How to find, enter and win Instagram competitions
Are you comping on Instagram yet? The app is a fun way to connect with family and friends and of course, to follow brands and find fun competitions. Designed initially as a simple app for sharing square photos, Instagram is constantly adding new functions like live videos, Instagram stories and IGTV. There’s no wonder it’s quickly gaining popularity, particularly amongst fashion, beauty and food brands!
In collaboration with Compers News magazine, I’ve created two video tutorials – plus a FREE e-book guide – which will help you to find, enter and win competitions on Instagram.
Instagram guide for beginners
Watch my beginners guide to Instagram, with guidance on: joining Instagram, creating your profile page, hashtags, uploading content, using searches, DMs and creating stories. Even if you already use Instagram, you’ll still find some helpful tips!
How to find, enter and win competitions on Instagram
My second video guide shows how to enter competitions on Instagram, how to regram and share posts to your story, and features comping tips and shortcuts.
Note that both videos are recorded on my iPhone 7 – and may differ from what you see on your own device!
Click below to download the 24 page e-book ‘A comper’s guide to Instagram: How to find, enter and win Instagram competitions’ as a PDF file
Watch the videos, read the ebook – and hopefully you’ll have lots of ideas to get winning on Instagram!
If you found this post useful, you might also enjoy my other PDF guides and videos:
Any questions about comping on Instagram? Leave a comment below – and don’t forget to follow me at @superluckydi!
Hi Di, I started comping on Instagram last week after watching your video. I have mastered the entering okay, but obviously didn’t watch closely enough at the winning part. I did have a couple of ‘mentioned you’ posts which have now disappeared. I thought there would be an obvious WINNER notification, but I couldn’t see anything when I went to their page. Where should you look to see who’s won, is it normally posted on the original post, and is there always instructions on how to claim when you do?
You need to check your notifications (heart button) and your message inbox (paper plane icon, top right of the screen) regularly. Promoters will usually tag you in a comment, tag you in a new post, tag you in a story or simply message you directly to let you know if you’ve won. Story mentions will only be clickable in your inbox for 24 hours, so ideally you do need to check daily. Some promoters may edit in ‘CLOSED – WINNER IS XXXX’ to the main caption on their posts too, but it’s not actually required for them to announce the winner so you won’t always see it published. For a competition where you upload your own photo – eg. Mentos – the promoter usually comments on the winner’s photo entry, asking you to message them or sometimes to send your details to an email address. Hope that helps!
Thanks Di, I won my first giveaway at the weekend and was notified through DM and asked to reply with contact details, feel much more confident now about the whole procedure
That’s great news Shirley – congratulations!
Hello, I regularly enter and host different competitions and giveaways on my Instagram page @hallies_home. So if you would like to follow me and let me know you comp ill follow back and tag you or let you know of various giveaways – people post numerous entries/comments as this also helps boost the posts to the top of feeds.
I have watched your 2nd video on how to share a post to your story but when I follow the instructions it doesn’t work on my phone, it just tells me that’s how I can send a message. Is there another way of sharing?
Some posts are set so you’re unable to share them to your story! Have you tested it on different accounts? Instead, try taking a screenshot (cropping if necessary) and then manually tagging the promoter’s username.
Hi, i’ve only very recently started comping and I set up an alternate account for instagram to keep my normal one free from spam but I’m struggling to enter instagram comps with no friends on that account to tag. Do you know of a forum or a group I can join to meet other compers who are happy to be tagged constantly on comps?
hi Emily I am justsetting everything up and need instsgram buddies
Di,
I have had a couple of wins on instagram recently but prior to that wasn’t winning at all. This seemed to follow the “tag a friend” or “tag as many friends as you can” scenario. If the instructions say “tag a friend” I do but notice that some people tag more than one friend. Will this give them an unfair advantage or will they be disqualified? I usually avoid the comps that require you to tag as many friends as possible as some entrants have 20-30 entries. What’s your opinion of these types of comp? Personally I don’t like them.
Thanks Di
I don’t like them at all Barbara – I think they encourage people to spam with comments, and it can be annoying for the people tagged. It also puts those who don’t have a lot of Instagram friends at a disadvantage! I recently ran a comp where I asked people to leave a comment tagging one friend – I used getcombot.com to choose winners, and with that you can choose to only include one comment from each person in the draw (so anyone who left more than one comment, or any comments that tagged more than one friend weren’t counted). I think that’s better!