YouTube giveaways are the most effective approach to building a loyal community. Not only does it benefit the audience and the creator, but it also gets more revenue opportunities. The giveaways increase channel engagement, gain new subscribers, and enhance the viewer’s experience.
Giveaways are helpful, but the audience is evolving. YouTube creators need to stand out. The blog explores how to do an effective YouTube giveaway. We’ll discuss how to make the target audience part of an interactive community. Additionally, understanding how giveaways boost traffic, create engagement, and provide revenue opportunities.
Why Do Creators Run a YouTube Giveaway?
A YouTube Giveaway contest is an effective method for the creator in the following way. Let’s see how to make a YouTube giveaway and why creators are so eager to adapt it.
It helps in growing the channel audience
The giveaway contest helps target a large audience base. Since it reaches a large audience, the chances of acquiring new subscribers also increase. The giveaways act as invitations. New viewers come to your channel and discover your videos. The viewers interact with the channel’s content, resulting in engagement and a traffic boost. The giveaways increase the chances of audience growth.
The creator unlocks revenue opportunities
Organizing a giveaway on your channel allows you to collaborate with brands. By featuring their products or services, you can build business relationships with clients and generate revenue by promoting their products in future content plans.
Increasing YouTube channel awareness
Giving away prizes at regular intervals portrays the creator as generous. The audience becomes curious about the next giveaway. Sponsors and clients also use the channel as a reliable source to promote their products. The frequent sponsorships portray the creator’s works as continuously evolving and growing.
In short, the audience gets the exciting prize for participation, and the creator receives the engagement.
How to do a YouTube Giveaway?
Now that you understand the importance of giveaways, let’s see the best way to do a YouTube giveaway.
1. Set achievable goals
Ask yourself, “What one outcome do I want to achieve with this giveaway?” The whole point of doing giveaways is to achieve something. Predefine your goals and plan the contest strategy around them.
If you’d like to increase subscribers, plan your giveaway according to that, or if you want to build your YouTube community, devise a plan according to that goal.
The strategic approach can help you decide the relevant prize for the winner.
2. Prize and Reward of your giveaway
The YouTube giveaway prize should be something appealing to the audience. The more exciting the award, the more engagement you will receive.
An exciting reward will create a buzz in the audience, which increases the chances of your contest reaching more people.
Choose a prize your audience values. The prize should be relevant to your goals and contest and reflect your channel’s identity.
3. Use a giveaway tool
Giveaways are uncertain. It’s difficult to predict how many participants will take part. Use a giveaway tool to make your contest organized and seamless.
A tool can help you choose the correct winner, eliminating all possible chances of bias.
Some of the best tools available are:
- YouTube Comment Picker: This free tool can be helpful if you want to select a winner based on comments.
- Gleam.io: This tool can track participants’ entries, protect against fraud, and randomly choose winners.
- Veefly: A tool for boosting YouTube engagement with unique functionalities.
4. Set rules for the contest
Tell your audience what they need to do to enter the contest. Establish the entry rules in a simple and accessible way. Complex rules can discourage participants.
Explain to the audience the type of contest, requirements, eligibility, and dates.
Give clear instructions on selecting the winner, when you will announce the winner, and what the winners must do.
Since the contest involves rules, it’s better to know about YouTube rules for giveaways and, if needed, have a disclaimer advised by a legal counselor.
5. Follow YouTube’s rules for giveaways.
Before structuring the contest, know the YouTube rules for giveaways and follow the YouTube giveaway policy and guidelines. Ensure the contest follows the YouTube content and privacy guidelines as well as the local guidelines of the region.
The notable YouTube rules for giveaways are acknowledging the original creator if copyrighted material is used, keeping contest entries free, avoiding manipulating metrics, respecting participants’ privacy, and protecting data.
Also, YouTube is not liable for the giveaway contest, as mentioned in the YouTube giveaway policy.
6. Promoting the giveaway
Start promoting the contest before the event, as it generates excitement for your giveaway. The revelation of a giveaway prize can create a buzz among your audience.
Based on the planned strategy, start promoting your giveaway accordingly.
The goal is to attract more participants to the giveaway, so frequently announce it on your YouTube channel and social media accounts.
Promote the event while following the YouTube giveaway policy. Try Google AdWords or promotion tools, or interact with the audience. Utilize the YT platform features like polls, live streams, and shorts. Take insights from YouTube analytics and collaborate with other YouTube creators to catch the eyes of broad audiences.
7. Time to run the giveaway
Now that you have set goals for your giveaway and defined the outcome, run your YouTube giveaway with the proper balance of preparation, audience engagement, and a set of rules.
Start your giveaway by checking all the parameters you have set for the contest.
Actively engage with the audience. Make BTS videos and document the giveaway for further content creation and ideas.
Execute the contest using giveaway tools. Analyze the ongoing competition to determine whether it is fulfilling the intended goal.
8. Announce the winner
After completing the giveaway, reveal the winner with a proper strategy. Create a video about the contest so that the audience gets the transparency of the giveaway.
Create a dedicated video to reveal the winner. Using storytelling to build suspense will help increase engagement. To increase excitement, showcase the runner-ups or surprise the audience with consolation prizes.
If you reveal the winner on a live stream, execute properly, as you will not have the advantage of editing videos.
9. Gain feedback on the YouTube giveaway.
Giveaways are not one-time events. To further community building, you must conduct many giveaways. Leverage the data you have gained from your giveaways to enhance the next event.
Look at the participants’ data and cater to the repeated users or loyal followers. Gather the participants’ feedback. Follow up with participants to foster a YouTube community.
Conclusion
YouTube giveaways are more than just an event; they can create an interactive community that will boost your YouTube channel growth and increase engagement. The blog discussed how do giveaways work on YouTube and how to run a giveaway on YouTube that aims to help you create result-driven goals, starting with offering the right prizes, using the right tools, executing the strategy, and following YouTube guidelines. Finally, executing giveaways with the right tools and strategy will increase revenue opportunities and a loyal audience.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. What kind of giveaway prize should I offer?
A prize should be relevant to your channel and audience. If you are a tech channel, you can provide the latest gadget. Distributing gift/coupon cards for early participants will increase traffic, or you can give complementary merchandise.
Q2. Do I need a third-party tool to run a giveaway?
No, but tools can make the contest more seamless and help you keep track of everything, like tracking entries, promoting, and collecting data for future events. Some apps are gleam.io, Rafflecopter, and Kingsumo.
Q3. How long should I run a YouTube giveaway?
Generally, 2 weeks should be an ideal time. It will give you enough time to promote the event and be short enough to maintain the hype.
Q4. How do I promote my YouTube giveaways?
Promote the giveaways by making a dedicated video. Mention them in the description section of relevant videos or promote them online with tools like Veefly to reach the maximum audience.
Q5. How to do a YouTube giveaway winner announcement?
Use tools to pick a random comment based on your giveaway, users who correctly answered your questions, choose the best submission(photos, videos, etc), activity-based selection, etc.