There are many ways to promote your account on Instagram. One of them is a giveaway.
A giveaway is a competition with a large number of sponsors (usually from 10). To win a prize in the giveaway the user should follow all accounts of the organizers.
Hosted by a celebrity. The celebrity, who publishes a post with a call to participate in a giveaway, becomes a followers' donor. The prize in a giveaway should be attractive to the widest possible audience (Apple products, a car, etc.).
Blogger's. Usually in such giveaways sponsors are bloggers who have less than 1M followers but still have a significant audience. Prizes are usually purchased in the same way attractive to a wide audience.
Thematic. All sponsors are connected by one theme and a similar target audience. The prize also promotes segmentation.
For example, there are unite bloggers-moms, sling consultants, child psychologists, shops of children's clothing, toys for children. A prize can be a children electric car. Thus, the majority of the giveaway participants will most likely be people who have children.
The advantages of this promotion method:
+ Accelerated growth of new followers.
+ Thematic giveaways help segment the audience.
Disadvantages:
- After the end of giveaway amount of unfollowers can be up to 70-80%.
- A sharp drop in coverage, because Instagram algorithms decide that your content is of poor quality due to massive unfollowing process.
- There is a big chance to run into scammers, there are many dishonest people among third party organizers.
- It is impossible to segment the audience in detail.
- People who come for a freebie rarely buy something in the future, even if they don't unfollow you.
- There is a risk that the social network will disable your account. It is low chances, but it is.
To participate in giveaways or not is up to you.