Whether you are interested in entering an Instagram loop giveaway, hosting one or simply skeptical of this whole thing , you’ve come to the right place. I recently ran one myself as the host, and I wanted to share all my lessons learned with you:

What is an Instagram Loop Giveaway?

There are a few forms of loop giveaways done on the web, but the kind I’ll explain below is the kind seen on Instagram.

Basically, it’s when a few Instagram accounts (the “hosts“) get together, usually between 20-60 of them, and come up with a prize of a group of prizes for the giveaway, and create a criteria for others (the “entrants”)  who want to be entered into the drawing in order to win.

The way the hosts come up with prizes vary. It could be chipping in together and creating a pool of funds for one of the hosts to purchases the prizes. OR, it could be on a contribution basis, where some or all of the hosts contribute a product or something they don’t mind giving away.

Why do people host Instagram Loop Giveaways?

For the most part, it’s for the hosts to gain more followers.

In my personal experience though, I hosted a loop giveaway to get to know other bloggers who blog about similar things. You see, my blog is about corporate fashion and workwear for professional women. When I created my loop giveaway, I teamed up with 18 other bloggers who blog about the same topic. The logic is that my audience would appreciate their content and vice versa.

How to get the biggest return from hosting Instagram Loop Giveaways?

Full disclosure here – I’ve hosted one loop giveaway myself and also participated in co-hosting of another. Each time I gained on average about 400 Instagram followers. About 50 or so I’d lose in the two weeks following the end of the giveaway. I’d also like to caveat these numbers with the fact that the total number of followers all the hosts have in accumulation didn’t exceed 50K either time.  I would imagine some of the loop giveaways with more powerful IGers would be more effective and fruitful.

What makes a good Instagram loop giveaway?

This section is intended for those of you who are thinking about creating a loop giveaway yourself. Many bloggers have covered on the logistics of how to carry out one, you can find some of the most popular ones on Tin Shingle, Blog Brighter, and Life by Lee.

To me, the loop giveaways that stood out and piqued my interest always have two critical elements. 1. A carefully selected co-hosts with a unique focus and 2) a set of curated giveaway items. The concept here is similar to blogging 101, where they always tell you to know your audience. It’s the same thing when creating a loop giveaway. Because you want your audience to stick around for the long run, you want to target the right people. Teaming up with people that have similar topics in their content is the first step. The second is to provide the right prizes that attract the right kind of audience.

You can see what I did for the Instagram loop giveaway I hosted in January 2016 here, and see the language I used, what I did for terms and conditions, and the imageries.

What are your thoughts on loop giveaways? Share away below please – positives AND negatives!