Contests are a great way to expand your brand, and they don’t have to be complicated to be effective. Some of the most successful promotional contests are simple, accessible and highly engaging. These contests boost customer engagement across all forms of social media and foster strategic partnerships with unexpected companies.
Contests and giveaways are essential marketing tools for making brands go viral. By following these proven principles for contest building, you can reach a massive audience and bring new customers to your business. We’ll share tips on incorporating contests into your marketing plan and highlight examples of successful viral contests.
How to create a viral contest
Contests are a great way to improve your brand’s visibility and help you go viral. To get noticed, follow these tips:
Offer the right prize.
An exciting prize is essential for any successful contest. After all, if you can’t get your target audience interested in your prize, you won’t have much hope of going viral. The good news is that, unlike lotteries or sweepstakes, you don’t have to offer cash to get people on board.
Some of the best prizes include gift cards, free products (perhaps even the full line) or an all-expenses-paid trip to a special event. When a prize has significant monetary value or is viewed as rare or exclusive, interest naturally increases. Make sure the prize is relevant to your business to attract participants who are likely to become paying customers once the contest ends. You also must comply with all applicable laws on social media contests and sweepstakes.
Incentivize sharing.
When it comes to creating a viral contest, getting participants to share is key. According to 5W Public Relations’ 2024 Consumer Culture Report, 71 percent of consumers — and 61 percent of those aged 16 to 24 — say they learn about products from friends or family they know in real life. Another 67 percent of young consumers say that seeing a user-generated social-media video about a product feels like word of mouth. These findings highlight how authentic peer-to-peer sharing can drive discovery and viral reach.
Encourage entrants to post photos or videos about your contest, use a specific hashtag, and tag your brand and friends to extend visibility. The more you can motivate organic sharing, the more likely your contest will take off across platforms.
Limit the time frame.
You might think that letting a contest run for a longer period would create more opportunities to generate buzz. However, this isn’t usually the case. The most successful online contests typically run for two to four weeks to take advantage of FOMO: the fear of missing out.
When your audience knows they have a limited amount of time to win a great prize, the perceived value increases. More importantly, it creates a greater sense of urgency that motivates customers to act immediately. That’s why restaurants, auto dealerships and other companies use limited-time offers: a narrow window makes the deal feel more desirable.
The FOMO concept also applies to multistage contests. Even a photo contest that requires multiple rounds of voting should end after a relatively short period to sustain audience interest and momentum.
Harness the power of partnerships.
You don’t always have to offer one of your own products or services as a contest prize. Many successful contests involve strategic partnerships with social media influencers, celebrities or other brands for the benefit of all parties.
Let’s say your entertainment company offers an all-expenses-paid trip to the Super Bowl. By partnering with a specific airline and hotel for the grand prize and keeping them updated on all contest details, you can quickly double the marketing power behind your promotion. Your partners will provide an additional marketing push to spread the word to new audiences without requiring extra spending on your part.
People love participating in contests, especially when they believe they have a real chance of winning a great prize. As you incorporate these techniques, you’ll put yourself in a better position to reach your target audience. Even those who miss out on the grand prize can still boost your brand’s visibility and contribute to business growth.
By collaborating with another brand for a contest, you essentially double the size of your marketing audience and increase your chances of earning
positive customer reviews from new participants.
Examples of successful viral contests, giveaways and promotions
Find some inspiration for your own viral events by looking at what has worked for other brands.
Starbucks’ Annual #RedCup Campaign
Every November, Starbucks finds a way to turn a simple idea (a red holiday cup) into a viral moment. Its annual #RedCup campaign encourages customers to post festive photos of their drinks, and the response is enormous each year. It’s less about marketing jargon and more about a feeling: holiday excitement and a bit of social-media fun via user-generated content.
In 2024, the promotion clearly struck a chord. Placer.ai reported a 42.4 percent jump in store visits on Red Cup Day and a 9.4 percent lift over the week (a big deal for a one-day giveaway). Those numbers show how a lighthearted idea, shared at the right time, can turn everyday customers into active promoters — no pricey prizes required.
Starbucks kept the momentum going in 2025 with its “Secret Menu” contest, inviting fans and baristas to submit new drink creations for a $25,000 grand prize. Between its yearly cup giveaway and creative contests like this one, the brand keeps itself part of the conversation, proving that community and creativity can spread faster than any ad campaign.
Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl legacy
Doritos’ iconic “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign is still one of the best-known examples of fans shaping a big brand’s message. Back in 2006, the company invited fans to create their own 30-second commercials for Doritos, and the winning entry earned more than snacks: The ad actually aired during the Super Bowl. The contest ran annually for a decade, generating buzz and over $1 billion in earned media, proving that crowdsourced content can rival big-budget advertising.
