PR AGENCY DIARIES: WILL A LOOP GIVEAWAY GROW MY IG?

If your goal is to get more followers on social media and get that bank coming in Kylie Jenner style, you may have asked yourself “should I do a loop giveaway?” – and it’s easy to see why. At first glance they seem like the perfect way to up your digits by banding together with other accounts and offering up a sweet, sweet prize. But competitions like this could be be damaging to your brand.

If you haven’t heard the term before, chances are you’ve already seen them on your timeline. A loop giveaway (or a “loopie”) is a type of Instagram competition popular among bloggers and influencers where the mechanic of entry includes following all the accounts involved. They can be as small as 2 or 3 accounts or as big as 50 accounts, and each individual account will post the giveaway tile.

The name “loop” comes from the fact that usually only one account will be tagged on each post and you have to click through and follow them until you end up back at the original account, thus completing the loop.

The idea behind it is simple – more brands involved (and pitching in) equals a bigger prize for less individual investment, and the combined following of all the accounts involved gives the comp heaps of exposure.

So, what’s wrong with that?

Well, nothing in theory. And perhaps when loopies first started they were an effective way of growing an engaged following. Unfortunately, loopies have become their own beast – a quick search on Instagram will pull up thousands of dedicated loop giveaway accounts.

If you’re a brand you’re hoping that more followers will eventually equal more sales and it’s unlikely that your dream customer (you know, the person who is going to buy from you and love your products and continue buying from you) is going to come from one of these accounts. It’s more likely that new followers are simply here for the prize and have zero interest in your account.

Which leads us to reason number one why loopies are a bad idea – the followers you gained aren’t interested in you or your brand. They’re interested in the Gucci wallet and all the makeup they wanted to win, and chances are they don’t even live the market you’re trying to reach (i.e. if you are not a global business there is no point having the bulk of followers outside of New Zealand). They aren’t going to engage with your content and will effectively be ghost followers for your account.

Ghost followers are bad news for a couple of reasons – a big one is the loss of credibility for your account. Thousands of followers but only 20-50 likes per post? That screams dodgy and is actually counter-productive to getting paid by brands to post a la the influencer model. It also tells the almighty algorithm that your content isn’t engaging – and it’ll reach far less eyeballs (no matter how many souls you sacrifice to the Zuck).

And don’t forget about the inevitable follower drop-off. You’re always going to lose followers after a giveaway, but loopies are especially bad. If entrants have followed multiple accounts, they’ll be more likely to go back and unfollow them all after the giveaway so they can stop clogging their feeds up with content that doesn’t interest them. Goodbye followers. Why’d we do the loopie again??

If you’d like to know how to grow your following in a genuine and sustainable way, get in touch with the team today.