It seems that a lot of “influencers” are currently using Instagram loop giveaways as a way to push the needle on their account and grow followers. I have a bit of experience I thought I could share and I would also be interested in hearing your experience and thoughts with giveaways on IG.
An overview of this post
me be
reach 40k and not able to grow for 4 months
find out that similar pages are growing huge numbers through loop giveaways
do a few and grow 10k
investigate and discuss with mpsocial
What is a loop giveaway?
A loop giveaway is where a number of Instagram accounts post about a competition with the only entry requirement being that you follow each account in the loop. It originated from posts captioned with “Head to @Barbie’s account and follow the same instructions” and you would loop through 5-50 accounts until you get back where you started. Hence, the loop. At the end of the entry period the captions would change to “break the loop” and stop people being able to easily unfollow everyone they followed to enter.
The modern loop
Modern day giveaways on Instagram don’t often happen from the accounts of influencers but from a separate giveaway account. These giveaway accounts come in niches (luxury, travel, beauty, tech) and will cycle through different giveaways each week/fortnight/month.
Giveaway accounts are run by external parties that gather a fee from entrants ($55 - $1000) and organise the giveaway. The accounts involved in the giveaway are then followed by the giveaway account. Each person in the giveaway then posts the giveaway photo directing their followers to the account to follow who they are following.
But here’s the thing… you don’t have to post. Many giveaway accounts reserve “secret” spots, where you can pay extra to not inform your audience you are part of a giveaway and just receive the followers as part of their entry.
My Experience
In terms of finding giveaways, the best way I have found to do this is by finding other accounts in my niche posting about giveaways and contacting them and/or the external giveaway account and requesting a spot in their next giveaway. Often these are organised on Telegram or WhatsApp and payment is provided through Paypal.
I tried two different types of giveaways. The first - giveaways from my niche and the second, giveaways from non-niche specific posters (found in loop giveaway groups on Telegram). I found that the retention of followers from giveaways is generally around 10%. With of course much better quality followers coming from giveaways that involve accounts that are similar to my own.
I saw giveaways priced from $55 to $1000. The secret option in a giveaway will always be more expensive. After my first public giveaway I decided to only do secret giveaways moving forward as it looks more legit and doesn’t upset my current followers.
There is a learning curve of discovering which giveaways are going to work better than others. Be wary of giveaways that promise huge gains - often they will just purchase fake followers for your account with a portion of the money you paid to enter. Keep note of how many people are entering the giveaway, often users don’t want to follow more than 40 accounts so I would say between 25-35 is best/most realistic.
Obviously there is opportunity for individuals to start making money as giveaway organisers on Instagram by taking a portion of the fee to pay themselves. This might be something one of you are interested in 
I would love to hear about your experience with loop giveaways and what you think of them as a strategy for growing your account.
Growth due to the loop-give-away:
What happened after the round:
“Never ever a loop giveaway?!?”