Running a social media giveaway is a very effective way to grow your audience. It works by creating excitement and expectations around your brand and product. By taking actions to participate in your giveaway, your followers create a relationship with your company.
They expect you to run a fair and smooth winner-picking process and give them a real chance of winning your prize. For many of your followers, or people who have just seen the giveaway, this is their first impression of your company.
So it’s up to you to find a good giveaway tool that is reliable and picks winners randomly, without mistakes or bias. This way, everyone will know you run a fair game and have a chance of winning.
Another good thing about using a winner picker is that it saves a lot of time. Going through all the entries by hand can take forever, especially if lots of people participate. A good winner-picking tool does this quickly, picking a winner randomly and reliably.
These tools often come with helpful features like removing duplicate entries, filtering hashtags or mentions, and applying your giveaway rules before the draw. This cuts down on problems and keeps things fair. Plus, when you use a proper tool, your audience trusts the results more, making them more likely to join your future contests.
Overall, a good winner picker makes sure your contest is fair, fast, transparent and stress-free.
So, let’s see what we need to look for in a winner picker:
- Ease of Use
- Random Selection Process
- Multi-platform Support
- Good Filtering Options
- Winner Proof
- Good Support and Customer Service
Ease of Use
When picking a winner picker tool for your social media contests, having a user-friendly interface is really important. No one wants to deal with confusing software, especially when you’re running contests on different platforms.
A simple, easy-to-use tool makes it faster to get your contest up and running. The best tools have a clean layout that’s easy to understand, even if you’re new to it. Clear buttons, helpful tips and straightforward steps make the process smooth so you can focus on connecting with your audience.
Osortoo is such a tool. It’s very easy and intuitive, and you will be able to use it straight away without lengthy tutorials. Our goal is for you to have the best experience possible and pick your winners quickly and hassle-free.
Osortoo now gives you two simple ways to start a giveaway: use a Direct Post URL or connect your social media account. Osortoo
Direct Post URL
For supported posts, you can simply:
- Choose your platform
- Paste the link to your giveaway post
- Import the comments
- Select your filters
- Pick your winner
You don’t need to connect your social media account for supported Direct URL imports. Osortoo also shows you an estimate before you confirm the import. Osortoo
Connected Account
You can also use the classic method:
- Connect your social media account
- Select the pages you want to use
- Select your giveaway post
- Select your filters
- Pick your winner
This method is useful when you want to manage pages and posts directly from your Osortoo account. Osortoo
Standard Imports through supported official integrations are included in Osortoo plans. Direct URL Import works differently and may use comment packs depending on the number of comments being imported. Osortoo
Osortoo is designed to make the whole process quick, from importing your entries to applying your contest rules and selecting a winner.ves you time and reduces stress. It helps your contests run smoothly and makes things easier for both you and your participants.
Random Selection Process
Making sure your social media contest is fair is really important, and using a truly random selection method is the best way to achieve that. When people enter, they want to know they have a real chance to win. A good winner picker tool uses an algorithm to randomly choose the winner, ensuring that everyone has an equal shot. This prevents any bias or favoritism, which can hurt your brand’s image.
Using a random selection method also helps build trust with your audience. If participants feel the process is fair, they’re more likely to join your future contests and share their positive experiences with others. This can lead to more engagement and growth for your brand.
Our selection process on Osortoo is totally random, and it’s a different pick every time. We have had posts with up to 50 000 comments and successfully picked a winner on it, and every time it was a totally random and different person.
If for some reason, you don’t like the people that Osortoo has picked for you, you can just click Redraw and get new winners on the same draw in seconds. No need to make another draw, you just Redraw and have new winners. You can Redraw as many times as you like.
Multi-platform Support (Facebook + Instagram + YouTube)
A multi-platform picker support is very useful for social media giveaways. It gives you the ability to pick from multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and so on. This means you can gather entries from multiple platforms and choose a winner from all of them combined, instead of running separate contests for each one.
Osortoo’s Multi-Platform Picker makes this process easier by collecting comments on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube at the same time. It saves time and energy by making three giveaways into one and getting all the participants in a single list and picking your winner.
We also have a separate Instagram Giveaway Picker and Facebook Giveaway Picker, if you want to pick separately on just one platform. Many Gen Z influencers use only Instagram and want to just organize an Instagram Giveaway, so you can do that too with Osortoo.
It also allows you to set specific rules, such as excluding certain entries or adjusting the randomization process. This helps businesses increase participation, grow their audience, and engage more users from different social networks in one giveaway. The tool’s simplicity makes it ideal for brands looking to streamline their contests and attract more attention from different platforms without extra effort.
To see how the whole process goes check out our short tutorial for Multi-platform picking.
Good Filtering Options
Having good filtering options is another important thing to look for in a winner picker.
When you make a giveaway, you usually have specific rules that participants must follow in order to be eligible to win your prize. This may mean tagging other people, using a certain hashtag, mentioning an account or including specific text in their comment.
In order to select a winner fairly, your giveaway picker should be able to apply those rules before the random selection takes place.
Osortoo provides several options that help you control which entries are eligible.
You can, for example:
- Remove duplicate users
- Require a minimum number of tags
- Filter for a specific @mention
- Filter for a particular #hashtag
- Use a text filter
- Include or exclude replies where available
- Give extra chances based on your giveaway rules
- Add Bonus Entries
- Exclude or blacklist specific users
- Choose the number of winners
- Export comments for your records
Osortoo also lets you control extra chances and bonus entries before the winner is selected. Advanced filtering options are available depending on the plan and giveaway setup. Osortoo
For example, if your giveaway rule asks participants to tag three friends, you can use the minimum tag requirement to qualify the appropriate comments.
If you require a particular hashtag or account mention, you can filter the entries accordingly.
And if you have eligible participants that need to be added manually, the Bonus Entries feature allows you to include them in the giveaway.
The Remove Duplicates option is especially useful when your rules allow only one eligible entry per person, or when entries from several sources are being combined.
Winner Proof
Winner proof is important because it helps show participants that the giveaway was conducted through a structured and transparent process.
Osortoo keeps a record of completed giveaways, allowing you to return to your giveaway history, review the draw and access winner information later. The platform also provides winner summaries and campaign information after the draw. Osortoo
You can also export results when needed, which makes it easier to maintain a record of the entries used for your selection.
Another useful feature is the Winner Video.
After selecting your winner, Osortoo lets you create an animated Winner Video that can be shared with your audience.
Winner Videos make the announcement more engaging and give you a simple visual way to communicate the result of your giveaway. Winner Video is included in Osortoo’s current paid plans. Osortoo
Osortoo also allows the draw result to be shared publicly so participants can verify the selection process, adding another layer of transparency to the giveaway. Osortoo
Together, these features help brands demonstrate that a dedicated third-party winner picker was used rather than selecting a winner manually.
Good Support and Customer Service
Good support and customer service are vital to a positive user experience.
Osortoo is there for its users. You can reach the support team through Osortoo’s available support channels or check the FAQs and support resources when you need help.
Having access to support is especially useful when you are preparing an important giveaway, importing a large number of comments or applying more advanced participation rules.
A good relationship with our customers is one of our priorities. User feedback also helps us identify features that need to be updated or improved so we can continue making the giveaway selection process simpler.
If you have any questions after reading the article, feel free to ask them here.
