Top 10 contest platforms for social media giveaways [2024]
Online contests and giveaways have become valuable assets in the ever-changing world of social media marketing, as they effectively engage audiences and increase brand visibility. However, the success of these strategies greatly depends on the contest apps and platforms used to execute them. This article focuses on the top 10 contest platforms for 2024, with Tropee claiming the coveted number one position.
For those who are new to social media giveaways, it's essential to understand their transformative impact. Equally important is recognising the standout features and functionalities that distinguish a remarkable social media contest tool.
So join us on this journey as we uncover the best giveaway tools available to enhance your marketing campaigns!
Why social media contests are a game-changer
In today's digital age, it can be incredibly challenging to capture users' attention amidst the barrage of content from popular social media platforms. This is where social media contests come in as a secret weapon for modern marketers seeking to propagate brand awareness. From Facebook giveaways to Instagram hashtag contests, to photo contests, all of these contest types leverage our inherent desire to compete, win, and be recognised, instantly attracting engagement.
Beyond simple likes and shares, these social contests encourage genuine interactions that drive participants to explore a brand more deeply. The impact of an online contest goes beyond the immediate engagement. As participants share and invite others to join, the brand's reach expands organically, creating a buzz that traditional advertising often struggles to achieve.
In essence, social media contests are not just about fleeting interactions; they foster communities, cultivate loyalty, and transform casual browsers into passionate brand advocates.
What to look for in a social media contest tool
Looking for the best social media contest tool is not easy, and the right marketing platform can significantly impact the success of your giveaway. The platform should prioritize ease of use, providing an intuitive interface that allows even those with limited technical expertise to set up and manage contests effortlessly. Scalability is another crucial consideration, as the platform should be able to handle increased traffic and more complex giveaways and contests seamlessly as your brand grows.
When it comes to pricing, it's important to balance cost with the features offered, ensuring that you're getting value for your investment. Look for platforms that offer a diverse range of tools and features, from customisable entry forms to robust analytics, enhancing both participant experience and providing valuable insights into the contest's performance.
Ultimately, an ideal platform should be user-friendly, adaptable to your brand's needs, cost-effective, and feature-rich in order to lay the foundation for a successful and impactful social media giveaway.
Tropee: The no.1 platform for your social media
Pros
Customizable tasks: Tropee simplifies the process of customizing giveaways to align with specific objectives. Whether you aim to gather email addresses, boost website traffic, or enhance social media engagement, Tropee provides a diverse array of options.
Easy participation: Tropee's design is user-friendly, making it easy and quick to enter giveaways. This feature encourages high-quality entries and improves overall outcomes.
Fair winner selection: Tropee ensures a fair selection process by meticulously filtering out fraudulent entries and randomly selecting winners. Participants are kept informed about their giveaway status through automated notifications.
Cons
The only thing that can be said here, is that Tropee doesn't offer the most complex of utilities. However, much like a Canva vs. Photoshop comparison, for its lack of complexity, Tropee more than makes up for this by being the easiest giveaway platform to use, and no competitor currently comes close in this regard.
Pricing
Free. No credit card required.
Key Features
Branding customization: With Tropee, businesses have the opportunity to align their giveaways with their unique brand identity. They can customize various aspects such as photos, titles, and descriptions to create a personalized touch.
Efficient winner notification: The winners are selected impartially and notified promptly through automated systems, providing a seamless experience for both organizers and participants.
In-depth analytics: With Tropee's analytics tab, businesses can keep a close eye on giveaway engagement metrics by gaining real-time insights into each participant and their completed actions.
Fraud detection: Tropee uses fraud detection to eliminate the threat of giveaways being spammed by bots. This ensures that your giveaway will only receive actions from real humans.
Conversion optimized: On average, participants do 5 actions for every giveaway launched on Tropee. In other words, using Tropee gets the most out of participants, and can lead to exponential growth if used effectively.
24/7 support: Tropee is here to help you day and night, with support available via email and live chat.
Engage, like never before
Grow, engage and reward your community — for free.
9 other platforms you should consider
Ready to roll? We've got nine more platforms to consider for your social media giveaways
#1: SweepWidget
Pros
Versatility: If you're interested in organizing a giveaway or raffle, running leaderboard competitions, distributing NFT giveaways, or hosting airdrop contests, SweepWidget is the perfect solution for you.
Cross-platform integration: Over 30+ social media platforms are supported, allowing a broad and extensive presence that can effectively engage diverse audience segments.
