Now more than ever, Instagram entrepreneurs are hoping to win big by leveraging a multi-billion user platform. Using Instagram as an online platform is an excellent way to start your own company, build a brand, and gain a loyal following. One massively successful way for you to take advantage of Instagram is hosting contests directly on the platform.
Instagram contests can help you capture part of the massive Instagram market. Thirty-seven percent of US Adults have an Instagram, and their daily user count has hovered just over one billion active users for two years in a row.1 Instagram contests are a way for Instapreneurs to attract followers faster, entice both current followers and prospective followers to engage with your business, and to strengthen relationships with existing audiences.2 Hosting a contest on Instagram can help you grow your followers seventy percent faster in a three-month span.3Additionally, these contests are an incredible opportunity to grow your brand and promote your products or services.
However, with great opportunity comes great risk. Follow the advice in this article to run your contest in a safe, legal manner.
Instagram offers a short set of Promotion Guidelines, which serve as guideposts for your business to host a contest on their platform. Read on for a walkthrough of the Promotion Guidelines, and examples of how to successfully host an Instagram contest. The Instagram Guidelines start with some general, but critical tenants:
If you use Instagram to communicate or administer a promotion (example: a contest or sweepstakes), you are responsible for the lawful operation of that promotion, including:
- The official rules;
- Offer terms and eligibility requirements (example: age and residency restrictions); and
- Compliance with applicable rules and regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered (example: registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals)4
When your business wants to host a contest, you are in charge of including the rules of your contest. Additionally, Instagram makes it clear in section iii that you must follow federal and local rules and regulations regarding online contests.
In order to follow these rules and steer away from liability, you must outline the official rules of your giveaway. Many businesses write these rules as a caption and include the name of the hosting business, instructions on how to enter the contest, the dates of the contest, age and location restrictions, how the winner will be announced, and how the winner will receive the “prize.”
For example, one Instagram user ran a contest for a set of custom coasters. Here is how they captioned their post:
“Announcing the second ever custom coaster contest!! You could be the winner of a custom coaster set!
1. Follow @tomcapsdesigns
2. Tag 3 friends in the comments below!
I had a lot of fun running the first contest and was able to make a bunch of cool coasters because of it! Enter here and if you win, I will be in touch to design the coasters with you. I make your coaster set and then send them your way for your enjoyment
Per Instagram rules, this promotion is no way sponsored, administered, or associated with Instagram Inc. by entering, entrants confirm that they are 13+ years of age, release Instagram of responsibility, and agree to Instagram’s terms of use. US only. Winners announced July 30th!” 5
As you can see, this user outlined the official rules to their contest clearly and concisely. Entrants must follow the account, tag friends in the comments, be over 13 years of age, and be in the United States. The user also outlined the process (“if you win, I will be in touch to design the coasters with you”) and that the winners will be announced on July 30th.
Age and Location Restrictions
Age and location restrictions can be critical to both the success of your contest and protecting you from possible liability. The coaster contest exampled above limited entrants to the United States and required each participant to be at least 13 years old. Your contest could even go a step further and narrow entry locations down to a city or state. By limiting your contest to a certain area or age group, you can prevent unforeseen liabilities. There are several situations where you might consider limiting the age or location of entrants:
- User Generated Content: If your contest involves users posting photos that you might later post yourself (user generated content), you might want to restrict the age to make sure the photo-entries to your contest come from 18+ year-olds who are more likely to understand how their photo entry might be used.
- Shipping Costs: It may be helpful to limit entrants to a specific location if you do not want to pay hefty shipping costs to send your giveaway item. (It costs $23 or more to send coasters from the United States to the United Kingdom)
- Prize Value Filing Laws: In some states, like Rhode Island, if your prize value exceeds a certain amount, you are required to register the contest with the Secretary of State.6 You might want to avoid states that require registration if your contest prize is valued highly.
