One of the best ways to drive engagement and growth on Instagram is through games. It fosters a sense of community among followers and viewers (who may be prospective followers, as well!) As such, Instagram games are one of the best tools for social media marketing available to every business and individual.
In this article, we’ll briefly run you through the idea of Instagram games. We also have a couple of ideas that you can use!
What Are Instagram Games?
Instagram games are challenges or competitions that people can partake in, sometimes for a prize, sometimes just for fun.
Instagram games come in all shapes and sizes. The most popular are photo competitions, where people post photos with hashtags related to your account or your products and services. But you can also experiment with other ideas (some of which you’ll see below).
To maximize engagements, Instagramers usually use data scraping tools and scripts to find out more about their audience. Then, they leverage this information to tailor-build a competition that fits their audience the best.
Why Instagram Games Are Important
Since people must post and engage with you to play Instagram games, a boost in engagement is almost guaranteed. And depending on the type of game you’re playing, people may even tag their friends to play along.
So, Instagram games aren’t only a great way to drive viewership and engagement but also a great way to diversify your feed’s contents.
Instagram Game Ideas to Try Out
1. Quiz Games
Quiz games are an excellent choice if you’re looking to build a community on Instagram. They allow your followers to get to know one another (and you). Quiz games are typically started by the host posting a quiz template. Participants will then answer the questions on the template on their Story.
The template is where most of the work is going to be for you as the host. You have full creative control over it. Quiz templates can be in any theme or design you want. But most popularly, people just use a list or Bingo cards filled with thematic questions.
And of course, when you host quiz games, don’t forget to tell participants to tag their friends!
2. “Get to Know” Challenge
This is similar to quiz games. You can use it to foster a sense of community among your audience. However, this challenge is far more personal: the participant is asked to share exciting things about themselves!
For example, their name, birthday, things they like (and don’t like), favorite color, a favorite song, and so on.
(Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/212654413640995953/)
Then, you will take their answers and share them with the rest of the community!
There are many benefits of such a campaign outside of engagement and growth. First, your followers will feel how you care about them and gain more goodwill. Secondly, you will better understand the psychology of your audience. Later on, you can use what you learn to build better, more effective marketing campaigns.
3. “I Challenge …” Game
The principle behind this game is simple: do something, then the participant will challenge their friends to do it. Rinse and repeat. The challenge can be anything, ranging from posting photos and videos of them doing a certain activity, or drawing something using Instagram’s drawing tools.
What’s so great about this Instagram game is that, in order to continue, it requires participants to share and draw their friends into the game. As a result, at least in theory, this game should be a lot more effective at attracting new viewers to your account.
4. GIF Challenge
Everybody loves GIFs, which is why leveraging them can give your Instagram a dramatic boost in engagement and reshares.
For this game, you will have to take advantage of Instagram’s Story feature. Design a template that surrounds a theme. An example can be seen here.
(Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/421368108883539080/)
In this template, the theme is “What was the last thing you …?” Directly below are empty squares with relevant questions. The objective for the player is to reshare this template and fill the empty squares with suitable GIFs of their choosing.
The more unique or funnier, the better!
Also, don’t forget to interact with your followers if they do reshare the template. Pick the best and reshare it! It will drive more people to participate.
5. This or That
This or That is a straightforward game but highly effective if it’s engagement that you’re seeking.
This game also uses Instagram’s Story feature and will require you to design a template first. In the template, create two lines, one for “This” and one for “That.” On each line, write something related but opposite to the one on the other line. For example: “Single” – “Taken.”
(Source: https://www.hopperhq.com/blog/instagram-story-templates/)
To participate in the game, the player must first reshare the template, then underline or circle the option they pick. And to make sure that their friends will also join, make sure that the empty template you created contains a call-to-action that will also draw their friends into the game!
6. Polls
Polls are a crowd’s favorite due to their simplicity. People only need to push a button on the screen and voilà. It’s also popular among advertisers, businesses, and influencers since it allows them to quickly gather information on their products and services.
There are plenty of case studies for this game. Forever21 once sent out a poll to see whether their customers prefer Chelsea boots or knee-highs.
(Source: https://wave.video/blog/instagram-story-poll-ideas/)
They then use the poll’s information to adjust their marketing or business model to suit the needs of their consumers. All without having to spend millions on analysis and forecasts. That’s how powerful a tool Instagram games are when it’s used smartly.
Conclusion
Instagram games are an excellent marketing tool that, if used wisely, can give your brand a powerful boost forward. And considering how simple they are to implement, there’s no reason to not use them to improve traffic on your brand’s Instagram!
