How to Do a Giveaway on YouTube

Many popular YouTubers and tech review channels, regularly conduct contests and giveaways to their subscribers. This is typically done to gain popularity and more subscribers.

To enter a contest, YouTubers usually require viewers to like and subscribe to their channel. Then, the audience needs to comment on the video, tag other users, and share the video. This process increases the number of engagements on the channel. This is why new channels are turning to contests and giveaways to jumpstart their YouTube career.

Aside from that, doing a YouTube giveaway is also a fun way to bond with your viewers and loyal subscribers. It shows that you appreciate their support and would like to give back to the community.

Whatever your reasons are for wanting to do giveaways, we’re here to help you do it. We’ll discuss the rules and guidelines to follow and the best practices when doing giveaways. Read on to get ready to start your own contest.

And when you’re finished, take a look at our other YouTube guides:

Table of Contents

YouTube’s Contest Guidelines

In the spirit of keeping things fair for all YouTube users, the platform has made a set of rules. You will need to follow these guidelines to keep your content from being shut down. Here’s a summary of YouTube’s contest guidelines.

1. Your contest must abide by YouTube’s Community Guidelines and the laws in your locality.

2. The contest should be free to enter; no registration or entry fee is required.

3. Entries or submissions will remain under the ownership of the viewer. As the contest host, you cannot ask them to transfer the ownership or the rights to you.

4. You should create a clear official set of rules for your contest that complies with YouTube’s community guidelines.

5. Prizes should be awarded as is stated in your official rules.

6. The contest or third-party apps should not be used to manipulate engagement on your channel.

7. YouTube will not be associated or named as an affiliate in your contest without the company’s permission.

Nothing is alarming or restrictive about these guidelines. As long as you are responsible and conduct an honest event, there is nothing to worry about. So, go ahead and have a fun time with your subscribers.

What Are the Consequences of Violating the Rules?

If YouTube finds out that any part of your contest goes against their policies, there will be sanctions. Here are the possible results of any violation of the contest guidelines and community policies.

Your videos and live streams may get flagged and then taken down.
Getting 3 strikes or flags in a period of 90 days will have your monetization disabled and/or have your channel deleted together with all of its contents.
Videos that have been removed will have a notice that it was taken down due to deceptive practices and scams. This can deal a huge blow to your brand’s reputation.
You could get fined.

How to Do a Giveaway on YouTube?

Before you do a giveaway, here are the important things you need to do first.

1. Set Your Goals

When doing a project, always start by using the SMART framework. This is a tried-and-tested method of setting goals to achieve your desired outcome.

Specific – What outcome do want from this giveaway?

Example: You want to reach the 1,000-subscriber count requirement to be a YouTube Partner.

Measurable – How can you see the results?

Example: Get people to hit the Subscribe button on your channel. You can check your real-time subscriber count to see if you’re getting results.

Attainable – How realistic is your goal?

Example: Hitting the Subscribe button is fairly simple. Getting 1,000 people to subscribe is easy if you create an interesting contest and promote it effectively.

Relevant – How can you make it relevant and important to your viewers?

Example: Align your contest prizes with the interests of your target audience. If your channel is about new tech gadgets, then set vouchers or the gadget itself as the prize.

Timely – How long will your giveaway run?

Example: Deadlines create a sense of urgency in your audience to take action. Set a reasonable deadline to get your desired outcome.

2. Select an Impressive Prize

The prize will be the lure you are using to attract viewers. Choose a prize that will pique your audience’s interest. It would likely be related to your topic niche.

Here are some ideas for prize giveaways:

If you are an influencer or a brand that offers products and services, you can put vouchers and products up for grabs.
If you are in the performing industry, give away tickets to shows or fan merchandise.
If you have a channel that does reviews, you can give out the products you review as the prize in your contest. If you do a travel review, give out discounts to hotels and spas.

3. Create Your Contest Rules

Create a whole video or a segment that you can include in your videos about your upcoming contest. Hype up your audience by telling them what prize they can win and the easy steps to join.

Write down all the details of your YouTube giveaway rules in the video description. This is the quickest way to review your contest mechanics. Viewers then won’t need to scroll through your whole video just to hear the rules again.

Here’s a simple format to help guide you:

Giveaway Title – Put what type of giveaway this is and the prize that they can win. This part is what will make users click your video. Also, include a hashtag to make your video easily searchable.
Prize – Put in detail what prize/s you are giving away and how many.
Mechanics – Write down clear and concise instructions. The mechanics should be simple and easy to understand. Details should include: who can join, what they need to do to participate, and any other info they need to know. Include clickable links, if needed.
Timeframe – Tell your audience when the contest will begin and when the deadline for entries will be.
Winners – In this part, discuss how the winner/s will be chosen and how/when it will be announced.

4. Promote Your Giveaway

The next step you need to do is to let people know about your contest. This will get you more exposure and garner more participants.

Cross-sharing social media posts is a great way to spread the word. Share it on your blog and all other social media platforms.
Have your audience tag their friends and share the event as well. This is also a popular contest mechanic that you can use to spread the word.
Partner with other content creators or brands. Their audience will now be your viewers, too.
If you have the budget, you can even pay for ads to get the attention of your target audience.

Giveaway Types

To give you an idea of what kind of contest to do, we’ve compiled the popular ones that are used online. Here is some type of giveaways that you can do right now.

Random giveaway – Users are participants in the contest as long as they are subscribed to your channel. Winners are randomly chosen.
Contest video – Have your viewers submit a video entry. It can be an impressive gameplay clip, a video of them doing an internet challenge, or a cool video they shot. Simply choose what kind of videos are related to your niche. You can even use these clips to make content in the future.
Comment contest – Have viewers answer a question or give content suggestions for future videos. Have them type their answers in the comment section. Each comment is counted as an entry.
Talent showdown – Ask for entries from your audience showing off their talent.
Goal milestones – This needs a collective effort from your audience. When a goal is reached, like having 5,000 subscribers, for example, then you will make a special video as a prize for everyone.

Giveaway Prizes

Giveaways usually equate to spending for content creators. This leads to many unscrupulous YouTubers creating fake giveaways just to boost their channel.

But you don’t need to fabricate a lie when it’s just as easy to follow through. People do understand that smaller channels don’t have a big funding for grand prizes yet.

Digital prizes are easier to send out to winners. Prizes that need to be shipped will be more troublesome. So, stick to giveaways you can hand out online.

Here are some cool giveaway ideas you can use without breaking the bank:

Shoutouts – Acknowledgements of users are enough of a reward for some people.
Feature – User entries will be featured in the next video.
Special content – Winners will get extra content or a Q&A session.
Unique item – It can be a simple art or autograph from you.

How to Choose a Winner

Pick your favorite – Choose the best entry based on your preference.
Random draw – Choose randomly from your list of subscribers or commenters.
Third-party apps – Employ giveaway tools like a YouTube comment picker to make filtering duplicate users and entries easier with just a few clicks.
Voting through polls – You can use the Polls and Surveys Action on YouTube to have users vote for the best entry.

Conclusion

Doing giveaways is a great marketing tool to boost your brand. You can generate genuine user engagement by connecting with your audience and devising fun contest mechanics. Your subscribers, in return, will get rewarded for their efforts. It’s a win-win for everyone.

So, go set up a giveaway and attract thousands of users today!

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Anne Haynes