Last month, we did something we've never done before. Actually, we did a couple things we've never done before. It started with a YouTube live stream we hosted right after Apple's September Keynote. It was our first time ever doing a live stream this way and it wasn't without a few hiccups , but it was a great learning experience for us and a great, new experiment in connecting with our audience. At the end of our live stream we announced our first ever giveaway.

We love Apple products and for the Foojee team, the events where new products are announced are a little like Christmas. There's always a lot of excitement surrounding product releases and we wanted to do our part to keep that energy and momentum moving forward. We decided to give away an Apple Watch Series 2 not only to capitalize on the excitement and attention, but also as a way to reward people for being a part of this journey with us.

We launched our giveaway on social media and gave people two weeks to enter the sweepstakes. Our overarching goal was to reward our friends and clients with a product that we would be psyched to win ourselves. We also knew that running a giveaway would allow us to expand our audience and increase awareness about who we are and what we do. We opted to use email capture and social follows as the primary means of entering our giveaway. 

At the end of our two week giveaway here's where we stood:

  • 761 New Instagram Followers
  • 1,073 New Twitter Followers
  • 683 New Facebook Likes
  • 1,036 New YouTube Subscribers
  • 3,621 New Email Subscribers

We were blown away by results! It's an honor for us to connected to so many new people. If you're ever curious why giveaways online often go for 4+ weeks, I'd guess it's simply because that allows more time for more people to get involved. It left me wondering what would the results be if we had let the giveaway go on for 4 weeks instead of 2? And would there have been a difference in these numbers if we had given away a new iPhone 7 instead of an Apple Watch Series 2? Regardless, we were thrilled with the results.

Here's what we learned during this process:

  • If you're going to do a giveaway, make it relevant. You can add momentum to your giveaway simply by piggybacking on current events.
  • Make your giveaway valuable. I would guess that you could get similar results to us even if your item is only $50-$100. If the perceived value is high or it's a novelty item, people are more likely to enter.
  • Don't be afraid to ask people to share about your giveaway and your company.
  • Take the extra time to thank the people who enter your contest and talk about it on social media (we tried to thank as many people as possible that tweeted about our giveaway).
  • When a winner is chosen (We used software that made the entire process easy. Thanks ViralSweep!) send an announcement email to name the winner. You can use this opportunity to introduce the company to the people who entered, but may not be familiar with you, and you share some useful content and set the tone for great relationship moving forward.
  • Collect, curate, and create content before and during the giveaway. When you add this many new followers, you want to be able to give them a reason to stick around by providing them nonstop value.
  • We've never done a giveaway before because we didn't want people to feel like we were asking for too much or anything along those lines. We had to get comfortable with the fact that it is okay to ask for something every now and then. It's good business. Not to mention these people opted in to this contest and if you help them by providing great content, they may eventually want to help you too.