- Type of Prize: In the United States, you must be 21 years or older to consume alcohol, and if you try to run an Instagram Promotion related to the sale or giveaway of alcohol, you might want to restrict viewers of your promotion to be 21 years or older.
These different rules are why Instagram makes users who host contests responsible for “Compliance with applicable rules and regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered.” A little due diligence on contest rules and regulations for your specified area can go a long way. Make sure you look up the rules surrounding what type of prize you are offering, what age group you should limit it to, and where you hope to run the contest.
Language
This section also requires you to make it clear you are hosting a contest. One of the best ways to do this is to use the term “sweepstakes” or “contest” directly in the contest post and rules. The Federal Trade Commission strongly recommends this terminology, as it indicates to the viewer that they, should they choose, are participating in your brand’s contest7. The Guidelines also explicitly mention these two terms earlier, further signaling that Instagram endorses these types of contests. If you stray away from these terms, and use words like “gamble” or “lottery,” your contest might cross the line into illegal online gambling. Gambling or lotteries usually involve participants paying for a chance to win a prize. Some states, like Michigan, construe the term lottery very broadly. In fact, even if one of the key features of a lottery (consideration, prize, and chance) is missing, Michigan courts can still find an event to be an illegal lottery.8 Some states introduce these restrictions to protect their vulnerable residents who might not fully understand the risks associated with online gambling. So, it is your job as the contest host to make it clear that this is not online gambling. In order to do that, make sure entrants do not have to pay for a chance to win and do not use the term “lottery” or “gamble.” If you avoid these two things, your contest will not likely be considered an illegal lottery.
Choosing the right words for your contest will communicate your intent to viewers and help bolster your efforts to run a legal online contest. When you host a contest, make sure to label it as such. The coaster contest example used the word “contest” to outline that users can voluntarily enter a promotion and would have the chance to win if they chose to enter and followed the contest rules.
Relevance
The Instagram Guidelines then go on to say:
- You must not inaccurately tag content or encourage users to inaccurately tag content (example: don’t encourage people to tag themselves in photos if they aren’t in the photo).9
It is not necessarily straightforward why Instagram wants to prevent users from inaccurate tagging. However, this rule is helpful to Instagram for several reasons. First, it prevents posts from showing up where they should not. Next, it keeps contests limited in their reach and ensures that the right people see your contest. Third, it prevents Instagram spam. The coaster contest giveaway outlined above added the following tags to their contests.
#win #resinart #epoxy #epoxyart#diyporjects #homedecor #decorinspo #contest #resin #art #giveaway #prize #giveawayalert #free #raffle
These hashtags accurately represent the contest. The use of specific, relevant hashtags ensures that people following those specific hashtags might see the contest, but others will be less likely to see it. You might be tempted to have users tag the photo with all of their friend’s names, but Instagram wants to discourage this because it will create possibly spammy posts with hundreds of inaccurate tags. It is absolutely fair to encourage users to tag others in the comments, rather than tagging the photo itself. By requiring entrants to tag two or three friends to enter, your Instagram gains greater exposure and can grow even more. This strategy can be invaluable to Instagram contests, as each entrant tags more possible entrants, the contest will grow in size and your business will be all the better for it! Just make sure to keep the tags relevant and encourage users to do the same.
Liability
The next portion of Instagram’s Promotion Guidelines deal with possible negative consequences of promotions. Remember the example of Rhode Island requiring you to file with the Secretary of State if your prize is greater than $500? If you host a Rhode Island contest with a greater than $500 prize and forget to register, Instagram makes it clear that it is not responsible for any liability associated with the contest:
- Promotions on Instagram must include the following:
- A complete release of Instagram by each entrant or participant.
- Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram.10
In addition to the rules you added to your contest caption before, you need to also include a complete release of Instagram, which means that Instagram will not be liable for any wrongdoing related to the contest. Specifically, each entrant needs to individually release Instagram of responsibility. This can be done by simply adding one line to your post. The user from the earlier contest said “Per Instagram rules, this promotion is no way sponsored, administered, or associated with Instagram Inc. by entering, entrants confirm that they are 13+ years of age, release Instagram of responsibility, and agree to Instagram’s terms of use.” By stating that entrants confirm they “release Instagram of responsibility,” any entrant cannot hold Instagram liable for negative consequences of the contest.
