Blogging Tips

One of the first posts I did on this site focused on how to draw traffic to your blog. Giveaways or competitions are a great way to get  more traffic to your blog and hopefully readers who will stick around.

I try to run giveaways on my blog at least every couple of months. They are a great way to reward your current readers and to get new readers interested in your blog. Overall giveaways are a win-win for all parties involved.

Sponsored giveaways are also great as it means the company you are working with generally communicates with the winner and posts the prize to them. Working with companies is fun and rewarding for your readers, your blog and the company but remember to make sure the prize is relevant to your audience. It is ok to say no to companies that approach you about giveaways if you believe it would not benefit your blog.

Here are my tips for making giveaways work for your blog.

1. Ensure the product is something your audience actually wants

There is no point running a giveaway if no one will enter. You are wasting your time, your reader’s time and the sponsor company’s time (if giveaway is sponsored). Make sure you know the things your audience would want to win. This involves some research into your niche or target audience. If you are unsure get researching now!

2. Promote, promote, promote

Ensure you promote your giveaway everywhere. Include it in your tagline in forum posts and when posting comments on others blogs. Use social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and even Pinterest to promote your giveaway. Ensure you remind readers about the giveaway in every post or even make a banner for the giveaway and post this in your sidebar, under your posts or under your header. I also find Etsy is a great place to promote your giveaways and there are even groups for giveaway promotions. Also search on Google for “blog giveaways”. There are many sites that will even promote your giveaway for you (mostly for free!)

3. Be smart and a little bit selfish

Make sure there is something in it for your blog. Sure it is nice to reward your readers and followers but make sure there are conditions for winning the giveaway prize. I usually make a condition of entry for giveaways on my blog that the winner must follow my blog. You can choose the platform they follow you on (Facebook, Google Friend Connect and Bloglovin are good ones).

4. Be prepared for fall-outs

One of the obvious fall-outs of giveaways is that people only follow your blog to win the prize then drop off as soon as it has been drawn. This happens and as long as you accept this as a part of the giveaway process then you will be prepared for followers to start dropping off the radar.