How to Run a Blog Giveaway

First of all, why should you run contests on your blog?It could be for any or all of the reasons below:

• Attract new readers
• Create a buzz about a new product or service
• Just to do something nice for your readers
• Encourage Feedback on your blog and more interaction
• Get rid of extra inventory before a move (that's what I'm doing this week! ha ha)

I'm sure there are more, but you get the picture....

The proper software and plugins will help you run a contest or giveaway on your blog more easily. There are a couple of free options out there which I've used to run blog giveaways.

If you are using Wordpress.org for your blog, there is a handy plug-in called "And the Winner is". This plug in works with the Wordpress comment module, and will automatically select a winner from the commenters of a selected post. To install "And the Winner is..."

• Click "Plug ins" in your dashboard
• Click "add new" and search for "And the Winner is"
• Click install and then "activate". That's it.

To use And the Winner is, select it when you create your contest post (more on that below). When it is time to select a winner, go to Settings -->And the Winner Is and click the button to select a winner.

Another option, if you are not on Wordpress, is to go to Random.org's Integer Generator. Ask it to select 1 integer (number) between the numbers 1 and however many comments you have on your comment post. Whichever number comes up is the comment number that wins your contest. Very simple!

Decide what to give away

First you must decide what you are going to give away in your blog giveaway. If you sell products of your own, this will be very straight forward. You can simply choose one of your products to giveaway or give away a gift certificate to your online store or services.

If you do not sell your own products, you still may be able to find products to give away, including gift cards that can be used from anywhere (such as to Amazon.com), or gifts that were donated by other online vendors or fellow bloggers for your blog giveaway.

Decide How Readers will Enter Your Blog Giveaway

I usually require them to leave a comment about something specific. For example, this week on my blog, I am asking readers to tell me what their favorite Christmas carol is and why.

You may also choose to allow them to have multiple entries to your blog giveaway for performing certain actions, such as tweeting about your contest, posting your blog contest on Facebook, Digg, or other social bookmarking sites, and writing about it on their own blog.

Allowing entries with the blog comments is the easiest way to let readers enter a contest and to select a winner using one of the above methods.

Decide How Long to Run the Contest

I like to run my contests for about a week. Be sure to let your readers know exactly how long the contest will go on for, and exactly what time the contest will no longer be taking new entries.

Craft a Contest Post for your Contest

Write your post for your contest, to encourage others to enter, and explaining to them how to enter and what they will win.

Once you create your giveaway, it is going to be of no good if you don't get enough entries, right? So, we need to promote your blog giveaway to your target audience. Here are some suggestions I've found helpful:

• Work promotion into entering your contest. I like to have my entries be related to tweeting the contest, posting it on facebook, etc. This way, your entrants are also promoting your contest to those they know, and are being rewarded with extra entries to your blog giveaway.
  
• Tweet about it. Your blog posts should automatically go to twitter anyway, but instead of just allowing them to hit twitter once, try checking in to twitter and tweeting about your contest multiple times of day.
• Post your contest to Facebook and other social networking and bookmarking sites. You may even want to create an "event" at Facebook and invite all of your friends to the event to let them know about your contest.
• At most mom-related forums, there usually is a thread for posting giveaways. These can be good places to promote your giveaway, although I've found that most of the moms that are trolling through the giveaway threads on mommy forums are freebie seekers and not readers that will stick around after the contest ends (unless they really love you). If you sell a product, freebie seekers rarely turn into paying customers, and most of them turn ads off when they visit your website. Not the kind of reader we want to attract if we're trying to make a few bucks.
• Network with other bloggers, especially those with a similar audience, and agree to promote their giveaways and sales in exchange for them promoting your giveaways and sales.