Written on August 10th, 2009 at 12:08 am by Darren Rowse

How To Promote Your Blog with a Giveaway

Blog Promotion 96 comments

A guest post from Olivia from Frugal Bon Vivant (a blog about enjoying the good life on a budget).

We’ve already established that doing a giveaway can be an excellent way to promote your blog. So now that you’ve decided to do a giveaway – and it’s been live for three hours with zero entries – what do you do? If your goal is to reach new readers you’ll need to promote the giveaway – especially if you don’t have an established reader base yet. Here are 6 tips for promoting your blog giveaway:

1. Give away something of value

This sounds like a given, but there are so many small hodgepodge giveaways out there already (personally, I love Etsy giveaways, but hardcore promotion of a $5 item isn’t going to earn you points with most people). A good rule of thumb is a $50 minimum value – if you’re planning to promote to a new audience. Plus, many blog giveaway promotion sites require the prize value to be $50 or greater.

2. Keep it simple!

Make sure the entry requirements scale with the giveaway’s value. For example, if you’re giving away a $50 gift card make the entry requirements quick & easy, like “leave a comment with the words ‘i heart cupcakes!’” Requiring six steps to enter is a quick way to see your incoming visitors bounce. Requiring just a comment and then allowing people to get “bonus points” by following you on Twitter, re-tweeting, friending on Facebook, and subscribing via RSS will create much more goodwill. In my experience, only 17% of the entrants did a bonus option.

3. Keep it short

I found that one week is a good time limit. If you let it drag on too long, your readers will stray, but if it’s too short you won’t get as much promotion and traffic out of your giveaway.

4. Leverage your network

Promote to your existing blog network (via Twitter, Facebook Pages, reminders at the bottom of new posts etc). When appropriate, share the giveaway with your personal network too. Don’t be pushy or repetitive, but posting a link on your personal Facebook page with a “Hey guys, I’m giving away xxx on my blog tomorrow!” can generate quite a bit of traffic from friends and acquaintances that are interested in you, but might not have checked out your blog before.

5. Submit your giveaway to blogsblog-giveaway-promotion.png

There are many blogs devoted to listing giveaways, but most of them are a waste of time. I submitted my giveaway to about 30 sweepstakes and giveaway websites, and only saw multiple entries from four sites, but overall those 4 sites generated 85% of my contest entries! (see chart) Another idea is to look for other bloggers in your niche who are doing giveaways and swap links — by mentioning each others’ giveaways. Remember, this needs to beneficial for both of you, so think about what would make you want to swap, if another blogger requested the same from you
.

6. Expect attrition

Anytime you’re doing a giveaway, you’re going to get more traffic, followers, subscribers etc, but when the giveaway is over some of them are inevitably going to drop you like third period French. Fortunately, there will still be some entrants who saw enough value in your blog to stick around. The day my giveaway ended, I had 6x the RSS subscribers and followers on Twitter than what I had started with. Within a few days though, 10% of them unsubscribed/unfollowed – which to me was an acceptable attrition rate and I was stoked to see that I was creating enough value after the giveaway for the 90% of my new “friends” who stayed.

If you’re still in the planning stages of your giveaway, try to think of creative ways to do a cheap giveaway… Have you won anything recently? Or received a gift that you can’t return? I gave away a Sansa slotRadio mp3 player (valued at $99) that I won from another blog giveaway that had only 21 entries – fairly good odds – so shipping was my only cost.

How have you successfully promoted your blog giveaway?

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96 Responses to “How To Promote Your Blog with a Giveaway” - Add Yours

  • Kosmo @ The Casual Observer

    August 10th, 2009 12:53 am

    I broke several of these rules with my giveaway ( http://www.observingcasually.com/giveaway-dinosaur-books/ ) and have had lackluster interest. Then again, maybe most people just aren’t very interested in dinosaurs.

  • Joe Land

    August 10th, 2009 12:53 am

    Great Post. This is defenitely something I have to check out. I really can’t think of what I would give away though.

