Youll also do everything you can to promote the contest and spread its reach far and wide. Having your posts and images prepped ahead of time will give you one less thing to worry about and more time to focus on making this a huge success. ! Last but not least, think about creating a dedicated hashtag for your contest. It's going to be another tool to help you reach more people. As others share or mention your content on their Instagram feed, they can include the hashtag. It can also be very helpful or you when the time comes to pick your winners. Having the hashtag makes it quick and easy to find every single post and repost about the contest. ! ! Come up with something meaningful and easy to remember. Then check and make sure that its not a hashtag thats currently being used. If you can come up with something completely unique, even better. ! I know this sounds like a good bit of work, but I think you'll enjoy it. Best of all, it will make the next step e

Ready to run the contest? Lets go ! !

! 7

Running Your Instagram Contest After all this prep work, it's finally time to run your contest. By far your most important task is to post frequent updates, and that starts before the official launch day. ! As you're planning and preparing, get your current followers curious by hinting at what's coming. As you get closer to the start of your contest date, tell them when to look for it and give them a few more details about the contest. Showing them what they can win is an excellent way to start showcasing your products while getting them excited and ready to participate once the contest starts. ! Be available during the contest to answer questions and of course keep posting daily to remind followers to enter. It's up to you if you let people enter daily, or only once. In either case, if you can find a way to encourage your existing followers to share your contest multiple times over the course of the contest, the better your chance of reaching a significant portion of their followers.