5 Must Knows About Loop Giveaways

Blogging 101: 5 Things You Must Know About Loop Giveaways

Racking your heads on how to establish your presence on social media platforms in order to monetise them in near future? One of the possible ways to grow your followers will be hosting giveaways, in particular International Loop Giveaways.

In this post, I will be covering about the essential know-hows of Loop Giveaways so you can consider whether this method suits you.

#1: What is a Loop Giveaway?

The term “LOOP” suggests that the hosts of the giveaway are joined together in a circle (i.e. loop).

Basically, a Loop Giveaway consists of:

• Dedicated Organiser to take care of the logistics (i.e. collect payment, purchase prizes, selecting winner & mailing the prizes out)
• Attractive Prizes (i.e. Macbook, DSLR, Branded Handbags, Cash Vouchers etc)
• Group of Hosts (i.e. bloggers, instagramers, Youtubers, shops etc) to fund the giveaway
• Handful of Sponsors – large accounts with followers above 40k to help promote the giveaway to ensure that it is well participated. Sponsors join the loop giveaways free of charge (larger sponsors are even paid a fee to join).

Sample Loop Giveaway Template

Normally, the organiser will contact a list of potential hosts & sponsors to seek their interest in participating in the loop giveaway by providing details such as the date, prizes and buy-in rate. The payment must be made to the organiser prior to the giveaway in order to secure a vacancy.

Once everything is confirmed, the organiser will setup a group chat with all stakeholders and release the giveaway broadcast template (refer to above sample) and tag list accordingly.

All participants have to post the giveaway template together onto their social media platforms and they each have a designated tag buddy.

Loop Giveaway Mechanics

With reference to the diagram above, we have 4 hosts / sponsors, namely A, B,C & D for the sake of simplicity (in reality, loop giveaways may involve over 50 participants). So A will tag B; B will tag C & so on. The last Host D will have to tag back to A in order to complete the loop.

In order for a contestant to enter the loop giveaway, he/she must like & follow every single host / sponsor in the loop.

#2: Controversies Surrounding Loop Giveaways

There are many controversies that surround Loop Giveaways as such giveaways can equate to buying followers in a crude way. Accounts are incentivised to follow the participating hosts of the loop giveaways and hence they do not engage with your posts as a result.

Once the giveaway ended, some followers might unfollow and as a result, the retention rate can be pretty poor.

Stats extracted from Social Blade from an account who host Loop Giveaways on a frequent basis.

One major drawback about Loop Giveaways is that it produces drastic fluctuations and inconsistency on your instagram statistics.

Those who are ignorant of your giveaways will think that you bought those followers. I was recently defamed by a bugger & accused of buying fake followers earlier due to the above reason but I’m glad I still kept records / screenshots of my previous loop giveaways as proof. 

#3: Why are Loop Giveaways Still Popular?

We all know that it takes a long time in order for our accounts to be seen on instagram. The ever-changing instagram algorithm makes it harder for influencers to establish their presence & they have to paddle even harder as a result.

Loop Giveaway is a great way for smaller accounts to gain more exposure as we get to engage with our existing followers and gain new ones at the same time. With some extra cash to spare, hosting such giveaways isn’t too bad an idea after all as it is definitely better than buying fake followers off Fiverr.

Although most follow your account just to win the prizes, some might still continue to follow and engage with your content if it is good. I don’t think hosting loop giveaways discount our creditability as social media influencers because we did not force others to follow our accounts and nobody is harmed in the process. Moreover, this growth method is definitely not as despicable as those who buy thousands of fake followers and trick brands to sponsor them stuff. So, why not?

#4: How To Select A Good Loop Giveaway To Join?

Participating loop giveaways do contain some risks. Some people got cheated to join a loop giveaways with a bunch of accounts with fake followers and hence they failed to gain as many followers as they expected. On the other hand, some others lost their monies as the organiser absconded with their monies. This is all part & parcel of life #ShitHappens!

I will suggest you to consider the below factors before joining a loop giveaway:

• Organiser – you need to ensure that the organiser is reliable as you will be transferring funds to them via Paypal prior to the giveaway date. Also, the organiser should be experienced in organising such giveaways – always refer to their track record before deciding to join.
• Sponsors – find out who the sponsors are and run through the profiles of their followers to see if they suit your target audience. This step is vital as you don’t want to gain a truckload of irrelevant / spam accounts following you. Some sponsors have many ghost followers following them and hence you will not gain as many followers as a result.
• Prize – are the prizes offered relevant to your niche? For instance, you might want to giveaway branded cosmetics instead of a Macbook / iPad if you are a Beauty Blogger. This helps to retain your new followers better because they tend to stay for beauty related content. I made a mistake by giving away MacBooks during my first giveaway – I gained 1,000 followers and lost 500+ once giveaway ended. 
• Buy-In Rate – Loop giveaways can be as low as USD35 to above USD250 depending on the quality of sponsors & the value of prizes. Hence it is important that you work within your budget and manage your expectations accordingly.
• Timing – In view that some giveaways involve different hosts residing in different timezones, it is important that you take note of the timing to post the loop giveaways as your buy-in might get forfeited as a result of your absence on the giveaway date itself.

#5: How Frequent Should I Host Loop Giveaways?

There is no hard and fast rule on how frequent you should host loop giveaways. It all depends on how deep your pocket is and what your priorities are.

Loop giveaways can be addictive as the feeling of gaining over 1k followers overnight is akin to striking lottery. On the flip side, I feel that hosting such giveaways on a frequent basis can clutter your instagram feed & will not bode well for your branding in the long-run. I will usually delete the giveaway post off from my instagram feed once the giveaway has ended so as not to affect my feed’s aesthetics.

In view of the above, I think that hosting a loop giveaway not more than once a month will be ideal. 

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Have you participated in a Loop Giveaway before?

Do share with me your experiences in the comment box below!