  • Akila

    August 10th, 2009 1:03 am

    IMO 1, 2, 3 have the highest priority:)
    Because
    1. If it’s not worth, people are not interested.
    2. If it’s not simple people easily move away (Similar to less number of people commenting when registering is involved)
    3. If it’s not short, people tend to get bored:)

  • Paritosh

    August 10th, 2009 1:04 am

    I am currently running such a promotional event however its more of a give and take than what has been suggested above. I have been successful to some extent.

  • Jeffrey Tang

    August 10th, 2009 1:14 am

    Thanks for the post! Gives me yet another set of great tips to file away for future use :)

    I would add this: when planning a giveaway, you should also take into consideration your target audience. If you can find a giveaway item that is appealing to the type of people you’re looking to attract, I think the promotion will be even more effective.

    Just my $.02!

  • Jaky Astik

    August 10th, 2009 1:20 am

    Hi Darren. Good One.
    After Seth Godin, you are on my list of perfect read.
    I am writing a book and before that I will be releasing a report. It’s going to be a perfect way to start contributing to the blogging community and readers. By the way, after I get some more subscribers I will try to offer some good giveaways too!

  • Greg Ellison

    August 10th, 2009 1:27 am

    I have never done a contest before. Thansk for sharing the points on how to promote a blog giveaway. Thanks Greg Ellison

  • Arif | DebugLife.com

    August 10th, 2009 1:45 am

    Valuable Post Olivia. (Thanks Darren for having it on)

    One suggestion/though that I have is that (if possible), have a side prize for the site that referred the winning visitor. I haven’t totally thought out how you would track it, but I am sure it can be done. (suggestions anyone?)

    This way, other blog owners have incentive to help publicize your contest. So your entrant rate should significantly increase.

    My blog is relatively new, but it is something that I am thinking of trying in the near future.

    -Arif

  • Ark Lady

    August 10th, 2009 1:51 am

    I’ve never had a contest but will be releasing a new ebook shortly and think your post is a perfect plan to promote a give away of this product as part of the launch.

    On my main blog (http://www.arkanimals.com) I use a give away as an attractant for readers to subscribe–I get a steady trickle with at least on subscriber a day.

    Appreciate your ideas and am going to give them a try!

  • spocrep

    August 10th, 2009 1:58 am

    I’d give something that has to do with what I usually talk about, maybe a free report or ebook, or something I know my readers are interested in,
    great stuff, i’ll be using them

  • spocrep

    August 10th, 2009 1:59 am

    I’d give something that has to do with what I usually talk about, maybe a free report or ebook, or something I know my readers are interested in,
    great stuff, i’ll use it for sure

  • Mr. I

    August 10th, 2009 2:11 am

    I like the giveaway idea but what about readers who subscribe to feeds just for giveaway?

    They may unsubscribe quickly or just not read content. Won’t that be a waste of resources!

  • Surender Sharma

    August 10th, 2009 2:30 am

    This is the best way to attract some readers and force them to subscribe.
    Instead of eBooks cash is best offer.

  • Victor @ College Rag

    August 10th, 2009 2:48 am

    I just started my blog, but I’m definitely going to do a giveaway soon. I know content is king so I’m working on that first.

  • Jen

    August 10th, 2009 3:11 am

    I am having a giveaway on my blog right now. What are some of these sites you mentioned to promote my giveaway?

  • Olivia (Frugal Bon Vivant)

    August 10th, 2009 3:41 am

    Thanks for publishing my guest post Darren!

    @Jeffrey, I agree, target audience is definitely a consideration. It kind of rolls into “something of value” IMO… value (monetary & interesting) to your audience.

    @Mr I., yes, some attrition is to be expected in a giveaway. I decided to write about ways to promote a giveaway (after you’ve already decided that it makes sense for your blog). I agree, that for some blogs it might be better to be more selective in giveaways to exclude those “sweeps” people, but if you’re looking to get new subscribers, it’s hard to be selective. ;)

  • Daniel Simpson Beck

    August 10th, 2009 3:58 am

    I recently had my first competition on my band’s blog and I wish I had read this blog first. Number 2 – Keep It Simple is the point I needed to know last week. I asked entrants to tell a short story in order to potentially win a CD and entry to a gig. Obviously too much to ask in hindsight as only 3 people entered the competition. For a small prize like that, next time I’ll just be setting up an easy to enter draw. Thanks for the tips.

