Instagram Challenges are a great way to build a community, brand awareness, and grow your followers on Instagram. This is why today I am going to show you how to host your own “Instagram Challenge” step by step. If you want a creative, fun, and authentic way of growing your audience on Instagram then Instagram Challenges are exactly for you. Let’s dig in!
Also, don’t miss to download my FREE INSTAGRAM PDF GUIDE on “How to Find your Instagram WHY to become Successful on the Platform” here:
Why you should host one or more Instagram Challenges
Grow your Community
Hosting Instagram Challenges can be a great way to build your community. You are sharing valuable insight and guidance during the challenge such as motivation, inspiration or amazing tips in your niche. Having an accountability partner which helps you be more consistent on Instagram is something a lot of people are craving for. Plus, by starting a challenge you are connecting the people within your community, building more trust and a sense of familiarity.
Related: 14 reasons why you might be losing Followers on Instagram
Gain Followers
Instagram Challenges can be a great way to gain followers on Instagram in a very authentic way. People can tag friends and family to participate in the challenge who might not follow you yet. Additionally, the more people participate in the challenge, the more momentum and popularity it will gain. The more people start talking about the value of the challenge, the more people you will gain as loyal followers. Makes sense right?
Related: How to go Viral on Instagram
Building Brand Trust
If you are leading the way in your Instagram challenge by providing a lot of value, motivation, inspiration or helpful tips during your challenge, the better people will perceive you and your brand. Hosting Instagram Challenges is a great way to establish yourself as a leader within your niche.Also, by consistently participating in the challenge yourself, you are being a role model leading the way for others to build that trust.
Fun
The “social” in Social Media often gets overlooked a lot, but Instagram Challenges can be a great way to bring “fun” and “social” back to the media. Additionally, Instagram is a sort of entertainment so make your challenge fun and interactive and people will love you and your brand.
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How to host an Instagram Challenge
Here is my step by step guide on how to host your own Instagram Challenges:
1. Choosing a Theme (e.g. niche)
First of all, it’s important to think about your current audience. What are the people following you interested in and currently struggling with? Can you solve their problem during the challenge? Second, who is the target audience you would like to address and attract in your challenge? Now choose your challenge theme.
2. Hashtag
It’s great for Instagram Challenges to have their own unique hashtags. This is how people who are participating can check-in. And for you, it’s a great way to track their progress and check out their content. After a few days, the hashtag starts building up with your followers incredible content which will keep people and yourself motivated to finish the challenge. It also gives a sense of community and builds your trust as a leader in your niche. I recommend using Iconosquare to track your progress and analytic on your hashtag. Check it out here
Also if you want to learn more about how to use Hashtags check out “6 Instagram Hashtag Strategies to triple your Likes”
3. Select Length
For any Instagram Challenge, it’s important to select a clear starting and end date. This keeps everybody participating in engaged and on schedule. Most Instagram Challenges are 30 days but you could create shorter (maybe week-long) challenges or even longer 3-month Instagram challenges. Just make sure that people are aware of all the milestones and deadlines.
4. Partner Up with other Instagrammers
A great way to make Instagram challenges more manageable and fun are to partner up with other Instagrammers. This will half your time in terms of planning and managing the challenge. Partnering up with another Instagramer opens you up to their following. You can potentially reach a big bunch of the hard-earned followers they gathered over the years. It’s a win-win for both parties.
Also, don’t miss to download my FREE INSTAGRAM PDF GUIDE on “How to Find your Instagram WHY to become Successful on the Platform” here:
5. Send out an email to ask your Blog followers to participate
If you have a blog or you are a small business with an email list, why don’t you ask people on there to join and participate in the challenge? This is a great way to engage people who are already following you to build trust. Plus, it helps the challenge to gain momentum. The more people the better!
You don’t know what I am talking about, check out how you can “Start building your own Email List as a Blogger” here.
6. Create the prompts – your own content + schedule (Tailwind)
You want to participate in the challenge yourself as well in order to stand out as a leader in your niche. After defining your theme for the Instagram challenge, plan out the content for the month. You will want to prepare way in advance. Think about the topics you want to talk about, the prompts for people to perform every day, the imagery, hashtags and Calls to action for each day. I love using Tailwind to schedule my entire content in advance. You can test Tailwind for free here.
7. Engage
As a host of an Instagram Challenge, it’s your job to engage with the people participating. This is the fun part where you can really shine as a leader and the voice of your brand. Respond to the best daily posts. Reply to comments and ask follow up questions to increase your challenges engagement. If you are planning to host future Instagram challenges this is so important to motivate people to finish and participate in your next challenge.
8. Set a price for the Winner/s
If you have the means to host a giveaway at the end of your Instagram challenge, where the best one to three people who finished the challenge receive a gift. This is a great incentive for people. It’s motivating and challenging and everybody loves free stuff 😉 This could be a free product or for example free coaching.
9. Tracking
Tracking your challenge is essential. You want to know how many people participate in your challenge, how many stop and how many pull through. You want to know if the challenge hashtag is being used and if there is momentum or if your challenge is going flat. This is important information to know whether you have to implement any countermeasures such as interacting and engaging more or whether everyone is clear about how the challenge is working.
10. Recap on your Blog
Once the challenge is over, you could use the best content and convert it into a recap blog post. This is great because it shows off the people who really rocked the challenge and gives them a bigger platform as well as access to your audience. People will see the benefit of participating in future challenges again establishing you as leader in your niche.
Also, don’t miss to download my FREE INSTAGRAM PDF GUIDE on “How to Find your Instagram WHY to become Successful on the Platform” here:
Types of Instagram Challenges
Photo Challenges
Regular Instagram Challenges, are focused on posting an image or photo each day. This is a great thing because many people struggle with being consistent on Instagram. By participating in a challenge, they feel that they are part of a community and can’t fail, cause you and everybody else is their accountability partner. Photo Challenges are easy to track and great to build your Instagram account and grow followers.
Email Instagram Challenges
Rather than hosting a challenge on Instagram, you could host your challenge via email. Once someone signed up for the Instagram challenge they would receive daily prompts and motivation via an email. Then, the same as in a regular challenge, they would post them to Instagram. This is a great way to provide additional value to the challenge participant because you can add helpful information and tips such as blog posts to the email if they want additional information on the prompt.
More information on How and Why to Start an Email List and Grow Subscribers as a blogger here!
How to Find Challenges to participate
Search on Instagram for Hashtags
If you are looking for challenges to participate in, I would first go on Instagram and search for popular hashtags such as #challenge #challenges.
You could also ask around on Instagram if anyone knows about a challenge or if they are participating in one.
Do a Google search
Many people who host Instagram challenges also have their own blogs. That where they communicate more information about their challenge. I would try to go on Google and search for Instagram challenges and see what you find. Also, if you are following or are part of the email list of successful bloggers or influencers, there is a high probability that they contact you with crucial challenge information.
Have you ever hosted an Instagram Challenge COMMENT A LINK TO YOUR CHALLENGE BELOW! Any questions? Hit me up in the comments below or at [email protected] !
Love you loads,
Xo Katie
Also, don’t miss to download my FREE INSTAGRAM PDF GUIDE on “How to Find your Instagram WHY to become Successful on the Platform” here:
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