There are some interesting discussions going around now regarding the purpose of contests at blogs, especially contests building community. Is it bribery or buying community to offer a contest encouraging community?
As you know, the FWJ network is having a comment contest for the month of October. The reason for this contest is:
- To encourage long-time members to come back into the discussion after recent negativity.
- To encourage visitors to each individual blog to visit the other blogs in the network.
- To encourage newer or lurking members of the community to add their two cents.
- To give something back to the community after a very good month.
Am I buying my community? Perhaps, if you want to see it that way. I prefer to think of it as a reward or incentive for contributing. Blogs have contests all the time, many give away sponsored prizes. I never thought of them as buying comments as much as I thought of them as tools for building traffic and encouraging community. I can’t afford to do this often, but I thought it might be a good way to invest back into a community that’s been so supportive over the years. I could have said “well, the 60th comment gets the prize” but that’s not adding much in the way of substance.
Some blog posts at FWJ receive 50 comments and more. Why not reward our top commentators somehow and encourage them to keep doing what we’re doing? We have other ways of building community here as well. For example we offer stimulating content and useful resources while encourage everyone to add their two cents – and many do. I’d like to encourage others to weigh in too.
Now, I can’t speak for other bloggers, but this is why I have the occasional comment contest. Why do you have contests at your blog?
What do you think – are blog contests a way to buy community or are they a useful tool in motivating a sleeping community – and rewarding them for their loyalty?
I suppose if someone is a glass-half-empty type of person they could see the contest you’re having in the negative light of bribery. I see it as marketing.
It’s not much different than your local grocery store offering you the store card that allows you to get sale prices. All you have to do is invest a little time to sign up and you’re in the running to save a lot of cash. Just because it’s being offered, doesn’t mean someone has to sign up or shop sales, but there is a motivation there to save money. The store starts the customer loyalty process to motivate shoppers to shop and encourage them to keep shopping, but it is up to the shopper to decide if they want to participate.
I see it as marketing as well, Jennifer. Thanks for weighing in.
I have found blog contests very useful for marketing and building community. Mostly, I use contests to bring back return readers. They may come the first time for the contest, but maybe they will come back as regular readers.
That’s why I do it too, Cheril. I find it brings back people who were once a part of the community and left for various reasons. I also feel there are people who read the posts every day without commenting – maybe this will encourage them to participate.
I think offering prizes or giveaways is fine if it’s truly relevant to your site. For example, if you are product review site and that’s what you do, then offer some products as a giveaway. If you are a product company, then offer some free products. I guess I feel that if your blog’s purpose is to offer a community, advice, networking and opportunities for writers, the cash incentive does seem a bit like bribery to me. It may bring people who want some extra cash to do what you ask (in this case leave lots of comments) but I don’t think they’ll stick around long term. If you want to offer an incentive and keep them coming, maybe take it beyond the contest and find out what will keep people coming back after the cash is gone. Ask them what could change or be added to the site to re-engage. Find out what they really want (aside from money). Maybe work with an outside placement company and find a winner to place them with an ongoing writing gig. How about hosting a “gig of the month” and serve to help someone land a job…just a thought. I blogged about the subject here: http://retwt.me/xmSW
Thanks, Cheryl. This has been a community driven blog and now blog network for going on five years. We often find ways to ask the community what it wants.
I posted a survey a few months back about this network and what the community wants, and quite a few said we need to bring back the commenting and other contests.
While some might feel it is bribery, it’s also something that every business I know does. A radio station – they gain and keep listeners with cash prizes/giveaways that require you to have the radio tuned to their station all day long.
Our local appliance store is boosting business by giving everyone who purchases a new appliance a %75 prepaid credit card.
The coffee shop on the main drag in our town gives you a free coffee after you’ve bought six. The local garage makes every sixth oil change free. Another store gives out freebies only to the customers he knows by name.
To me, it’s simply good business skills to make people feel rewarded for frequenting a company or service.
Thanks, Anne. I feel it’s a good way to give back as well.
I’m not saying that giveaways are a bad idea at all, it’s just that for instance, the appliance company is giving away discounts on what they sell, appliances. The coffee shop is giving away discounts on what they sell, coffee. I just feel that if that what this site wants to sell (so to speak) is community, opportunities and advise for writers, then the giveaway should be related more directly to that, ways to help someone get a gig or promote themselves…maybe a monthly giveaway of a free ad for writers or a link to their blog or a guest post with links to their blog…something that helps the individuals in the community. This site already does a lot for writers, for sure, but as a promotion, I disagree that this will be effective in the long term for community building. I agree giveaways are a great marketing tool, but I think we are just disagreeing on the method.
