How To Host A Contest
In the contests that I have hosted in the past and my current contest held by Market Leverage I can say that I know a thing or two about contests. Not to forget, that I’ve won several of them and I have seen several of them that didn’t go so well. I think that aside from the rules that bloggers set out for entrants, they need to follow some rules themselves and considering that this is a major issue, I’ve decided to talk about it. So lets take a look at some contest hosting rules for the bloggers themselves:
1) Be Fair - I think this is a major issue. I’ve heard many stories or contests being biased and run unfairly and so its critical to be fair if you are hosting a contest. You can’t have special rules for one person while not offering it to others. I don’t think anyone would like it if they found out that a contest they participated in was rigged from the get go. Its unethical and you shouldn’t do it no matter what the reward is.
2) Make It Easy - Making contests easy to enter doesn’t only help you get a lot more entrants but it also makes you look a little less demanding and greedy. If you’re looking for contest entries that require people to fork out money towards your donation fund or have them dedicate a significant amount of their time then it really doesn’t look good on you. Make the contest entries attainable and try not to be too demanding.
3) Stick To Your Schedule - If you say that you’re going to post the results from the contest on a certain day or that the contest is going to end on a certain day then don’t delay it. You can wait upto 48 hours before posting results but let your readers know. Its somewhat upsetting to readers if they have to keep checking back only to know that there arent any results and no posts mentioning the delay either.
4) No False Advertising - If you say you’re giving out a Wii, make sure you have one on hand before you make that claim. I saw a contest where an iphone was promised and all the winner got was a knockoff. Its not the same thing. If you’re giving away great prizes then please make sure that what the winners receive is what you advertised as contest prizes on your blog.
5) Dont Cheat - I saved the best for last and that is not to cheat your readers and contest entrants. There have been many contests that have come and gone where the winners were never awarded or there was always something fishy about the person that won the contest. Not to mention the $2500 contest where the winner of the contest was probably the blogger himself. Its not something new to host an extravagant contest to gain link backs and rankings and then not having to give out a prize. It is deceitful and is definitely not the way to go if you are hosting a contest.
In the end, its all up to you how you run your contest and whether you choose to be deceitful or not but do realize that sooner or later, it will come back to bite you and you probably won’t like it either. So, I hope that you liked this post. I’d really like to hear some of your comments about this or any other contests that dealt with issues like this. Thanks for reading!
You’re right. With all these contest running its hard to determine the genuine from fake…
Sometimes when the prizes are too big and the blog is really small then theres no saying as to whether the contests are real or fake. There were quite a few newbie bloggers that tried to jump ahead by holding fake contests but they didnt even succeed after all the negative publicity.
Excellent tips Enkay. Can’t wait for the contest to end.
Definitely some good things to keep in mind….also, make sure the entry requirement matches the prize. You wouldn’t give away an iPhone for leaving a comment, but would expect something like that as a prize if the requirement is a dedicated post…
Excellent point to note!! Thanks for mentioning this!
As Nick mentions, one big thing is to really make sure that the entry requirements match the prize. Normally my contests have been simple things like adding a comment, although I am currently giving away a BlogWorld Expo pass valued at $300 and that requires entrants to write a post about why they would make a good speaker at BlogWorld.
Yeah I think thats what I kind of meant by Make It Easy in the sense that you should require people to only do certain things if the prizes are worthy of that. I would definitely check out your contest but since I won’t be able to be there in the first place, I think I will just blog about it in my weekly round up to get you someone who might be interested in entering
Cool idea for a contest though.
That would be great! My goal with the contest is really to be able to help another blogger attend that might not otherwise be able to due to the cost of the pass.
Thanks for any additional publicity that you can give the contest.
No problem at all Derek. I’ll definitely be talking about it because the prize is completely unique compared to most of the giveaways lately.
I’ll definitely keep these tips in mind when I’ll kickstart my own contest.
Regarding 2500$ contest, are you talking about the new blog which was sold recently.
No, it was another blog and I can’t give away the name to maintain anonymity but the blog no longer exists as thats what happens with most scammers.
thanks for the tips!
I’m currently planning to have a contest on my site.
It took some time but I finally posted mine yesterday.
How To Organize A Successful Blog Contest(14 points)
http://www.mcgrath.ca/2008/08/06/how-to-organize-a-successful-blog-contest/
Btw, I like the being “Fair” part and added it to mine(14th) and gave you credit.
For those starting a contest, I added a list of blog contest that are still active.
Thanks for the link back and you have a great post there. Really good points! Keep ti up!