  • Trees Full of Money

    August 10th, 2009 4:06 am

    I’ve had great success offering free Chevron Gift Cards on my site in the past!

    The terms of the contest were quite simple, subscribe via email and you are automatically entered to win.

    I still haven’t found a way to offer the reward to RSS subscribers yet!

    I’m thinking of a contest in the next week or two to give away my copy of ProBlogger Guide to 6-Figure Blogging!!

    I’m not exactly sure (yet) what the rules will be, but it will probably be based on some variation of RSS or email subscribers!

  • Kristen Jacoway

    August 10th, 2009 4:14 am

    These are such great ideas! I’m going to try a giveaway for my blog this week–thanks for the post!

  • Ben - Pig Jockey

    August 10th, 2009 4:32 am

    I’ve been considering doing this for a while now. Maybe for guest posts or something. It’s a nice idea.

  • Mike

    August 10th, 2009 4:38 am

    I just did a blog post on my coffee blog that I thought was pretty successful. I wish I had read this two weeks ago before I started it, now I think I can make the next one even better.

  • Three Money Methods

    August 10th, 2009 5:55 am

    Hey Darren,

    This post really has gotten me thinking about giveaways we can do on our GreenJoyment site. I’m going to have to give this one some thought, because I hadn’t before, but there are probably hundreds of great things we can give away and get some great traffic/links in return.

    Thanks for the tips/overview.

    Warmest,
    Jonathan
    http://www.ThreeMoneyMethods.com

  • Asif

    August 10th, 2009 6:31 am

    Yes, A very Nice way to make your Name

  • Charmaine

    August 10th, 2009 6:41 am

    Thanks for the great post! I run monthly giveaways on my website (I do them on the blog part of the site) and have been wondering if the monthly run is too long. I know the giveaway sponsors really like it being a month, because it gives them longer exposure. Something to think about anyhow!

    The other issue I have is that *usually* my giveaways require you to be a member of my site – which is free and open to everyone and simple to join, of course. The reasoning behind this at first was that the giveaways were a ‘thank you’ to members, a way to show that I appreciate them joining, and also a way to hopefully encourage people to join the site. I haven’t really used them to try and generate traffic *to* my site until recently – and now that I’m trying to do that, I wonder if requiring membership is going to hurt those efforts?

  • Sarah

    August 10th, 2009 6:53 am

    Thanks–great post. How do you determine who wins the giveaway?

  • Matt Harris

    August 10th, 2009 6:57 am

    Thanks for the advice, I was going to Giveaway 10 dollars. I guess now I have to up the ante.

  • Jess Gordon

    August 10th, 2009 7:08 am

    Oh man – I wish I had known about those giveaway blogs when I did my last few giveaways! I have mainly just promoted my giveaways via email to friends and family members who may not be regulars at my blog. I am totally going to reread this post before my next giveaway. By-the-way I was glad to see that I was on the right track in other areas, like limiting the giveaway to one week, keeping the value of the prize relatively high and not asking people to do more than leave a comment :).

  • KB

    August 10th, 2009 8:03 am

    I’ve had the “giveaway” idea in the back of my head for a few weeks.. these are just the tips I needed. Thx!! xo

  • Technology Slice

    August 10th, 2009 9:01 am

    Everyone loves getting something for free.

  • needmoney.com

    August 10th, 2009 9:18 am

    I’m thinking about starting an incentivized blog. Basically offering readers the chance of getting cash by contributing content. This is food for thought.

  • Chris Foley

    August 10th, 2009 9:36 am

    I write a classical music/music education blog and in the last few months have given away free tickets to several operas in Toronto (thanks OA + Tapestry!), as well as free CDs for several recent classical releases (thanks Sony!). In every case, the companies came to me with the offers, as they wanted exposure to my readership as well as free promotion.

    I’m glad to offer these freebies in order to promote quality products and events in my field as well as grow my readership at the same time. Twitter and Facebook certainly help in this regard, as does networking with publicists.

