Giveaways: by law.

A social media giveaway looks like the easiest way to liven up a page: promise a prize, get hundreds of comments and new followers. A week after the results, half the newcomers unfollow, and the rest wait for the next freebie and buy nothing. It can be worse: a disgruntled participant files a complaint, and it turns out nobody ever published the rules.

Contests and giveaways really do work if you understand why you need them and run them by the law. Let's look at how a contest differs from a giveaway, which requirements you need to meet, and how to assess the benefit for the business.

Why businesses run contests and giveaways

A contest or giveaway is needed for a specific goal: attracting a new audience, introducing people to a product, collecting reviews or bringing back past customers. Without a goal, the campaign turns into handing out gifts with no result.

What they deliver

A well-thought-out campaign boosts audience engagement, brings in people who had never heard of the company, and gives you a reason to remind existing customers about yourself. For a new page, it's also a way to build an initial audience faster when SMM from scratch is just getting started.

What not to expect

A giveaway doesn't replace regular social media promotion and doesn't make a weak product attractive. A separate problem is prize hunters: people who enter every campaign in a row and have no interest in your product. The more expensive and generic the prize, the more of these participants you get. That's why the best prize is your own product or service: it attracts people who actually need it.

Contest, giveaway and lottery: what's the difference

The difference is in how the winner is chosen. Both the legal requirements and the way you write the rules depend on it.

Contest

In a contest, the winner is chosen according to criteria announced in advance: the best photo, the most helpful review, an interesting story. The decision is made by a jury or by a vote. The criteria and the jury members need to be stated in the rules; otherwise the choice will look arbitrary and cause disputes.

Giveaway

In a giveaway, the winner is decided by chance, usually by a random number generator or a video recording of the draw. Participants want to see that the giveaway results were determined fairly, so it's better to show the selection process openly.

When a giveaway becomes a promotional lottery

If participants have to buy something to enter a giveaway and the winner is chosen at random, the campaign may be considered a promotional lottery. The law imposes additional requirements on these, so before launching a giveaway among buyers, it's worth discussing the mechanics with a lawyer.

What the law says

A social media giveaway is a promotional event, and it falls under advertising law. Article 9 of the Federal Law "On Advertising" requires that participants be informed of the key terms. Here is what to keep in mind:

• the announcement states the dates of the campaign and where to read the full rules;
• the rules describe the organizer, the prizes, their number, how the winners are determined, and when and where prizes are collected;
• sending a prize requires the winner's personal data, which means their consent to its processing;
• on a prize worth more than ₽4,000, the winner pays income tax at an increased rate of 35%, and it's worth warning them about this in advance;
• if a giveaway post advertises a product and is placed for money, it must be labeled through an ORD (advertising data operator) and carry an erid.

Separately, keep in mind the rules of the platforms themselves: VK and Telegram have their own requirements for posts and activities, and a violation can end with the post being blocked. What else can and can't be advertised on Russian social media is covered in our article on social media advertising in Russia.

How to write contest rules

Contest rules are written before launch and published where they're easy to find: as a separate post, a VK article or a page on the website. The announcement should link to them. The most convenient order is this:

1. State the organizer: company name, TIN (INN), contact details for questions.
2. Describe the timeline: start date, end of entries, date the results are announced.
3. List the entry conditions: what to do, who can take part, how many times.
4. Describe the prizes and their number.
5. Explain how the winner is chosen and how they will be notified.
6. State how and by when the prize is handed over and what happens if the winner doesn't respond.

Don't ask participants to do unnecessary things like tagging five friends or reposting to their personal page: it's annoying and attracts random people. Simple conditions give less reach, but the audience you get is cleaner.

Mechanics that bring real value

The most useful mechanics are tied to the product. They attract people who are interested in your field, not just in a free gift.

Giveaways among customers

A prize draw among those who left a review or made a purchase during a certain period builds loyalty. People come back, and the company gets reviews and repeat orders. Here it's important to remember the requirements for promotional lotteries if entry is tied to a purchase.

Creative contests

A contest for photos with the product, stories of how it's used, or ideas gives the company content it can use later, with the authors' consent. Entering takes effort, so there are fewer prize hunters. We wrote about what kind of material hooks an audience in our article on engaging content.

Joint giveaways with partners

Two or three companies with a similar audience but different products pool their prizes and exchange followers. For example, a coffee shop, a bookstore and a flower studio. The mechanic works well for promoting a local business on social media, as long as the partners' audiences really overlap.

How to assess the value of a giveaway

Value is judged not by the number of comments but by how many new people stayed with you and how many of them bought something. A month after the results, look at how many followers unsubscribed, how the reach of regular posts changed, and how many inquiries came from the new audience.

Costs add up from the price of the prizes, delivery, promoting the campaign and staff time. If the giveaway cost more than the new customers brought in, change the prize or the mechanics next time. We covered in detail how to turn social media results into money in our article on how many leads SMM brings in.

Giveaways as part of promotion

A giveaway gives you a spike, but it's regular work that keeps the audience. Social media promotion is built on content, advertising and conversation, while campaigns serve as a reason to grab attention at the right moment. If your social media promotion rests only on gifts, the page quickly fills up with people who aren't interested in your product.

Social media marketing wins when campaigns are built into the overall plan: a new product launch, the company's anniversary, a sales season. Then the giveaway amplifies what's already happening instead of trying to replace systematic work. Good SMM for a company's social media plans these occasions in advance, not at the last minute.

Who should run it

You can run a giveaway in-house, but it's easier to hand it over to someone who works in SMM and knows the requirements of the law and the platforms. An SMM manager's services usually cover publishing and announcing the results, while an SMM specialist's services also include the mechanics, advertising and evaluating the results. If you've decided to hire someone for SMM on an ongoing basis, check whether preparing the rules is part of the job.

The price of SMM varies noticeably between contractors, because it covers a different scope of tasks. When comparing SMM costs, look at what the work includes, not just the total: a low price for SMM often means you'll have to prepare the rules and analytics yourself. If the giveaway is meant to drive people to your website, discuss SMM promotion for the site as well: tagged links will show how many visitors came from the campaign.

The key points

Contests and giveaways are useful when they have a goal, clear rules and a prize tied to the product. Comply with advertising law, warn winners about tax and collect consent to data processing. A month after the campaign, count customers, not likes.

If you want to run a giveaway without legal risks and with measurable results, contact epic name. We work with companies in Moscow and across Russia and provide SMM services together with preparing the rules, advertising and reporting. Learn more on our SMM services page.