How to Run a LinkedIn Competition That Actually Works

Running a LinkedIn competition is a smart way to build brand awareness, boost content reach, and increase engagement, especially if your audience is B2B.

Unlike Instagram or TikTok, LinkedIn users tend to be more selective in what they engage with. But that can work in your favour. A well-designed contest with a relevant prize and clear entry steps can spark valuable conversations, build authority, and even grow your email list, without feeling gimmicky.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to plan and run a LinkedIn competition that aligns with your brand, attracts real participants, and avoids common pitfalls.

LinkedIn is built around professional networking and content-sharing. While it's not traditionally seen as a giveaway platform, competitions can work exceptionally well, when done thoughtfully.

They’re great for:

• Promoting a new product or service
• Driving qualified traffic to your site
• Boosting awareness among a niche professional audience
• Collecting user-generated content or feedback

You don’t need flashy prizes or over-the-top mechanics. In fact, low-friction, value-aligned prizes often perform better on LinkedIn than high-ticket, irrelevant ones.

Here are a few competition formats that work particularly well on LinkedIn:

This is the simplest and most popular format.

• Post a question or prompt (e.g. “What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received?”)
• Ask users to comment for a chance to win a prize
• Choose a winner at random or based on creativity

This drives replies and increases reach via engagement.

Encourage users to tag a colleague or friend who might also benefit from the prize.

Avoid forcing people to tag too many others, it can feel spammy.

• Ask participants to share a short story, tip, or image in response to your post.
• Builds genuine interaction and social proof
• Works best for personal development, coaching, or brand-led storytelling

You can also turn the best responses into repurposed content (with permission).

Unlike Facebook or Instagram, LinkedIn doesn’t have a detailed public policy on giveaways. But you should still be transparent and follow basic competition best practices.

Here’s what to include:

• Clear entry rules (who can enter, how, and by when)
• Start and end dates
• Details on how the winner will be selected and notified
• Eligibility disclaimers (e.g. age, location if applicable)
• Optional: a link to full terms on your website

Avoid asking people to like your company page as a condition of entry. It's a grey area in platform policy and can result in reduced reach.

The best prizes on LinkedIn are relevant, useful, and credible, especially in a professional context.

Strong prize ideas include:

• A 1:1 consultation or coaching session
• A free seat in your online course or training
• An annual subscription to a useful B2B tool
• Books, software credits, or gear aligned with your niche

Avoid prizes like gift cards or generic electronics unless they’re directly tied to your audience’s interests.

Before Launch:

• Tease the competition a few days in advance to build curiosity
• Tell your email list and ask followers to keep an eye out
• Brief internal teams or partners so they can engage early

During the Contest:

• Pin the competition post to your profile
• Engage with every comment, this boosts visibility
• Share reminders or updates in the comments or as separate posts

After It Ends:

• Publicly announce the winner (with their permission)
• Thank everyone who took part and invite them to stay connected
• Turn entries or comments into follow-up posts, testimonials or quotes

When you’re managing everything yourself, from tracking entries to messaging winners, it’s easy for details to slip through the cracks, like:

• Offering a prize with no relevance to your audience
• Making entry steps too complicated
• Forgetting to disclose rules or eligibility
• Ghosting your audience after the contest ends
• Sending inconsistent or confusing messages to entrants
• Not responding professionally when something goes wrong

Even with the best intentions, manual giveaways can go off track faster than you’d expect.

That’s why having a clear system in place matters just as much as the prize itself.

So, really it's better to run your promotion using a third-party tool that manages all of these things.

• Webinar giveaway: "Tag a marketer who should attend our next growth webinar. We’ll randomly choose 3 pairs to get free VIP access."
• Course launch promo: "To celebrate our new productivity course, we’re giving away 5 free spots. Comment with your top time-saving tip!"
• Product feedback challenge: "Tried our beta tool? Leave your feedback below, best insight wins 3 months free."

Running a competition is only half the work, tracking its performance helps you refine your giveaway marketing strategy over time.

Here’s what to measure:

• Engagement rate: Comments, reactions, shares, and clicks
• Reach and impressions: How far your post travelled across LinkedIn
• Follower growth: Did your campaign increase brand awareness and visibility?
• Lead generation: Email sign-ups, demo requests, or downloads tied to the giveaway
• User-generated content: Quality and quantity of responses, if relevant
• Customer engagement: New conversations, connection requests, or DMs sparked by the post

Tracking these metrics will help you understand what resonated with your target audience and what to tweak next time. It also shows how your marketing efforts are contributing to broader goals.

If your goal is to boost brand awareness, encourage participants to share the giveaway with their networks. If you’re focused on customer engagement, choose a format that invites thoughtful replies or feedback.

You can also increase impact by announcing the winners publicly and using that moment to thank participants and reinforce brand trust.

Running a LinkedIn competition, (or any social media competition for that matter), doesn’t require a big budget, just clarity, relevance, and genuine value for your audience.

Focus on professional themes, use a simple format like comment-to-win, and promote it strategically across your network.

With the right prize and clear communication, you can run a LinkedIn contest that builds reach, engagement, and even long-term leads.