Now, you might be asking, “If I release Instagram of responsibility, does that make me responsible?” You are asking the perfect question. When you release Instagram, liability can be directed toward you or your business if the contest runs afoul.
To help with this, it might be beneficial for you to create an Instagram Contest Terms & Conditions page on your website and link it in your Instagram bio while running this contest. Just like Instagram, you can say in your terms and conditions that “by entering this contest, you release me/my business (the host of the contest) of any liability.” Having a separate Terms & Conditions page gives you more space to specifically outline what you require of entrants to successfully participate in your contest. Make sure the link to your Terms & Conditions page is easily accessible and that your Instagram Contest says that entrants can read the full Terms & Conditions of the contest by clicking the link in your bio or on your website. This way, if something does go wrong, you already know that the entrant will not be able to hold you accountable if your contest is otherwise done with good faith.
Conclusion
Ultimately, it is your responsibility to make sure your contest is legal, and if you discover ineligible entrants, it would be prudent to reach out to that entrant, explain why their entry is not valid, and not count that entry when you are deciding the contest winner. Here are the steps you should take today to make sure your Instagram Contest is run in a safe, legal, and successful manner!
First, state your contest’s official rules
- Include the following
- Eligibility
- How to enter
- How the winner(s) will be selected and notified
- A release of Instagram
- A release of your business
- Do not require users to tag others in the photo (asking them to tag their friends in the comments is fine)
Second, limit the scope of your contest and keep it relevant
- Identify your target audience based on your brand, the prize, its value, and where you would like to run the contest
- Look into local rules and regulations surrounding online contests
- Keep the tags relevant and encourage entrants to do the same
Next, use the right language
- Make sure to label it as a contest or sweepstakes, not a lottery or gambling event
Finally, add an Instagram Contest Terms & Conditions page to your website
- Make sure this link is easily accessible (possibly in your Instagram bio)
- Make sure to say in your post “please see Terms & Conditions for this contest by clicking on the link in my bio”
Overall, if you take these steps, follow the Instagram Guidelines, and do a little research into the rules of online contests for the kind of contest you hope to run, your business is one step closer to reaching a broader audience and becoming a successful business.
Jenn Chen, Important Instagram stats you need to know for 2020, Sprout Social (Aug. 5, 2020), https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-stats/. ↩
Animalz, How To Run a Successful Instagram Giveaway (and Why You Should!), AdEspresso (Jan. 8, 2020), https://adespresso.com/blog/instagram-giveaway/. ↩
David Christopher, How to Do a Giveaway on Instagram Successfully (+Ideas!), tailwind blog (Jun. 22, 2020), https://www.tailwindapp.com/blog/instagram-contest-ideas-that-will-grow-your-followers-70-faster. ↩
Promotion Guidelines, Instagram, https://help.instagram.com/179379842258600 (last visited Nov. 26, 2020). ↩
Thomas Mulholland (@tomcapsdesigns), Instagram (July 25, 2020), https://www.instagram.com/p/CDEoBtgDpgy. ↩
Prize Promotions Around The World, DLA Piper, https://www.dlapiperintelligence.com/prizepromotions/insight/index.html?t=registration-requirements&c=US (last visited Nov. 26, 2020). ↩
Brent Scott, How to Make Sure Your Contest Collaboration is FTC Compliant, Perlu, (Jan. 9, 2019) https://blog.perlu.com/social-media-contest-ftc-compliance/. ↩
Att’y Gen. v. PowerPick Players’ Club of Mich., LLC, 783 N.W.2d 515 (Mich. App. 2010). ↩
Promotion Guidelines, supra note 4. ↩
Id. ↩