In this economy, I don’t mind the cash incentive!
You do make a good point about niche relevant incentives, but I don’t see anything wrong with a bit of wallet fodder now and again.
Forums do it. Other websites do it. Why not FWJ?
It’s not like you’re asking people to click ads or donate, in this instance you are the one giving out cash. I really don’t see why it should matter to anyone how you promote the network. You’re not marketing anything that hurts anyone, selling a bogus products, or scamming anyone at all.
People should just relax and let your FREE resource be managed as you see fit.
Cheryl-
I don’t know – I feel as if selling a linkback or ‘guest post w/ links’ reeks of crossing that line of editorial/sales. I know many view that line as pretty fuzzy on the Web… but I believe it still exists. To offer a guest post–well, the most prolific commenter may not be the best blogger… that may not work. Ditto on offering job placements… most visitors here are freelancers w/ no desire to work exclusively w/ one company.
I do like the idea of a free ad on the network, but I don’t think there’s much of a difference, in principle, between that and cash.
Your other examples — those companies all sell things, so it makes it easy to offer incentives based on their goods/services. FWJ is FREE for readers. So what can you give away when your most valuable assets are already provided free?
Hmmmm… I suppose we could offer query critiques and/or copyediting/resume-writing… that could be quite valuable and reach our market.
But, for the record, I have no problem w/ cash prizes! LOL
Running a contest is always a good way to bring in traffic or spur participation, but in my experience contest traffic doesn’t stay when the contest is over.
However, I like offering contests as a reward to the people who do come and read my blog. A few times I’ve put up a contest and purposely didn’t advertise it so the only people who would find it were the loyal readers.
I love to win stuff, so I’m happy to give stuff away when I can.
I like the idea of hosting an “Easter Egg” contest, where people who frequent your blog find the contest rather than promoting it. The combination of contest styles could be quite beneficial to traffic and retention, not to mention a heck of a lot of fun!
Nothing wrong with hosting a blog contest, I think it’s a great idea. It’s a fun way to boost traffic a bit by giving people an added incentive to stop by and join the conversation. It’s a fun way to inspire people to dig a little deeper than they may have done in previous visits.
I grew up in Chicago. Bribery is good.
I found this video by Laura Roeder in Copyblogger (http://creatingfame.com/video/) on how to run a social media contest to generate new leads, and it seems like a great idea. It seems that social media and blog contests are good as long as they offer something valuable. Makes sense that FWJ would offer cash, since that’s what we all want, anyway! Plus this site is a valuable resource itself.
I love contests and think there is nothing wrong with them. It just makes good business sense.. when big corps can do it to retain and win customers why not bloggers??
Plus, we’re not paying people to keep visiting us.. It is jst an added motivation to visit blogs that one already likes and admires.. So, bribery, no way!
I’ve been contemplating blog contests lately. I have a relatively new blog and I have a bunch of GRE prep materials I was debating giving away. I’m concerned that my blog is “too young” for this. Is that possible?
Elle, it is entirely possible that your blog may be too new to run a contest. I had a blog that was very new and had a low readership, but I wanted to bring up readership, so I started a contest. It bombed because there were so few readers that no one knew of the contest or participated and I didn’t have a good network set up beforehand. If I had waited even two months, I wouldn’t have gotten so discouraged by the lack of response because my stats picked up remarkably well within two months.
If you want to run the contest/giveaway, check your stats first or consider letting some of your blogging network know that you have a contest running. Maybe find some similar blogs and email the owners if you think that what you are offering could benefit their readers.
Good luck with your contest!
I think blog contests are a great way to attract attention.
Sweepstakes, giveaways, Easter Egg hunts — it’s all good! As long as you have an established reader base to participate, that is. 
Elle: How new is new? I’d say wait until your blog stats show enough unique visitors that it’s worth it. If you don’t have blog stat tracking, track visitors with Google Analytics or StatCounter ASAP.
I don’t think you’re “buying” your community. Comment contests are a proven, effective way to make lurkers like me come out of the shadows.
What’s wrong with that?
If anyone accuses you of bribing your readers, tell them to take care of their own blogs. This is your blog network. It’s great that you’re so open to other people’s opinions, but ultimately this is your place. The place you’ve built with your work and effort. What do the naysayers have to do with it?