Blogger Tips: Planning a Giveaway

It's Giveaway Time!

Okay not really, but if you are a new blogger that hasn't run a giveaway yet, you may be interested in learning how!

I run giveaways through Rafflecopter which is probably one of the best inventions known to blogging kind. Other than Passionfruit Ads that is.

1. First determine when and why you want to run the giveaway. For example, my giveaway at 300 followers and was a celebration of that. So, my reason? Yay 300 followers! When? When I reached 300 followers.
2. Next determine if you want to have just you giving a gift or have others donate. If you choose to have others donate, either put up a request on your blog, twitter or email your blog friends to ask. Most of the time, bloggers are willing to donate each ad space.
3. Then you need to decide how many entries each person gets. I personally don't like giveaways that have 5-6 entries per person, unless it's a solo giveaway. I stick to 1 mandatory entry which is usually to follow their blog via GFC, blog lovin, or RSS and then they get to pick 2 additional entries, such as following on twitter or liking their facebook page. It is important to ask them. They are donating their products or services, so they should get to decide how people get them!
4. Now it's time to get that information (I promise, we're getting to the point where you actually go to rafflecopter!) I like to use google docs to get my information because it puts it all in a spread sheet for you. To do that, just follow the instructions

The information I ask for is this: 

• Name of Blogger and Blog Name and URL 
• The prize they are giving away and the value of the prize item
• If it's ad space, I ask what the benefits of that ad space will include
• A picture of the person and/or the item they give away
• The 2 optional entries that they want (rafflecopter allows you to pick mandatory and optional entries)
• If it's a physical item, if they are willing to ship outside the US

Using Rafflecopter

Alright, you've gotten your information and you are ready to go! Now what?

Create your account with rafflecopter. It's really simple. Just enter an email and the password and you're ready to create a giveaway!

You'll be looking at this so just click where the arrow is pointing!

Then you'll be looking at this screen.

As you can see, there are many different entry types, as I'm sure you've seen if you've entered giveaways using rafflecopter.

In this post, I've chosen some that I think can be a little confusing when you first start hosting giveaways.

There are LOTS of things you can do with "choose your own task" but it's also the one you use if you want the person entering to enter via GFC (Google Friend Connect).

In the picture below, I explain how to put a link into the giveaway widget:

Next, we want the people entering to follow someone on twitter. On the "choose a task" screen just pick the one that says "follow a twitter user"

Tweeting about the giveaway is a very common entry because it serves the purpose of promoting your giveaway which makes more people enter. It's also a common daily entry.

Alright, now we've gone through and made all our entries. So back on the main giveaway screen, make sure the dates are correct and then click "get the widget"

There you have it! Hosting a giveaway can be real work. It is honestly the first day that I felt like I was working when I was blogging. My 300 follower giveaway took me 5 hours to set up. Then I had a few glitches to fix. I kept getting emails on my phone while Cody and I were watching tv and I had to get on the computer to fix them. 

Hosting a giveaway with many different prizes and people donating is a much more daunting task than just having a solo giveaway. If you are apprehensive about hosting a giveaway, it's best to start small before attempting a large one.

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