How to run a comment giveaway people can trust

A comment giveaway is one of the simplest ways to get people talking under your posts: comment to enter, maybe tag a friend, and someone wins the prize. The weak point is the draw. The followers who did not win usually have to take your word that the winner was picked at random, and a winner who happens to know the owner can start a thread of suspicious replies, even when the draw was honest.

A giveaway people can trust needs clear rules before it starts and a draw anyone can check after it ends.

Write the rules before you post

Decide the rules first and put them in the caption, so nobody can say they changed later:

• what counts as an entry: any comment, or only a comment with a certain word
• whether people have to tag friends, and how many
• when entries close, with the date, time, and time zone
• how many winners there will be, and what happens if a winner does not reply
• where and when you will announce the result

Check the platform's own rules for promotions too. Instagram's guidelines, for example, ask the host to state that the promotion is not sponsored or run by Instagram. Prize promotions can also fall under local law, so check what applies where you and your entrants are.

Keep the entry rules easy to follow

Every extra requirement makes entering harder and the rules harder to check. A keyword or one tagged friend is easy to understand. A list of five steps across three platforms invites arguments about who really qualified.

Whatever you choose, make it something you can check from the comments themselves. "Follow us to enter" sounds simple, but you cannot verify it from a comment, which makes it easy to dispute.

Count entries the same way for everyone

Before anything is drawn, the entry list has to be fair:

• one entry per person, so fifty comments do not mean fifty chances
• the host's own comments left out
• hidden and deleted comments left out
• comments posted after the deadline left out

These rules are built into giveaways in eksis. Each person gets one entry on each platform, counting their first comment, and your own comments, hidden comments, and deleted comments never count. If you set a deadline, comments posted after it are ignored even if you draw later. Without a deadline, entries close when you draw.

Run it across several posts

If you announce the same giveaway on Instagram and Facebook, choose both posts and eksis draws from the comments on all of them together. Entries come from comments eksis has already received in your inbox, so this works on the platforms that send their comments to eksis: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Threads, X, and Bluesky.

Since entries are counted once per person on each platform, someone who comments on both your Instagram and your Facebook post has one entry on each. If you want strictly one entry per person across platforms, say so in the rules and check the winners by hand.

Make the draw checkable

This is the step where most giveaways ask for trust instead of earning it. A draw that people can check needs three things: the entry list is fixed before the random number exists, the random number comes from somewhere the host does not control, and anyone can repeat the calculation.

When you draw in eksis, the entry list locks and its SHA-256 fingerprint is recorded. The random number comes from drand, a public randomness network run by independent organizations, taken from a round produced a few seconds after the list locked, so nobody could have known it in advance. The winners follow from the fingerprint and that number alone.

Every draw gets a public results page. It shows the winners together with the entry count, the fingerprint, the drand round, and the random number. Anyone can download the entry list and press Check the draw in this browser. Their browser confirms that the list matches the fingerprint, fetches the random number straight from drand, and recalculates the winners in the same order.

Draw backup winners at the same time

Winners do not always reply. Pick backup winners in the same draw, in order, and set a deadline for the winner to answer. If the first winner stays quiet, you move to the next name on the list instead of running a second draw that people could question.

Announce the result with the proof

Announce the winner the way your rules said you would, and link the results page in the announcement. A draw in eksis cannot be edited or run again once it is done, so the page you share is the only result there is.

To run one, create a free account and connect the account you will post the giveaway from. Once the giveaway post is live, set up the draw in eksis with the same rules you wrote in the caption, so the results page and the post say the same thing.