  • Olivia (Frugal Bon Vivant)

    August 10th, 2009 9:55 am

    @Sarah you can use random.org to generate a random number, if your contest requirement was just to comment on the post, or if you have several entry methods (Twitter, RSS, comments etc), you can put it all in Excel and use the random # generator “=RANDBETWEEN(1,457)”

  • Mal, MNN

    August 10th, 2009 10:20 am

    giveaways, quite common on music blogs- cds, tickets, guitars, etc. check out the SICK PUPPIES / Samsung contest-

    http://www.musicnewsnet.com/2009/08/the-sick-puppies-samsung-contest-.html

  • We Fly Spifires

    August 10th, 2009 11:42 am

    Great article. I was actually thinking about doing a giveaway soon but wasn’t sure how to go about it. I’ve bookmarked this page for future reference :)

    What do you think is a good price? Should it be something useful like a MP3 player or just something gimicky like a t-shirt?

  • PlanningQueen

    August 10th, 2009 12:05 pm

    This was very timely for me. About to do a give way later today. I like the idea of bonus points for further action. Thanks for the tips.

  • Lisa Angelettie

    August 10th, 2009 1:46 pm

    I haven’t had much luck with my giveaways. I think I need to work on step 5 – submitting info on my giveaway to other blogs dedicated to giveaways and other JV pals. I think I was depending on my own traffic — and that didn’t work. OR my gift wasn’t valuable enough — although I would of loved it!!! Thanks for the tips here.

  • Steph

    August 10th, 2009 1:52 pm

    The timing on this post couldn’t be better!! I had researched this before, just got the prize I want to give away, and was trying to find my research on how to go about it. Olivia, these are wonderful tips! Thank you!

  • Jessie

    August 10th, 2009 2:23 pm

    Thanks! This post was very timely as I’m planning a give-away this Friday. Thanks for the site suggestions as far as promotion, I was able to create member accounts for those sites in preparation for Friday the give away!

  • teratips

    August 10th, 2009 2:23 pm

    great thanks for sharing this cool post
    http://teratips.com

  • NeoTechie

    August 10th, 2009 2:34 pm

    Great Ideas. You will get back what you give. A enthusiastic community is priceless.

  • Muzi Mohale

    August 10th, 2009 7:18 pm

    My blog is turning 3 years in October and have managed to organise varied prizes worth over $3,300 mainly weekend getaways. I plan to run a twitter contest where I request users to subscribe to my emailing list and retweet a message.

    Is running a contest for a month, too long? As I intend running contest for the entire September and name the winners on the birthday date in October.

  • poorblogger

    August 10th, 2009 8:59 pm

    Yeah.. Giveaway can catch a readers attention..
    Maybe I will use it on my blog after my income stabil

  • BloggerDaily

    August 10th, 2009 10:23 pm

    A new idea for me. Well.. I’ll try to apply it and look the result for my blog!

    Thanks!

  • Thomas

    August 10th, 2009 10:26 pm

    Hey thanks for the Tip. I have an German Blog and do it some Days before and the Prices are OK. But no one had interessts , time before i do it the same but my response are very small. How can i do it on German Blogs? Can you Help there too?

    Greatings
    Thomas

  • Liane YoungBlogger

    August 10th, 2009 10:33 pm

    I though something about this, the term giveaway can actually be misleading. Because giveaway should be giving without any expectation of receiving anything in return. But most who operates on giveaways wants some form of incentive for their side. It’s not the way it should work but that’s how strategy is :)

  • Arun Basil Lal

    August 10th, 2009 11:14 pm

    Hosting a contest is a night mare if you dont have amble time. Even a small contest on my blog kept me working for long hours. Here are the lessons I learnt.

    Hosting a Successful Contest

    ;)

  • Alvin

    August 10th, 2009 11:34 pm

    This is good idea. On top of that, I can think of giveaway T-shirt or cap with the blog’s logo or name to the readers. That will promote your blog indirectly. What can you think of?

    The iPhone Blogging

  • Carrie, Words To Mouth

    August 10th, 2009 11:47 pm

    Great post ~ Glad to see I’m doing something right ;-)

    I set up my blog, Words To Mouth, this way from the beginning. I interview authors (transcribed & audio) and provide book giveaway contests for each post. Readers/Listeners either comment on my blog or call in and leave a voice mail to be entered to win a copy of the spotlighted book.

    Thanks for all the fabulous info you share to help us all be better bloggers.