After nearly a decade off the air, Doritos revived the contest for 2025, again calling on fans to submit original Super Bowl ad concepts for a chance to be featured during the broadcast. The reboot continues the brand’s legacy of creativity and community involvement while introducing new digital voting and social-sharing features that reflect today’s creator-driven culture.
Doritos' success shows how giving fans a genuine voice — and real creative control — can transform a marketing campaign into a cultural event that builds
customer loyalty and excitement year after year.
Yeti and Traeger’s photo contest
In collaboration with grill maker Traeger, Yeti ran an Instagram photo contest inviting users to post pictures of their favorite barbecue spots using the hashtag #YETIxTraegerBBQ. The campaign generated more than 1,000 original posts, which Yeti and Traeger later repurposed across their social channels.
Chipotle’s TikTok challenge
Chipotle has a knack for having fun (and success) with social media marketing. One of its best-known efforts is the #GuacDance challenge, which kicked off in 2019 for National Avocado Day. The campaign asked TikTok users to show off dance moves to a “guacamole” theme, and it quickly became one of the platform’s highest-performing branded challenges. With 250,000-plus submissions and views reportedly exceeding 1 billion, according to the Shorty Awards, the hashtag generated both massive engagement and a record day for guacamole sales.
Chipotle was smart: It kept the entry simple (a dance and a hashtag), tied the campaign to a fun food moment, and offered a cost-effective yet delicious prize (free guacamole). The result was a shareable moment with high reach and measurable business impact.
Nike’s design competitions
Nike has never been shy about letting its fans get creative. Over the years, the company has launched a handful of design challenges that invite sneaker lovers and artists to pitch their own ideas. One of the most recent, the 2023 “Your Force 1 Challenge,” picked four winners who actually got to work with Nike’s in-house studio to bring their concepts to life. Earlier, the 2018 “On Air” competition drew thousands of designs from cities around the world and brought winning concepts to market.
These contests give Nike a chance to tap into fan creativity and shine a light on fresh ideas from everyday designers. Some of those concepts even become limited-edition releases. They don’t happen all the time, but when they do, the buzz feels genuine — the kind that strengthens community ties and gets people talking about the brand long after the winners are announced.
Cadbury worldwide hide event
In 2021, Cadbury challenged people to find unique places to hide Easter eggs. The brand partnered with Google Maps to develop the largest Easter egg hunt of all time. Digital eggs were hidden around the world, with their locations marked on Google Maps. It was so popular, it became an annual event. The Worldwide Hide returned again in 2025, showing how digital participation can keep a simple holiday tradition fresh and interactive.
According to
Tailwind, businesses that host Instagram contests grow their followers 70 percent faster in just three months than those that don't run contests — another reason to use
Instagram for business.
When should you run a contest?
These are some of the best times to launch a contest or giveaway to maximize engagement and results:
- When you’re launching a new product: A new product launch is the perfect time to grab attention and spark curiosity. Contests can create excitement, encourage user-generated buzz, and even drive early sales. By rewarding participants for sharing or tagging, you can expand your reach far beyond your existing customer base.
- When you’re introducing a new website: If you’ve just launched a new site, a contest can help drive traffic and awareness. These campaigns are also great for generating sales leads, boosting engagement across social media, and uncovering which products or features resonate most with visitors.
- When you’re showcasing an upcoming event: With an event on the horizon, contests can help build anticipation and promote attendance. Offering event-related prizes, like free tickets or exclusive access, turns your promotion into an experience people want to share, helping you sustain excitement before, during and after the event.
- When you’re rebranding: Announcing a business rebranding is an exciting milestone and a great opportunity to reconnect with your audience. Running a contest can build enthusiasm around your new identity while inspiring fans to create user-generated content that strengthens customer relationships and celebrates the change.
- During seasonal peaks: Holiday seasons and major shopping events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday are ideal times to run a contest. Timing your giveaway just before high-sales periods helps build anticipation, grow your audience, and convert new followers into customers. Experts recommend launching giveaways in the weeks leading up to peak holiday shopping. Research shows that contest-driven landing pages can see up to 700 percent more email-subscriber growth compared with standard signup pages.
- When building email lists: Contests that require registration remain one of the most effective ways to grow your email list and subscriber base. By timing these campaigns strategically — for example, a few weeks before a major sale or product drop — you can ensure those new subscribers convert into engaged, long-term customers.
Kimberlee Leonard and Nathan Resnick contributed to this article.
