Masha Varnavski wrote:

If you’re interested in running an Instagram giveaway to attract new followers, you can either host it on your own account or through an influencer’s account. The latter option is referred to as a sponsored giveaway and it’s gaining in popularity.

With a sponsored giveaway, a sponsor or group of sponsors finance the contest prize and an influencer promotes the contest to their followers. To enter, contestants must follow all of the sponsors’ accounts on Instagram so all of those accounts will see a significant increase in followers.

But the key questions are, “Will they be the right type of followers?” and “Will they stick around after the contest ends?”

To find out, I monitored six giveaways launched by two influential accounts (Curated Businesses and Lux Life Now). I observed the giveaway sponsors’ accounts (which included a client) over the course of 1 year (2019–2020). I tracked the number of followers and the engagement rate at the beginning and end of the giveaway as well as 2 weeks and 4 weeks after the giveaway ended.