Blogger competitions - is it worth it

lolaandbehold

oliveoyl wrote: »

Another one: Lola and Behold

This giveaway is for bloggers as a way of giving back to my lovely readers, so if you are a comper please think twice before entering.

Unfollow links:

I feel it is justified that I reply to the mention of my blog on this thread, seeing as I have had a surge in views thanks to this page. As you will see from the way I worded my blog post, I would like to be able to give back to the readers of my blog, and for one of them to win, however, if a comper wins it's not a problem. I did not say that compers and non-bloggers are excluded, which is why I said to 'think twice' before entering. However, I don't want people entering a competition on my blog, a blog they have no intention of reading following the giveaway, and then simply unfollowing once the competition is over. I enter competitions myself but would never dream of entering a competition on a blog that I don't follow or would never read myself. To include a list of 'unfollow' links here seems rather nasty - I would hope that people follow my blog because they enjoy reading, not because I run a competition every now and again. And please, if you have any concerns with it, contact me directly as I will be happy to discuss it further.

mansey

lolaandbehold wrote: »

I feel it is justified that I reply to the mention of my blog on this thread, seeing as I have had a surge in views thanks to this page. As you will see from the way I worded my blog post, I would like to be able to give back to the readers of my blog, and for one of them to win, however, if a comper wins it's not a problem. I did not say that compers and non-bloggers are excluded, which is why I said to 'think twice' before entering. However, I don't want people entering a competition on my blog, a blog they have no intention of reading following the giveaway, and then simply unfollowing once the competition is over. I enter competitions myself but would never dream of entering a competition on a blog that I don't follow or would never read myself. To include a list of 'unfollow' links here seems rather nasty - I would hope that people follow my blog because they enjoy reading, not because I run a competition every now and again. And please, if you have any concerns with it, contact me directly as I will be happy to discuss it further.

If people (I won't say compers) follow your blog enter your competition then unfollow your blog you can ban them from following you and entering your competitions again.

You can get a monthly list from Twitter of folks who have followed/unfollowed you

I learnt this the hard way as I did mass delete of people I follow on Twitter when I hit my limit and I was banned by some good bloggers I did regularly follow

Yes some will follow you just for your competitions but as BlueBella said earlier a lot of us do follow the blogs too

Paris-Belle

Oh stop stressing everyone, but I agree it was not fair to single out lola for particular attention.

oliveoyl

If you read the full thread, Lola isn't being singled out - it's any blogger that seems to have a problem with compers. It's not personal in the least, it's matter of fact.

Putting 'think twice' does indicate that compers are seen in a negative light.

MillyVanilli

I have a blogger friend who ran a RT competition for blog advertising in her blog sidebar, and lots of people who didn't have blogs RTed. I also ran a competition at work that was clearly for people who studied there, yet still people who lived the other side of the country were RTing.

The vast majority of us are decent about our comping and won't do that kind of thing, but I can see why a few who RT and enter absolutely anything (even for something they can't actually collect/use) make it harder for those of us doing it genuinely.

lolaandbehold

I can't seem to quote people on here because I'm a new user and it thinks I'm trying to display links! Anyway, in response to mansey - thank you for your helpful reply. I think there is a hell of a lot I need to learn about the ASA guidelines, as I thought that excluding people that had unfollowed wasn't allowed, because that is singling individual people out? However if that is actually possible then next time that's what I need to do! It's just so frustrating because as a blogger an increase in views and readers indicates that you're doing something right, so it's disheartening to realise that it was only for a competition. Thank you for your feedback

And thank you Paris Belle. Milly Vanilli - I think you have a point. It's when you have people that are clearly not interested in the products that enter everything for the sake of it, taking away that change for people that genuinely would use it / want it.

Thank you for all being such a friendly bunch

Paris-Belle

You can't 'exclude' them as such but you can block them from following you on Twitter or Facebook so they can't make the entry required on the Rafflecopter but simply 'picking on' is not acceptable.

Personally I would just leave it alone.

mjm3346

lolaandbehold wrote: »

I can't seem to quote people on here because I'm a new user and it thinks I'm trying to display links! Anyway, in response to mansey - thank you for your helpful reply. I think there is a hell of a lot I need to learn about the ASA guidelines, as I thought that excluding people that had unfollowed wasn't allowed, because that is singling individual people out? However if that is actually possible then next time that's what I need to do! It's just so frustrating because as a blogger an increase in views and readers indicates that you're doing something right, so it's disheartening to realise that it was only for a competition. Thank you for your feedback

And thank you Paris Belle. Milly Vanilli - I think you have a point. It's when you have people that are clearly not interested in the products that enter everything for the sake of it, taking away that change for people that genuinely would use it / want it.

Thank you for all being such a friendly bunch

If you want to exclude "compers", require that you are followed at the time of the draw, have your competition only open to existing followers etc you can as long as it's in your T&C's (the National lottery have had T&C's to exclude at their discretion TW compers with a guide but not a fixed figure of 50% or more competition tweets making a "comper").

oliveoyl

Milly Vanilli - I agree that there will be some that will enter anything and everything - but that's not really the point here.

I personally don't have a problem with bloggers excluding compers - as long as they're upfront about it - so holding giveaways for existing followers only would be a way around that.

What the problem is here, is that a few bloggers want the hits and follows from compers (otherwise why not do as suggested above, and not all the follow me to the moon and back on rafflecopters), but see us as not worthy of winning their prize (which is also a bit rich as most of the prizes come from sponsors anyway).

Iamnrc

I actually thought I was being spammed as a ridiculous number of entries where being sent by people from this site which I hadn't come across before who definitely weren't my target demo for that comp and my last competition was open to everyone.

The winner got their prize organized by the brand and I simply forgot to update actually after the brand took over... I've actually had the busiest year finishing up my last year of school so I over looked that.

The reason why bloggers do competitions is to reward their readers so that maybe why some are anti comper.