Customization: The platform offers an easy-to-use builder that allows brands to create giveaways in a simple, intuitive way. It enables brands to customize a giveaway tool to match their unique branding and style.
Verified actions: SweepWidget employs API verification to ensure that entries into contests are legitimate. This measure helps to uphold the integrity of the contest.
Cons
User interface is not as good as some of the competitors.
Pricing
SweepWidget charges a basic flat rate of $29 per month. Offers a free trial and free version available.
Key Features
API Integrations: With over 40 API integrations, the platform ensures effortless data collection and streamlined management.
Instant rewards: Offers instant coupons or rewards, incentivizing participation and engagement for users.
Embedding capabilities: Users have the option to embed their giveaway directly on their website or use SweepWidget's free hosted landing page.
Mobile optimization: This feature guarantees that users have a seamless experience when accessing content across different devices.
#2: Woorise
Pros
Versatile engagement tools: Woorise offers more than just giveaways. With its full range of marketing tools, you can create branded giveaways, social promotions, and reward initiatives, giving you a well-rounded approach to effectively engage with your audience.
Advanced features: Woorise provides advanced features that can enhance your campaigns. With geotargeting, you have the ability to target specific countries, allowing for a more focused approach. The platform also includes sophisticated fraud detection mechanisms, such as Google reCAPTCHA and email verification, to ensure the smooth and authentic running of your campaigns.
Customizability: Personalizing your campaigns to reflect your brand's identity is made easy with Woorise. Its user-friendly drag and drop interface allows for seamless customization, ensuring that your giveaways and contests perfectly align with your brand.
Cons
A fairly steep learning curve is reported by some using the Woorise platform. More and clearer documentation is needed for explanations.
Pricing
Woorise has varied payment plans which include:
Free - 200 entries per month and email support.
Basic - $23 and 2,000 entries per month. No Woorise branding.
Grow - $39 and 5,000 entries per month. Integrations. Email notifications. 5 team users.
Pro - $79 to $799 for between 20,000 to 200,000 entries per month. Many other features.
Key Features
1-Click winner selection: Woorise randomly selects winners from all entrants, ensuring fairness and ease.
Instant win feature: Immediate prize distribution, perfect for instant rewards like coupons or game keys.
Promotional codes: Engage users by allowing them to enter secret codes for rewards.
Embedding options: Woorise can be embedded anywhere, from your website to emails, ensuring maximum reach.
#3: ShortStack
Pros
Diverse options: ShortStack offers more than just giveaways. It provides a complete package for creating branded interactive marketing content, including contests, sweepstakes, quizzes, and user-generated content projects.
Customization: ShortStack offers a wide range of templates, totaling over 65, that allow brands to effortlessly customize and arrange various elements according to their unique brand identity.
Versatility: If you're interested in running social media contests, instant win games, or distributing coupon codes, ShortStack offers a comprehensive range of options.
Cons
Not so easy to use, with navigation of the site sometimes an issue, but chat support is reportedly very responsive.
Pricing
Business plan: Priced at $79/month when billed annually or $99/month when billed monthly.
Pro plan: Priced at $199/month when billed annually or $249/month when billed monthly.
Enterprise plan: For custom pricing, one needs to contact ShortStack's sales team.
Key Features
Flexible publishing: Whether you want to embed your campaign on your website or use it as a standalone landing page, ShortStack offers seamless integration.
Data collection: Optimize your data collection with highly-customizable forms and then export or integrate it with other tools.
Enterprise capabilities: Designed to meet unique business needs, including role-based team access, dedicated account managers, and custom integrations.
#4: Outgrow
Pros
Efficient and customizable: Outgrow provides a user-friendly builder that makes it easy to create professional giveaways in just minutes. Additionally, it offers the convenience of automated follow-up emails based on user responses.
Cutting-edge analytics: Outgrow Analytics offers users the ability to explore detailed insights and easily export results to popular spreadsheet tools like Excel or Google Docs. It also integrates seamlessly with over 1000 partners, including Buffer, Hubspot, and MailChimp. The platform streamlines complex data analysis without requiring any statistical expertise.
Boosted engagement: With Outgrow, you can create captivating and interactive giveaways effortlessly, regardless of your design or coding skills. You have the flexibility to embed them on various platforms like websites, emails, or pop-ups.
Cons
Higher tiers are pricey for smaller businesses. However, custom plans can be arranged.