    All & ONLY the Best,
    Carrie

  • GolfGurl

    August 11th, 2009 12:03 am

    All good ideas. Especially giving away something that is very specific to my target market. My blog is all about golf for women… I think my best giveaway would be some quality golf balls – simple to ship, and everyone can use them. What do you think?

  • Debra Dalgleish

    August 11th, 2009 12:04 am

    @Sarah @Olivia It’s better to use the RAND() function in Excel, because you’re likely to get duplicates with RANDBETWEEN. I had a giveaway on my Excel blog, and created a macro to pick the winners.
    Picking an Excel Giveaway Winner

    To enter you had to add a comment that completed the sentence “You might be an Excel nerd if…”

    Lots of fun to read, and people visited just to read those comments.

  • Dominique

    August 11th, 2009 12:10 am

    I’ am trying out my 2nd giveaway for this year at my site. Participation hasn’t been as good as expected though.. will to work on the tips provided here in my next giveaway.

  • Elizabeth K. Barone

    August 11th, 2009 12:26 am

    I’m running a giveaway right now on one of my websites and after reading this, I think what I had initially thought was really easy and simple is actually asking too much. The contest I set up lasts until the end of August (mistake number one), so once it’s over I’m going to try again — with simpler entry rules. (:

  • Marcus Neto

    August 11th, 2009 12:34 am

    I did a giveaway month back in april while doing the 31 day primer and received 50% more traffic during that month. Of course the giveaways were good for drawing traffic but afterwards I kept some of the traffic so the articles I was writing must have done some good. Thanks for the great articles.

  • Perniagaan Internet

    August 11th, 2009 12:43 am

    Wow..how great this sharing
    I really appreciate

  • Aditya

    August 11th, 2009 12:55 am

    Brilliant…………I have already planned my giveaway……….Thanks Darren.

  • Yum Yucky

    August 11th, 2009 1:01 am

    I recently started giveaways and see awesome results. Sure, it’s about gaining traffic, repeat visitors, etc. But it’s also a ton of fun. I can’t wait to run my next promotion!

  • Olivia (Frugal Bon Vivant)

    August 11th, 2009 1:13 am

    @Muzi My how-tos are tips/guidelines, not “rules”, so one month will probably work fine since you have more of a theme/celebration to your giveaway. :)

    @Thomas You might try searching for “blog giveaways”, “blog contests” etc on google.de to see what you come up with.

    @Debra Thanks for the tip!

  • fas

    August 11th, 2009 1:57 am

    Giving popular electronic gadgets work the best way, I remember seeing thousands of entries for ipods and flips but lesser enteries for ebook valued at $$$.

  • carla | green and chic

    August 11th, 2009 2:45 am

    I have broken several rules for my giveaways: #1. I rarely (if ever) given away something that had a $50+ value. #3. I have ran a giveaway longer than a week – mostly to give more exposure and to give giveaway sites and blogs time to actually post my giveaway.

    I love hosting giveaways and I still have a lot to learn. I’m thinking of doing a “twitter only” giveaway if that’s possible.

  • Scott

    August 11th, 2009 2:57 am

    I like the idea of bonus points for RSS signup, twitter follow, etc…That must be hard to track though, right?

  • Jozef Nagy

    August 11th, 2009 3:19 am

    Another great low-cost alternative is to use a pay site’s registration as the prize. Work out a deal with the site owner to get a paid account to give away on your site. Then follow the author’s tips on setting expectations so the site owner doesn’t hate you for not getting the traffic uptick he was expecting (for example).

  • Robert

    August 11th, 2009 3:31 am

    Thanks for the give away idea and also thank
    Olivia (Frugal Bon Vivant) for reply @Sarah’s comment “How do you determine who wins the giveaway?”
    I learn to know random.org now. I plan to giveaway contest from my blog soon.

  • Mik

    August 11th, 2009 6:15 am

    Good points, I think it is time I did another contest and now I can promote it more effectively.

  • Mike A

    August 11th, 2009 6:19 am

    Definitely submit your giveaway through moneysavingmom
    I have received a lot of traffic from this site and the subscribers are their for giveaways, discounts, and savings.

  • David Stillwagon

    August 11th, 2009 7:28 am

    It seems like a great idea but I don’t know what exactly to give away.

