This article was originally posted on the ReviewLocker blog, which can be found here.
A successful giveaway should be beneficial for everyone – the host, the sponsor(s), and the reader. There are multiple steps to achieving this, and hopefully, the following bits of advice should help ensure that you profit from your next giveaway.
Choosing the Right Item - Whether you buy the prize yourself or receive one from the sponsor, you must make sure that it is right for your audience. Remember this crucial tip: “the bigger the prize, the more suspicious it seems”. Choose your item based off the size of your audience. If you have a low number of (unique) site visitors, it would be better to stick to a gift card or other “low-value” item. Giving away an expensive item (ie. iPad, iPhone, $100+ gift card) can raise suspicion from your viewers who no longer trust you. (After all, who can afford to give away something that expensive in return for a few votes/comments?) However, the opposite goes for larger community websites. A giveaway of a $15 iTunes gift card on a YouTube channel with 25000 subscribers will only lower your reputation. Just remember to keep it realistic. More is not always better.
Setting Requirements - Having too many requirements will only cause your viewers to feel as though the amount of work is too much when compared to the chances of winning. On the other hand, having only one step to enter (ie. follow, subscribe, vote) will not allow you to benefit as much as you possibly can from the giveaway. One of the biggest mistakes I see in giveaways would be what I call the "comment on this video" technique. While this can cause a lot of user interaction, it can be a major problem for you, the host, down the road. Your giveaway video will soon become your most viewed, commented, and "liked" video, thus the number 1 result on search results. This is a problem, as the giveaway is most likely closed by then; this gives a bad "first impression" to your new viewers.
How I Do Things - One strategy I like to use involves some planning with the sponsor(s) beforehand. My method involves redirecting viewers to another blog post/video. Instead of telling your viewers to "comment on this video", link them to your best/most-recent video and have them do any of their commenting/"liking" there. This will cause your best video to also become your most popular, which gives you a better reputation and results in more new viewers/readers.
Choosing a Winner - Choosing a winner can actually be quite unfair in some cases. In reality, you are giving the comment "cool" the same chance of winning as a well thought-out compliment. Provide an incentive to spend time writing a nice comment. Not only will this help you in SEO (keywords!), but it will result in more user interaction, which sponsors love.
Presenting the Giveaway - Make sure that you write a well thought-out blog post that lists the requirements clearly (bold text usually does the job). If you are making a YouTube video, keep it quick and to-the-point. Also, never "film your hands holding a gift card against a wood table backdrop for 5 minutes". Be creative! Try placing the requirements in text over images of the prize. Your video should never be over 3 mins, or it will become to boring for the viewer.
Conclusion - I hope this collection of tips has helped you out in one way or another. if you are thinking of hosting a giveaway (or are currently hosting one), feel free to leave a comment with a link to the blog post/video. Speaking of giveaways, I will be hosting one of the Richard Solo Mini-Boom Speakers on my YouTube channel.
Jacob Culp 