Pricing
Freelancer (LIMITED):
Regular price: $22/month
Discounted price: $14/month
Freelancer Pro:
Regular price: $45/month
Discounted price: $25/month
Essentials:
Regular price: $115/month
Discounted price: $95/month
Business:
Regular price: $720/month
Discounted price: $600/month
Additionally, for those who might be short on time or resources, Outgrow offers a service where they create custom interactive content pieces, such as calculators, quizzes, chatbots, polls, and e-commerce recommendations, starting from $250 per content piece.
Key Features
24/7 support: Outgrow ensures uninterrupted assistance, guaranteeing smooth giveaway publication.
Versatile embedding: Whether on a website, within emails, or as pop-ups, Outgrow's giveaways seamlessly integrate.
Template-based creation: Users can start from scratch or leverage templates for quick and efficient giveaway creation.
#5: Gleam
Pros
Versatile applications: Gleam provides a variety of useful apps for marketing purposes, including Competitions, Rewards, Galleries, and Captures. Each app serves a different function and helps meet various contest marketing needs.
User-friendly: Setting up and managing campaigns becomes effortless, thanks to its user-friendly dashboard. Even individuals without technical expertise can easily navigate through the process.
Integration capabilities: Gleam seamlessly integrates with a variety of platforms, allowing for widespread accessibility and increased engagement.
Cons
Gleam can be a more expensive solution compared with competitors.
Pricing
Full package: Complete access to all Gleam apps starts from $97/month.
Competitions: Set up and run giveaways, contests, and sweepstakes from $10/month.
Rewards: Create unlockable rewards with various action combinations from $29/month.
Galleries: Collect, curate, and display content relevant to your business from $29/month.
Captures: Targeted messages or opt-in forms to build your email list and grow your business from $29/month.
Key Features
Comprehensive analytics: Track campaign performance and gain insights to optimize future campaigns.
Vast Integration options: Over 100+ integrations, including major social media platforms and email service providers.
Responsive design: Campaigns are optimized for both desktop and mobile, ensuring a consistent user experience.
#6: Vyper
Pros
Diverse campaigns: Vyper provides a platform for hosting giveaways and offers various marketing strategies to attract and engage audiences.
Highly customizable: Companies can effectively engage their target audience by using a user-friendly interface to create campaigns that resonate with them. This ultimately leads to maximum engagement.
Advanced cheating detection: Vyper takes pride in its proprietary algorithm for detecting cheating, which guarantees fair competitions and authentic winners.
Cons
Certainly one of the more expensive platforms in this niche, balanced by generally satisfied customer reviews.
Pricing
Enterprise plan: Priced at $149/month, this plan offers features like removing Vyper branding, using your own domain/subdomain, and tracking up to $30,000 revenue/month generated by Vyper.
Agency plan: Priced at $299/month, this plan is designed for multiple brands, allowing up to 10 sub-accounts and tracking up to $120,000 revenue/month generated by Vyper.
Key Features
Integration capabilities: Vyper seamlessly integrates with major email service providers like Mailchimp, Aweber, ConvertKit, and Drip.
Mobile optimization: Vyper ensures that contests look impeccable on mobile devices, catering to the increasing mobile user base.
Custom domain usage: The enterprise plan allows brands to run contests on their own domain, enhancing brand consistency.
#7: Wishpond
Pros
All-in-one platform: Wishpond provides a comprehensive set of tools that covers various aspects of digital marketing. These tools include social promotions, landing pages, email marketing, and marketing automations. By offering such a wide range of features, Wishpond ensures a holistic approach to digital marketing.
User-friendly interface: Even individuals without technical expertise can easily set up campaigns and track leads using the user-friendly dashboard.
Diverse integrations: Wishpond offers seamless integration with multiple platforms, allowing you to reach a wide audience and enhance engagement.
Cons
Some quite polemic reviews from customers. While many were singing the praises of Wishpond, a significant minority were scathing on service, results, and support given.
Pricing
A Calendarly option lets potential customers set up a date and time to discuss options and pricing with a specialist.
Key Features
Social promotions: Effortlessly create contests and giveaways to boost your business and engage your audience.
Landing pages: Craft professional landing pages to capture leads and drive conversions.
Email marketing: Engage your audience with targeted email campaigns and automations.
Leads database: Organize and manage your leads efficiently, ensuring optimal follow-up and conversion.
