How to Run a Giveaway or Contest on X Without Breaking the Rules

Contests on X can be a lot of fun. They can also go wrong quickly: a flood of near-identical posts, sock-puppet accounts, a winner nobody can verify. X publishes a short page called Guidelines for Promotions on X that covers most of the platform-side risks. This guide walks through what it asks, then lays out a plan for running a giveaway or contest that stays inside the rules.

What X's promotion guidelines say

X's guidelines are short and practical. They boil down to five points.

One entry per person

X recommends a rule that makes anyone who enters with multiple accounts ineligible. People who create several accounts to enter repeatedly risk having all of those accounts suspended under X's rules on spam and platform manipulation. Put this rule in your first post, not buried in a linked page.

Don't reward duplicate posting

A rule like "whoever reposts this the most wins" is the classic mistake. It pushes people to post the same thing over and over, and duplicate or near-duplicate posts break X's rules. Entries like that can also be filtered out of search, which means you may never see them. X suggests saying plainly that multiple entries in one day won't be accepted.

Ask for a mention

Ask entrants to include your @handle in their posts or replies. Mentions show up in your notifications, so you can see every entry. If you rely only on searching for a hashtag, some entries can slip through.

Keep hashtags relevant

You can ask people to use a hashtag for the contest, such as your brand name or the name of the event. The hashtag has to relate to what's being posted. Asking people to stick it on unrelated posts can break X's rules.

Follow the rules and the law

X points organizers to the X Rules and its search best practices, and it says compliance with the law is the organizer's responsibility. It recommends talking to a lawyer if you have legal questions. Our guide to sweepstakes vs contests in the US covers the basics.

You can read the full page on X's help center: Guidelines for Promotions on X.

Pick the right format

Before writing a single post, decide what kind of promotion you're running, because it affects both the rules and the law.

• A giveaway or sweepstakes picks winners by chance, such as a random draw from everyone who replied.
• A contest picks winners on skill: the best photo, the funniest caption, the strongest design. You need published judging criteria.
• A game or hunt, such as trivia or a scavenger hunt, picks winners on who solves the most clues, answers first or submits the best answers.

For most small accounts, a contest or a hunt works better than a random giveaway. It draws people who care about your topic, the entries themselves are interesting to read, and there's less incentive to create throwaway accounts.

Write the official rules

The post that launches your promotion has to be short. The official rules can live on a web page or in a reply thread, and the launch post should link to them. Cover at least:

1. Who runs the promotion, with your name or business name and how to contact you.
2. Who can enter: minimum age, countries or states, and whether employees and their families are excluded.
3. Start and end dates and times, with the time zone.
4. How to enter, step by step, including the one-account rule and the limit on entries.
5. The prize, its approximate value and how many winners there will be.
6. How winners are chosen. For a contest, list the judging criteria and who judges. For a giveaway, say how the random draw works.
7. How and when winners will be told, how long they have to respond, and what happens if they don't.
8. What you may do with entries. If people submit photos or artwork, say whether you'll repost them and how they'll be credited. Don't claim ownership of their work.
9. A line saying X isn't a sponsor of the promotion and isn't responsible for it. X doesn't ask for this, but it avoids confusion.

If your prize is chosen by chance, the US rules on "no purchase necessary" and state registration may apply. That's covered in the legal guide.

Launch posts that work

Your launch post needs four things: what it is, how to enter, when it ends and where the rules are. A good structure:

Photo hunt! Five clues this week. Reply to each clue with your own photo, tag @yourhandle and add #SpringHunt. One entry per clue, one account per person. Ends Sunday 8 pm ET. Rules: [link]

Then post each clue or round as its own post, so entries collect as replies underneath. Pin the launch post to your profile for the duration. The kit builder on our home page writes all of these posts for you and counts characters the way X does.

Running it day to day

• Check your notifications at least once a day and keep a simple list of valid entries.
• Hide or ignore entries that break the rules, such as copied photos or a third account from the same person. You don't need to argue in public.
• Repost or quote a few good entries to keep things lively, if your rules say you may.
• Don't change the rules mid-way. If you must fix a mistake, post the correction clearly and apply it to everyone.

Picking and announcing the winner

For a contest, judge against the criteria you published, ideally with more than one judge. Our guide to judging a design contest fairly has a scoring method that works for photo contests too. For a random draw, use a method you can describe, such as numbering eligible entries and using a random number generator, and keep a record.

Contact the winner through a direct message or a reply. Never ask for passwords, card numbers or payment of any kind, and warn your followers that you never will: fake "you won" messages from look-alike accounts are common. Then announce the winner publicly, thank everyone who took part and deliver the prize when you said you would.

Common mistakes

• Rules that exist only in the organizer's head.
• "Tag five friends" requirements that fill feeds with spam mentions.
• Winners picked by the organizer's personal favorite with no stated criteria.
• No time zone on the deadline.
• Forgetting to check whether the winner is eligible before announcing them.

Get those right and the rest is mostly fun, for you and for the people reading the replies.