How To Host a Successful Giveaway

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.

How To: Disable Facebook Places

Facebook just announced a Foursquare like service called Facebook Places.  If you are like me and don't want to use it, then you have to disable it.

In order to disable it you need to go into your privacy settings under the account tab on the right hand side of your home page.  From there you need to select Custom for your settings.  Now you need to click the customize settings link and set the Places I check in to setting to only me by customizing it in to dropdown menu and saving.  Next, uncheck Include me in "People Here Now" after I check in.  Scroll down to the things others share and disable Friends can check me in to Places.  

There you go. Now Facebook Places is disabled.

Twitter

Mini Displayport to HDMI on a Macbook Pro (Tutorial)

Interested in using your HDTV as a seperate display with your beloved Mac? Today I'm going to show you how to put that Mini Display port that's on the side of your Macbook / Macbook Pro to good use. This simple tutorial and/or demonstration will walk you through some basic steps you can take to display what's on your mac, on your HDTV. Assuming that you have both a Mac as well as an HDTV, these are the accessories you will need: A Mini Displayport to HDMI Adapter, and a standard HDMI cable. The Mini Displayport to HDMI adapter that I used for this tutorial is made by "Monoprice" and can be found here for $7.65. The HDMI cable that will be used in this tutorial is made by "Media Bridge" and can be found here for $8.99. These are two brands that I have been using for nearly a year with no issues and are proven top quality products. 

In this video, I provide you with an in depth demonstration on connecting your Mini Displayport to HDMI on a Macbook Pro. If you have any questions regarding the tutorial, feel free to leave a comment on the video page, thanks.

How To: Receive Review Products

Like many aspiring technology reviewers on YouTube, I am always trying to find a nice product to review for my channel. I'm always contacting companies to try and obtain sample or review products. What person would not want a free product in return for a review video or blog post? 

To many, it sounds much easier than it is. In order to try and receive these products, you have to build up a channel of quality, professionalism, and mature manners. As a YouTuber with a fair amount of subscribers, wide range of viewers, and high amounts of feedback, one might think that getting review products is as easy as snapping your fingers. That's where many reviewers go wrong. In this post I will try and explain helpful tips to bringing more viewers and more products into your room or office through this post.

First of all, build up you content. Post videos on a regular schedule, advertise your work (but don't spam!), do your research. More than likely, companies will over look a blunt and boring channel with content found in a million other places. Think of it this way: you are contacting a company for a reason, obviously in hopes of receiving review products, and you have to believe thousands of other reviewers are doing the same thing as you. That's why you have to be better. Above the crowd. Stand out. It might take a bit of time to get strong amounts of views and hits, but in the end, it will make that much of a difference. This might mean spending your allowance or baby-sitting money on a camcorder that records high quality video, or even spending a few dollars a month on advertisements, such as the ones found on this blog. You don't have to go crazy, a nice set-up can be had for under $100. Quality is key.

Secondly, write to companies in a mature manner. Address them formally in an email, with key points about your channel, and you goals with a product they might have. Use proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. You wouldn't write poorly to your teacher or boss, so why write like that to a company? I always tell my viewers to give the company a brief description of your channel or blog, an explanation or reasoning that you are contacting them, and a paragraph explaining what could benefit their company. It's nice to let them feel confident and comfortable with your review. Although this isn't mandatory, I always explain to a company that I could send the product back after full review purposes. They almost never require that to be done, but it's nice to let the company know you care more about the review than the product.

Lastly, and most importantly, keep doing what you do. Build on your success. Show your viewers that you care about them by answering questions, helping them build a better channel, giving advice. Don't feel discouraged if a company doesn't respond to you, or isn't interested in sending products. You learn from your mistakes. A closed door doesn't mean a new door can't open. 

I hope this blog post has helped you understand the measures it takes to receive products to review. I would also like to say that I love the new changes to the Social Blog, and I hope TekSocial will just rise with more amazing posts. 

-Brandon Goldman (iTalkTech)

YouTube

How to Find Blogging Ideas

Hello all! If you are reading this you are obviously wanting to be a blogger? Well if you don't want to be a blogger then I think you clicked the wrong blog or are reading the wrong one, but the likeliness of that happening was probably slim to none right?

Let's Get Down to The Point.

Well anyways, to get back on topic, I'm sure you are here to try to figure out blogging ideas. Well I am here to help you out with that. The main resource that I can come up with for you to gather up different ideas for blogging is one place and we all were born with it, your brain. Yes, I know that that you have brain cramps sometimes and you are capable of coming up with ideas but you just can't, It happens to all of us. If you are still having trouble and you can't figure anything out and you are still very interested in being a blogger then try getting ideas off other bloggers. See what they write about and try to develop something of your own.

Conclusion.

Thank you for reading this post. This is actually my first blog on Social Blog and I thank David Di Franco for giving me the opportunity to be able to do this and share ideas and facts with you all. If you will, please keep looking for different blogs from me because many will be coming soon. Thank You.

Dustin Bare

Twitter: www.twitter.com/itsdbare