giving away, entry instructions, entry deadline, etc. Here you can also add a link to the terms and conditions at the end of the text to allow users to read them at any given time.
2. Modify the default image and upload the image you’ve designed in Step 2. To do that, you should delete the default image and then click to upload your own image. The recommended image size is 1080x1080px.

If you wish, you can also send all the content of the template to your email, in order to publish the giveaway post directly from your Instagram profile. To do this, you only have to enter your email and all the material will be sent to your email:

Step 5. Design the giveaway image

The template comes with two attached images in the email; one is for the giveaway post and one is for Stories.

Both images have been designed following the good practices and specifications from Instagram but if you prefer, you can also design your own creatives. In this case, here we give you the sizes you need to create:

• Post image: The images are seen in 600x600 px but we recommend you to upload them in 1080x1080 px. If your image is in landscape format, you can upload it in 1080x566 px but Instagram will show it in 600x400 px. And if it's in portrait format, you can upload it in 1080x1350 px and it will be shown in 600x749 px.
• Story image: The size for images and videos for Instagram Stories is 750x1334 px.

Tip! You know they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so to grab the attention of the users and encourage them to enter the giveaway, make the most of the image and place the word "Giveaway" in it and, if possible, design an image where the prize on offer is visible. Nothing works better than actually seeing the fantastic prize you're raffling.

Step 6. Download the terms and conditions' template

It's recommended to always include the terms and conditions in any giveaway, where you explain all the important aspects of the giveaway: prize on offer, entry dates, entry conditions, organizing company or brand, etc.

To help you write your terms and conditions, we offer a template in .DOC and PDF that covers all the important points that should be included in the terms and conditions.

You can download the terms and conditions template from the menu "Utilities" > "Your terms and conditions":

This document has been written up by a legal agency that's specialized in online promotions and giveaways and you will see that it contains empty spaces marked with red which are the ones you should fill in in order to adapt the terms and conditions to your giveaway.

When you've filled in the fields with the information about your giveaway, the next step is to publish the terms and conditions so that you can use them in your giveaway. To do this, Easypromos offers a tool to host the terms and conditions in web format where you can upload the complete text and it gives you a link that you can use to share on your Instagram profile, in the BIO, in the giveaway post, in Stories or any other channel.

You can access the tool from the "Utilities" menu > "Your terms and conditions". Then follow these steps:

1. Click on the button "Create new terms and conditions":
2. Next, you will access the terms and conditions editor. In the "Description" field you can paste the text from the terms and conditions template that you filled in in the previous step:

Note: See here how to use the tool to host your terms and conditions. The Terms & Conditions creation and hosting tool is available with an active Basic plan or higher.

Step 7. Publish the post on Instagram

Time has come to publish the giveaway post so that the users can begin participating. When you are ready to publish the post on your Instagram profile, click the "Send to Instagram" button, and the post will be published immediately:

Once you've published the post, your followers can participate. Alea iacta est! :)

Step 8. Add the link to the terms and conditions in the BIO

A feature that makes Instagram special (and makes it cause many headaches) is that it's not possible to include clickable links, except for in the profile BIO, where Instagram allows one link. Use this to post the link to the terms and conditions that you've obtained in Step 6 of this tutorial. That way, the users have easy access to the terms and conditions during the whole giveaway period.

Tip! If you publish the link in the BIO, you can include the sentence "Link to T&C's in BIO" in the giveaway post.

Step 9. Tips to manage correctly the giveaway while active

When you've published the giveaway post to your Instagram profile and published the link to the terms and conditions, it's time for the users to enter your contest by commenting on the post. But there are some things you can do to give the giveaway a push to reach more users, we'll explain them here:

• Disseminate the giveaway in your Stories and direct users to the profile so they can participate by commenting on the post. Stories help achieve better reach and visibility being the resource that's most used and most appreciated by Instagrammers.
• You can use the hashtag #giveaway in the post so that it will show up if users search for this hashtag. All hashtags in your posts become clickable links which means that users more easily can find content that is of their interest, such as giveaways.
• Promote the giveaway post to reach more users and that way, get more participation. Important note: On Instagram, you can promote posts directly from the Instagram app, or you can create new sponsored posts from Facebook Ads Manager. In both cases, a new Instagram is created and this means that the comments on the sponsored post will not automatically be added to the comments on the original giveaway post. If you want to add these comments to the giveaway, find out how to do it here.
• Do you need more ideas to how to disseminate your giveaway to make it a success? Don't miss out on this guide with 10 recommendations to guarantee good reach of an Instagram giveaway.

Step 10. And how do I select the winners?

When the entry period has ended, the time has come to finalizing the giveaway by selecting the winners. To do this, Easypromos offers the "Instagram Giveaway" app that will allow you to import the giveaway post with all the users that have commented on the post to the control panel, and that way carry out the random draw to select the winner.

The process to select the winners has been designed to be intuitive and guided but if it's your first giveaway with Easypromos, we recommend you follow the step by step tutorial to not forget anything and finalize the giveaway properly.