Social media is a powerful tool for building and marketing a modern business. One type of social media marketing that is particularly effective is hosting giveaways. Giveaways can help your business generate new followers, more engagement, and increased sales, despite giving away items for free. Keep reading to learn how social media giveaways can increase store sales and how they can benefit your business in many other ways. If your business doesn’t already have a social presence online, perhaps the benefits below will make you want to change that status.

How Do Social Media Giveaways Work?

Social media giveaways are forms of digital marketing that take place on social sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms. Businesses can offer products, services, custom merchandise, and more to their social media followers to promote interest in their business. Giveaways usually involve some type of entry rules, such as following the business’s account, sharing the post with a friend, commenting and engaging with the post, and more. Finally, after a set period, the business selects a winner and presents them with the product or gift.

How Giveaways Can Increase Store Sales

Now that you know the basics of social media giveaways, you can start to explore the effect they have on sales. Keep reading to learn the various benefits of social media giveaways and discover the connection between giveaways and increased sales.

Gain More Social Media Followers

The first thing you’ll notice when hosting a social media giveaway is that your follower count can start to increase. This is usually thanks to standard social media giveaway rules. Many businesses choose to hold giveaways for followers, which means participants who want to enter must first follow the business’s account. If your giveaway gets picked up by the social media platform’s algorithm, you could see a large increase in followers. This means you will have more active users seeing your posts, products, and promotions.

Take this opportunity to post regularly to your account and keep these new followers engaged. Don’t be concerned if you lose some of these followers after your giveaway period—some will only stick around for the chance at free items. However, there’s a good chance you can connect with other new followers and keep them engaged after the giveaway ends.

Boosts Social Media Engagement

While you’re bound to lose some new followers after your giveaway ends, you’re also likely to keep some as well. If they like your products, new followers will stick around to see your future posts and await your next giveaway. The more followers that interact with your posts, the more likely it is that the algorithm will pick up your content, which can help your account gain even more followers. Track your social media engagement so that you know which posts, promotions, and products your followers engage with the most. Remember to always include links in your social media posts to increase sales. These links help generate leads by directing consumers to your online store or providing directions to your retail store.

Increases Brand Recognition

The more often your business posts giveaways on social media, the more impressions your posts will create. This helps you get more eyes on your business’s promotions, products, and informational posts. The more familiar potential customers are with your posts, the more your brand recognition will increase. Brand recognition is the concept of customers being able to distinguish a specific brand from its competitors. If your customers are familiar with your giveaways, they may feel more attached to your brand and choose it over others. This helps drive more sales to your online or retail store.

Consider offering custom merchandise during your giveaways. Customers who win your giveaway will always have a reminder of your store in the form of branded clothing or other merchandise. When they wear or use these items, they’re also helping increase your brand recognition by presenting your business’s logo or slogan.

Promotes Word-of-Mouth Marketing

If your small business is exclusively brick-and-mortar-based, you might be unsure about using social media and other digital marketing methods. However, social media and other online marketing tools can help promote physical traffic to in-person businesses just as much as they promote online traffic. Word-of-mouth marketing is an extremely powerful tool for retail stores, and social media makes word-of-mouth marketing easy. Your followers are likely to share giveaways with their friends, encouraging more entries and spreading information about your business further.

Target Specific Locations

Social media marketing allows you to target specific locations, which is useful for scheduling giveaways near your retail store. Whether you host your giveaway online or simply promote in-store participation through social media posts, you can easily spread the word about your giveaway throughout your local area. Encourage customers to tag your store in their posts to generate more attention to your account and future giveaways.

Increases Product Exposure

Giveaways usually require distributing products and gifts for free, but there are many benefits to giving away merchandise. If you want more people to know about the quality of your goods, giveaways are a great way to increase product exposure. Often, consumers are hesitant to buy new products they haven’t tried or heard about. However, the chance to try a product for free through a giveaway can increase the number of interested customers and encourage people to learn more about your products.

Start Planning a Social Media Giveaway

Now that you know how social media giveaways can increase your business’s store sales, you might be ready to plan a giveaway of your own. Start by signing up for a business account on your chosen social media platform. Then choose the product or merchandise you want to give away. If you’re interested in creating custom merchandise to further increase your business’s brand recognition, consider stocking up on apparel items such as plain baseball caps, which are perfect for customization. At KBETHOS, we offer classic accessories in bulk that are ideal for embroidery, screen printing, and other customization methods.

Remember these benefits of social media giveaways the next time your marketing team plans a promotion for your business. If you’re looking for a new and creative way to boost your business’s sales and brand recognition, a giveaway could be the perfect option.