Giveaways in a Telegram channel: the platform picks the winners
Telegram picks the winners, checks channel subscriptions and gives the channel 4 boosts for every Premium subscription given away. What the organizer sets.
- Social media and AI
- Mechanics breakdown
- ≈ 8 minutes
In the Russian-speaking internet a Telegram giveaway still means a randomizer bot, a screenshot of the winner and “subscribe and comment plus”. Since November 2023 the platform has had a feature of its own: Telegram itself picks the winners among the subscribers, itself checks the subscriptions to the required channels and itself hands the winner a gift code. And for every Premium subscription given away, the channel receives four boosts.
Who picks the winners and what confirms it. The four conditions the organizer sets. How many boosts the channel receives and for how long. Why a channel needs boosts at all. Eight minutes of reading.
Telegram picks the winners
No bot, no screenshot, no manual draw.
Let us start with who determines the winner.
Telegram will randomly select the winners based on the rules they set – and distribute the prizes.
Telegram Blog · “Giveaways in Channels and Free Premium”, 06.11.2023
The organizer sets the conditions, the platform itself runs the giveaway. A third-party bot, a list of participants in the comments and a manual draw are absent from this scheme.
Proof of winning is also issued by the platform.
The lucky winners will receive links with gift codes, which can serve as public verification that they won.
Telegram Blog · the same post
This closes the main question about any giveaway: how to show that the winner is real. A screenshot from a bot rests on the organizer’s word; a gift code is issued by the platform, and everyone can see that.
The organizer sets the conditions
Four settings, and among them that very “subscribe”.
Next, what stays on the organizer’s side.
Beyond the number of winners and giveaway duration, the organizer can specify whether all subscribers or only new subscribers are eligible – and select certain countries or require that participants subscribe to other channels to be included.
Telegram Blog · the same post
Four settings in total: the number of winners, the duration, the circle of participants and the additional channels. The “subscribe to the channel” condition is set here in the giveaway settings, and the platform itself checks it when picking the winners.
A participant does not comment plus and does not send a screenshot of the subscription. They are subscribed to the required channels, and the platform sees that on its own. The organizer has nothing to check by hand.
The “only new subscribers” restriction is described in a single line. How the platform counts a new subscriber, the post does not say.
For comparison: at Meta the “follow and win” pairing sits in the “Spam” section of the Community Standards, and that is covered separately. In Telegram the subscription condition is set by the platform itself, including for other channels.
Payment upfront and the way to the button
What is needed before the start and where the giveaway is launched.
The giveaway is paid, and it is paid before the start.
To start a giveaway, the organizer must pay in advance for the Premium subscriptions they wish to award.
Telegram Blog · the same post
The prizes are Premium subscriptions: the organizer buys them in advance, the platform hands them to the winners. According to the post, channels of any level can launch a giveaway.
The post describes the way to the button like this: the channel profile, then “Statistics”, then “Boosts” and the “Get Boosts via Gifts” item.
Only the Premium subscription giveaway is covered here: it is the only mechanic described in the post. The price of a subscription is not named in it.
Four boosts for every subscription
What the channel gets in return and for how long.
Now the main thing for the channel: what it gets for the payment, besides attention.
channels automatically earn 4 boosts for every subscription that they give out in giveaways. These boosts can’t be reassigned and stay with the channel for the duration of the subscriptions in the giveaway.
Telegram Blog · the same post
It reads like this. The boosts are tied to the host channel: the winner will not take them to another channel, and their term equals the term of the gifted subscription. The subscription ends, the boosts go with it.
The post also carries the mirror line for the winner: “If you win Premium in a giveaway, your 4 boosts automatically go to the host channel instead.” A subscription paid for by the user gives them 4 boosts, and they give those to one channel or split them between several.
A giveaway run through a bot with a “phone” prize brings the channel no boosts: boosts are earned for Premium subscriptions given away through the built-in feature. The prize is gone, the channel level has not changed, and there is no public proof of winning.
Another number from the platform stands nearby: the owner invites the first 200 subscribers themselves, after that the channel lives without their hands. A giveaway belongs to the second part of that road.
What boosts give
Why a channel needs boosts and what the platform gives for them.
What remains is to understand why a channel needs boosts. The answer is in the platform’s post about stories in channels, published on 22.09.2023.
Channels level up as they gain more boosts – and for each level, they can post 1 additional story per day to their subscribers’ story feeds.
Telegram Blog · “Stories in Channels, View-Once Media and More”, 22.09.2023
Boosts convert into a level, the level into the number of stories per day. That is exactly why the giveaway is described in the section about boosts rather than the one about subscribers: what the platform sells with it is the channel level.
The second way to collect boosts is described in the same place: a special link like t.me/durov?boost, through which a subscriber gives the channel their boost.
How many boosts each level takes, neither of the two posts says: the platform points to the channel’s own “Statistics” and “Boosts” screen.
Boosts promise no reach among strangers: both posts talk about stories for subscribers. Telegram has one showcase for outsiders, and that is similar channels. And what to publish at the level you have bought is covered in a separate piece.
Launch order and three mistakes
What to decide before paying, so as not to overpay.
First: decide who the giveaway is open to. All subscribers or only new ones, all countries or selected ones.
Second: put together the list of additional channels before the start. The platform checks the subscriptions to them, so the list is set in the settings, not in the text of the post.
Third: count the number of subscriptions with the boosts in mind. Each subscription is 4 boosts for the channel for its term, and once the term ends they will go.
Fourth: pay and launch through “Statistics”, “Boosts”, “Get Boosts via Gifts”. From there the platform issues the winners and the gift codes.
Before paying, check the four conditions: the number of winners, the duration, the circle of participants, the additional channels. If the subscription condition lives only in the text of the post, the giveaway is set up wrong.
The IMPERVIR channel publishes breakdowns of what the platforms write about themselves: Telegram blog posts, the Instagram Help Center, ranking cards. No made-up numbers and no borrowed tables.
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