7 Ideas For Running a Giveaway on Twitter / X
Seven X (Twitter) giveaway ideas to run today, plus X's current promotion rules and how to check your winner first.
• Pick the idea that matches your goal: reach, replies, content or email signups • Write one entry per account into your rules, as X asks • Never reward repeat posts or unrelated hashtags • Give more entries for actions that happen in Gleam, like email signups and referrals • Check your winner's X account by hand before you announce them
You want more followers on X, and a giveaway gives people a reason to follow you this week. The catch is that X giveaways changed a lot after Twitter became X, so the advice you'll find in older posts (including an older version of this one) doesn't all hold up.
Two things matter most. X still allows giveaways, with a short list of rules. And X's API no longer lets tools like Gleam confirm that someone followed you or reposted your post. Below are seven ideas that work with both of those facts, plus what to check before you pick a winner.
X's Guidelines for Promotions on X (checked 30 October 2026) say you can offer prizes for posting an update, following an account or posting with a hashtag. They also ask you to:
- Add a rule that anyone using multiple accounts to enter is ineligible
- Avoid rules that reward duplicate posts, like "whoever reposts this the most wins"
- Ask entrants to mention your account, so every entry lands in your Notifications
- Only encourage hashtags that are relevant to the post
X's Authenticity policy adds the spam limits. Bulk, unsolicited mentions and excessive or unrelated hashtags are out, which matters for tag-a-friend giveaways (more on that below). Compliance with local promotion laws is on you, and our guide to giveaway laws in the USA covers the basics.
When an entrant logs in with X, Gleam records their X username. For the X Actions (Follow, Repost, Post and View Post), Gleam records the entrant's handle and can block throwaway accounts, but X's API doesn't let us confirm the follow or repost itself. So before you announce a winner, open their profile and check they did what your rules asked.
Gleam's X hashtag import is also temporarily unavailable, so for now don't plan a giveaway that relies on pulling hashtag posts from X into Gleam.
Email signups, referrals, secret codes, answers and uploads all happen inside the Gleam widget, so they don't depend on X's API. That's why the stronger ideas below give more entries for them.
This is the giveaway you've seen a hundred times on your feed, and it still works for reach. Each repost puts your post in front of the reposter's followers.
To run it on X alone, post the prize, the end date and "Follow us and repost to enter. One entry per account." Pin it to your profile.
To run it with Gleam, add the Follow on X and Repost actions to a Competition and embed it or share the landing page. Entrants log in with X, so you get a clean list of usernames to draw from, and you can add an email signup worth more entries. When the draw is done, check the winner's account follows you and shows the repost.
Judge this one on followers you still have a month later. Some people unfollow once the prize is gone, and the ones who stay are the result that counts.
A sweepstakes lets entrants pick from a menu of actions, each worth entries. On X, that's how you get past the verification gap. Keep the X Actions for reach, then put the bigger rewards on actions that happen inside Gleam: joining your email list and referring friends through Viral Share.
Here's the template, with Follow, Repost, Post and View Post on X next to an email signup and referrals:
An email address keeps working after the giveaway ends. A follow from someone who only wanted the prize may not last the week.
Post a funny or odd photo and ask people to reply with a caption. It's quick to enter, it fills your replies, and the best answers are worth reposting.
Run this as a judged contest. Say in the post how you'll pick ("funniest caption, chosen by our team") and when. A judged winner is easy to check, because you're reading the replies anyway. One caption per account keeps you inside X's duplicate-post rule.
Ask people to reply and tag a friend who'd love the prize. Each tag sends a notification to someone who may not follow you yet.
Ask for one or two tags, not "tag as many friends as you can". X's Authenticity policy bans bulk, unsolicited mentions, and a reply section full of 20-tag replies looks like spam to the people tagged. Offering the tagged friend a prize too is a nice touch, because entrants tag someone who'll actually care.
If you'd rather reward sharing you can count, Viral Share gives each entrant a referral link and credits them when a friend enters.
Ask a question your audience has an opinion on: which colourway you should make next, what feature they want, their go-to order. You get engagement on the post and real product feedback in the replies.
Replies are hard to draw a random winner from once there are hundreds of them. If you expect that many, put the question in a Gleam Competition with the Answer a Question action. Every answer is stored with the entrant's details, you can export them for the product team, and Gleam can pick winners at random from the entries. Add a Post on X action as a bonus entry so the conversation still happens in public.
A photo contest gets you something the other ideas don't: content you can use. Ask people to share a photo with your product, your pet-friendly café, or their best travel shot.
With our X hashtag import unavailable for now, collect the photos in Gleam with an Upload action (Business Plan) and ask entrants to post the photo on X with your hashtag for a bonus entry. Everything lands in one place, and you can show the entries in a Gallery.
Your terms need to say how you'll use the photos. Gleam generates Terms & Conditions for every Competition, and custom terms are on the Hobby Plan and above.
Hide clues in your X posts, your website or your other channels. The finished code is the entry. People keep checking your feed for the next clue, so this one runs well over a week or more.
Entrants type the answer into a Secret Code action (Hobby Plan and above) and Gleam checks it on the spot, so you don't have to mark answers by hand. Post one clue a day and say when the next one drops.
A prize anyone wants brings in people who only want the prize. A prize tied to what you sell brings in people who might buy. On X, that means your own product, early access to something you're launching, or a bundle your followers would recognise from your posts. A generic gadget or gift card pulls in accounts that enter every giveaway going.
Match the prize to the effort. A follow and a repost suits a small prize. A photo or a scavenger hunt needs something worth the work. Our list of prize ideas has plenty more.
Pin the giveaway post to your profile for the whole run. Then share the landing page in your newsletter, on your website and on your other social channels, so people who don't follow you yet can find it.
Book blogger Karen posted her X giveaway on Instagram too, and asked which of the two books people would pick. Her Instagram followers got a reason to comment and a pointer to the giveaway on X:
Partner with a brand or creator whose audience overlaps with yours, and run the giveaway from both accounts. Yules Art teamed up with a poet for a joint prize, and the follow step covered both accounts, so each one got in front of the other's followers. Skip the "tag 3 friends" step, though. X's Authenticity policy counts bulk, unsolicited mentions as spam, so ask for one tag at most:
Reply to entrants while it runs and after the draw. A like or a reply from the brand keeps the post active and shows people a real person is behind it. Netcom Training replied to entrants after its contest to say their entries stood out, which costs nothing and gives the people who didn't win a reason to enter next time:
If you have budget, X Ads can put the post in front of people outside your followers.
Draw on the date you promised. Then open the winner's X profile and check they follow you and made the repost, post or reply your rules asked for. If they didn't, or they're using a second account, draw again and say so in your terms. Our X giveaway picker guide walks through drawing from each type of entry.
Announce the winner in a reply to the original post, so everyone who entered sees it.
Yes. Open the Winners tab in Gleam, choose how many winners you want and draw at random from your valid entries. For a judged giveaway, pick manually.
Yes, when paired with lead capture and remarketing, Twitter giveaways support long-term audience growth. Click to learn how to turn a one-time contest into a lasting strategy.
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