#8: Rafflecopter
Pros
Versatility: Rafflecopter provides a complete platform that allows you to create and manage giveaways, guaranteeing optimal engagement.
User-friendly: Setting up and running a giveaway is easy, even for those without technical expertise, thanks to its intuitive interface.
Broad integration: Rafflecopter easily integrates with popular social media networks and email service providers, making it a seamless process.
Cons
Viral sharing option is in the most expensive tier.
Pricing
Basic plan: Priced at $13/month, offering features like custom entry form design, prize image gallery, and priority support.
Grow plan: Priced at $43/month, includes one-click email list integration with platforms like Mailchimp, Aweber, and Constant Contact.
Premium plan: Priced at $84/month, offers unlimited form themes, real-time analytics, and white-labeling of the entry form.
Key Features
Interactive entries table: Efficiently manage and track entries.
Mobile-friendliness: Ensures that giveaways are optimized for mobile devices.
Viral refer-a-friend option: Boosts engagement by encouraging participants to refer friends.
#9: Woobox
Pros
Comprehensive platform: Woobox provides a diverse array of interactive content experiences, including social media giveaways and landing page campaigns.
User-centric design: Creating and managing campaigns is hassle-free with its intuitive interface, making it accessible to even those without prior experience.
Broad integration: Woobox seamlessly integrates with various platforms, ensuring maximum reach and engagement.
Cons
Reviews were quite poor compared with competitors, although there were only 10 reviews on Capterra at time of looking. A fairly limited free plan.
Pricing
Free plan: $0/month with 100 participants/month.
Basic plan: $37/month with 1,000 participants/month.
Standard plan: $32/month (billed annually) with unlimited participants.
Advanced plan: $99/month with advanced customization options and unlimited participants.
Power plan: $249/month, best suited for agencies and enterprises with unlimited participants.
Key Features
Versatile campaign types: Access to all campaign types, from giveaways to polls.
Customization: Tailor campaigns with the builder, and for advanced plans, use custom HTML, CSS, and JS.
Team collaboration: Advanced and Power plans offer team collaboration features, with the Power plan offering unlimited team members.
Choosing the best social media contest platform for you
With the rise of social media marketing platforms, hosting giveaways has become easier than ever. However, finding the "best" platform that can provide that particular tool that can help can be equally challenging. The optimal platform varies depending on individual needs and goals. Every business needs to ask itself the question of whether it wants to increase user engagement, gather user-generated content, or enhance brand visibility?
If a business is looking to run social media contests, such as Facebook or Twitter contests, each platform offers unique tools and features that make it easy to cater for specific objectives. It's important to prioritize your goals: whether it's seamless integration with other marketing tools, efficient management of entrants, or straightforward rule-setting. An exploration of the above list of the top 10 platforms can help you to find the one that aligns best with your brand's vision and promotional strategy.
Conclusion
In today's digital age, social platforms play a crucial role in brand promotion. Choosing the right platform is essential for running successful giveaways and achieving desired results. The top ten contest platforms for social media giveaways in 2024 offer a range of features that cater to different promotional needs. Each platform has its unique strengths, but it's important to find one that aligns seamlessly with your brand objectives.
Armed with the insights from this article, you can make an informed decision that not only captivates your audience but also delivers the desired outcomes. However, it's worth noting that while tools are important, genuine engagement, creative content, and understanding your audience remain vital components of any successful campaign.
Frequently asked questions
What is a giveaway platform?
A giveaway platform is a digital tool or service that helps organize and manage online giveaways or contests. These platforms provide various features, such as customizable entry forms, tracking of participants, mechanisms for selecting winners, and analytical insights. They make hosting and managing giveaways easier and more efficient for organizers.
How to keep track of giveaway entries
Keeping track of giveaway entries is crucial to maintain fairness and transparency. Fortunately, most giveaway platforms come equipped with built-in tracking systems that effortlessly record and manage all entries.
It's also important to establish clear rules for entry methods and regularly monitor entries to detect any fraudulent or suspicious activity.
How long should a giveaway run?
The length of a giveaway can vary depending on the goals and audience. Typically, giveaways last between one to four weeks. Shorter giveaways, such as 24-48 hours, create a sense of urgency and generate immediate engagement. On the other hand, longer giveaways give more time for promotion to spread and attract a wider audience.
It's important to find a balance between the duration of the giveaway, the value of the prize, and the effort required to enter. Make sure to clearly state the duration in the official rules and promotions for transparency.