  • SURVEYS FOR MONEY

    August 11th, 2009 8:01 am

    It has never crossed my mind to promote my blog that way. I’m a new blogger and looking to establish my reader base so this could do wonders for me.

  • Write Articles Make Money

    August 11th, 2009 10:25 am

    Thanks for the tip. I’ve heard about this one or twice before but never gave it a try. Maybe I should…….

  • Sweeties Sweeps

    August 11th, 2009 2:14 pm

    Olivia is right on all counts. Since I have been entering giveaways and sweepstakes for about 16 years I find that this is something people will always do and sometimes, in the case of a small prize, it doesn’t even matter what it is. I had 2,000 entries from a giveaway I did for $200 coupons. Side note: coupons are a hot giveaway because of the economy and they are easy to get :-)

    Since I run a sweepstakes/giveaway site I have seen over the last year the progression of blog giveaways. When they started people were gung-ho to enter, link back, tweet, put on Facebook and do whatever it takes to get extra entries. Now I find that people are getting smart and realize they really aren’t winning because for the most part it might be one prize from 2,000+ entries and doing all of that extra work isn’t worth it. But, if the prize is something larger like a $100 gift cert or maybe a laptop then you will definitely get readers to do the extra work.

    One other plus? Backlinks. Get readers to link to your using your “anchor text keywords” in any sentence they want to make up and tell them to put it on any existing post. Voila! Free backlinks that Google loves :-)

  • iowadawg

    August 11th, 2009 2:16 pm

    I plan to have a contest soon on my blog.
    Just as soon as I have my email list and autoresponder set up.
    Then line up contributors.

    That is what I learned from other blog owners, get contributors, lots of contributors offering all kinds of stuff, from advertising to cash.

  • Sachin

    August 11th, 2009 4:36 pm

    seems a good idea but liitle perplexed whether it will suit my blog or not

  • VeRonda

    August 11th, 2009 4:49 pm

    My gosh this is such good info… seriously. And my thing is, only good can come from it. It’s good to educate yourself on how to do things better. Now I’m stoked!!

  • Cheat PTC

    August 12th, 2009 1:46 am

    I broke several of these rules with my giveaway ( http://nhocshock.com/ ) and have had lackluster interest. Then again, maybe most people just aren’t very interested in dinosaurs.

  • Pro Blogging Tips

    August 12th, 2009 4:23 am

    I’ve been using a few giveaways to build my list but I never thought of leveraging them to promote my blog http://CraigDawber.com I will certainly try this next time……Thanks :-)

  • Shop with Me Mama

    August 12th, 2009 10:15 am

    I came here from Tip Junkie :) Thank you so much for that great info! Very informative. I will be back :)

  • Stephanie

    August 12th, 2009 1:13 pm

    Thank you for the excellent tips, Olivia!

    I agree with all your points, but I have to say that I don’t like it when bloggers offer “bonus” entries…for a number of reasons. I am weary of contests that offer 10 different ways to enter. My opinion is that simplicity is best.

  • Tumblemoose

    August 12th, 2009 4:25 pm

    Hehe. Drop you like third period French. Hehe.

    Darren, you’re generally judicious with your humor sprinklings – that little gem cracked me up.

    Good one.

    George

  • Tumblemoose

    August 12th, 2009 4:26 pm

    Darned submit button.

    My apologies, Olivia. :-)

    George

  • TheBlogIsMine

    August 12th, 2009 11:01 pm

    I like the giveaway idea but what about readers who subscribe to feeds just for giveaway?

    They may unsubscribe quickly or just not read content. Won’t that be a waste of resources

  • Anna

    August 13th, 2009 8:10 am

    Question for all you bloggers who constantly run giveaways: where do get all your prizes? Is it something you shell out your own money for? Sometimes I get contacted by designers, asking to promote their products, but it’s few and far. I’d love to do more giveaways if I can find a way to get items cheaply.

  • Miranda

    August 14th, 2009 11:12 am

    I LOVE this idea. My blog is about art, and as an artist I can think of all kinds of things I could offer as a give-away. I currently have very few readers/subscribers and this could be a great way to generate more!

