A New Way to Giveaway- Rafflecopter

October 10, 2011

11 Comments

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Topics: Blog, Blogging Tips

If you are a Giveaway Blogger, you know that having a Giveaway isn’t easy. Besides all the rules you have to follow (FTC Guidelines One and Two and Facebook Promotion Guidelines, for example), you have to create your Giveaway in a way that is not only appealing to your readers but, that also meets your sponsor´s needs. This can be tough.

Sponsors seek bloggers to do giveaways as a way of inexpensive advertising. By the time you get to writing the Giveaway post, you know what type of entries the sponsor will want and you add in some entries to promote yourself. Now the old method was by comments. For each entry, ie…like a facebook page, follow you on twitter, etc…, your readers had to leave you a comment to let you know they did that entry and leave all relevant contact info, should that entry be marked as the winner. To the average reader out there, this just takes too much time. Roughly 1-2 mins per entry, times however many entries you have, plus you have to type it all out- over and over and over. I would hate it too.

Along came Rafflecopter.

Rafflecopter is the brand new application created by three guys, J.R., Greg, and Justin, who saw how inefficient the commenting method was and wanted to help us bloggers run our Giveaways centrally and way more easily than the comment method. Boy, did they.

Now, all your giveaways are stored in one location for easy management and efficiency. When you log into your dashboard, your panel looks like this (this is my current dashboard)–

You see your current giveaways:

 

Giveaways set for future use:

 

And Giveaways that have ended:

 

Plus, when a giveaway ends, it goes the very top and has a message that reads “This Giveaways needs winners”, so you know what you have to do. Oh, did I mention Rafflecopter picks winner for you? No more counting, drawing random numbers, scrolling through pages and pages of comments to find the right winning entry. With rafflecopter, all you have to do is click a button:

 

And creating a Giveaway is just as simple. Just Click, click, save- done. You do this for each entry, for however many entries you have. From a blogger’s viewpoint, this has cut my time in half. I don’t have to type long comment entry info and make sure all links are correct or that the wording is all wrong. I can devote the extra time to writing pitches or sprucing up my Media Kit or Advertising pages.

From a reader´s viewpoint, Rafflecopter is a miracle. In the time it took to enter one giveaway, they could enter five. Why? Because After the first entry, the info options are done for you and usually all you have to do is click a few buttons to complete each entry. Here is a screenshot from one of my current giveaways:

Yes, that says over 20,000 entries. It’s been up for about 10 days and will end shortly. I don’t know about you, but on the old comment system, I never got 20,000 entries. Personally, unless it’s a huge grand prize, I won’t enter a Giveaway that is not run on Rafflecopter. I’ve gotten spoiled cause it is just so easy- click click click- done. For a busy mom, it’s such a time saver and as a Giveaway blogger, I can run multiple giveaways and not worry about moderating comments, picking a winner, or typing the whole thing out.

I highly recommend getting on their waiting list now, because despite how awesome it is, it is still in beta.  The Rafflecopter team have definitely changed Giveaways forever, don’t get left behind!

yolanda machado sassy mama in la Yolanda is the owner/writer of Sassy Mama in L.A. Her blog is dedicated to lifestyle features including beauty, plus size fashions, product reviews and giveaways, Los Angeles Events, and chronicling her journeys through life as she raises a daughter (…and a husband), while also working, going to school and blogging. She’s a little crazy, a lot of fun, very tired, and probably, the most honest person you will ever meet. You can also find her at Facebook and Twitter.

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11 Comments | Leave your own

Related posts:

  1. Vme TV Wants You to Go To BlogHer ’11! {Giveaway}
  2. Blogalicous Weekend {Giveaway}
  3. Facebook Guidelines and Your Giveaway
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  7. Sheila

    RaffleCopter and Random.org are not very objective. I have seen bloggrs who use Rafflecopter repeatedly receive winner selection based on certain initials. The letter “C” and the letter “J” are very popular. I have been to a number of twitter parties using random.org to see the same names coming up time and time again in the same week, during the same day, and I watched one winner win Grand priizes at 2 Parties at the same exact time recently.

    In fact, about a week ago, I watched 3 particular people win at a twitter party. Then at another party that evening, the same exact people won again.

    That isn’t coincidence. That is bad software.

    Reply

  8. Janet

    RaffleCopter and Random.org are not very objective. I have seen bloggrs who use Rafflecopter repeatedly receive winner selection based on certain initials. The letter “C” and the letter “J” are very popular. I have been to a number of twitter parties using random.org to see the same names coming up time and time again in the same week, during the same day, and I watched one winner win Grand priizes at 2 Parties at the same exact time recently.

    In fact, about a week ago, I watched 3 particular people win at a twitter party. Then at another party that evening, the same exact people won again.
    Janet recently posted..wow level guide

    Reply

  9. Bernice

    I already have two giveaways running with raffle copter. Is easy to use and i easy to me to participate in other giveaways also.
    Bernice recently posted..Hip Hop Songs

    Reply

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