  • Crazy blogger

    August 14th, 2009 11:54 am

    This Post helps us to promote the blog and get huge traffic

  • Reza Winandar

    August 14th, 2009 12:29 pm

    This can be done if you already earn a thousand dollars (at least) for every giveaway you’ve gave. For a beginner blogger (who didn’t earning a cent yet), this is very hard. So, I think you must think about it too. Many of your subscribers are live in poor country, like me, I live in Indonesia where $1 are IDR 10,000. 1 and 10,000, amazing, isn’t it?

  • Bibokz

    August 14th, 2009 7:43 pm

    What’s the best give away you can suggest?

  • modernemotive

    August 15th, 2009 5:57 am

    Great article. Thanks.

    I’m hosting a giveaway right now (not quite a $50 value but still a sweet prize), I’d say over 50% of my entrants have opted in to get extra ballots by doing other stuff (RTing, listing fav item from 2 stores etc).

  • Pricilla Lorenzo

    August 18th, 2009 9:28 pm

    This is a great article!

    I am doing this stuff in blog and my traffic is icreasing.

    Thanks again!

  • Erika

    August 25th, 2009 4:09 pm

    Thanks for a great article. I’ve been thinking of doing a give-away on my blog, and I KNOW that the item(s) must be of value. I am wondering if it’s ever appropriate to ask an etsy vendor that I’ve bought from, for example, to donate an item for a give-away? I was wondering how that might work. Any thoughts?

  • Lynn

    August 27th, 2009 2:23 pm

    Thank you for the great advice. I found this post through googling how to promote a give away. I’ve only done small give-aways so far, so I may have to take your $50 advice to heart. Although I often read book review blogs, in which book low value give-aways are common. (Our current give away: http://infantbibliophile.blogspot.com/2009/08/give-away-do-dot-art-set.html). Now to somehow refrain from spending the whole night on online-sweepstakes.com, which I had never seen…

  • jessica c

    August 27th, 2009 2:43 pm

    I found that amazon gift cards are great prize even it it for $20.
    There has been a few sites I found because they had a giveaway and now i love them and visit everyday so they do work.

  • Anatoliy Vinogradov

    August 27th, 2009 5:53 pm

    Has read your article, about competition on a blog, very interestingly. At us on the Russian-speaking Internet you will not meet competitions on blogs. Very interesting idea, thanks. I hope that the Russian-speaking Internet when that will catch up, English-speaking users on development. Or it is already better to be levelled to China :)

  • Rob O.

    August 30th, 2009 8:39 pm

    I’ve kicked off my first ever (consecutive) series of blog posts today and am holding a giveaway of 2 related books at the end of the weeklong series. I’m doing this in part to increase visitors & readership, but also as a small way to “pay it forward” since I’ve won a couple of trivia contests on other sites recently.

    I’ve been working towards this for more than a month and I’m really excited to see how the drawing goes! I’ve made entry as easy as possible for my readers – simply post a comment.

  • Rick

    September 14th, 2009 7:02 am

    Great advice, this post helped me find a site to promote my netbook giveaway, It’s my first ever, so I’m hoping it goes well!

    Rick
    Here’s the link:
    http://theconservativejournal.wordpress.com/2009/09/13/tcj-deluxe-netbook-giveaway/

  • audiokabel

    September 24th, 2009 7:50 pm

    Hi,
    Your post is really helpful to person like me who just started to work on the blog writing.I really thankful to u for your advice.

  • affiliates

    September 30th, 2009 8:06 pm

    wow…really nice post and thanks for the valuable tips.

  • bloggerspayback Dan

    October 10th, 2009 8:25 pm

    Great post! You provide great tips on giveaways. I will have to bookmark this blog for resources in the future! Thanks for your great ideas!

  • Shopper Diva

    October 16th, 2009 6:58 am

    I’m about to announce my first ever giveaway, and I had no idea all this information was out there. Thanks so much!!

    If you love cookware, come over to my blog and stay tuned for the exciting giveaway announcement!

  • website@digmo.co.uk

    October 24th, 2009 8:46 pm

    I have been running competition on http://www.totalapps.net and they are going really well. I found a great way to run a competition via blog comments that sends a code out via RSS it works brilliantly.

    David


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