Blog Contests - My Philosophy & Tips

With so many blog contests out there these days, have you ever wondered what a good blog contest really is? I have seen so many of them that I can come up with a list of attributes for a good blog contest.

Basically, a good blog contest doesn’t necessarily have to possess all the attributes below, but the more of them it fulfils, the merrier. Of course, this is just a general guide and some deviations may be expected in certain circumstances.

1. Easy to enter – This is pure common sense, I would say. If you came up with a contest with so many conditions that it would put off visitors, wouldn’t it defeat your purpose in having a contest in the first place?
2. Easy to win – Now this is a debatable attribute owing to the fact that a good contest usually attracts so many people to enter that the actual chances of winning and very slim. One way would be to move away from random drawings to quality drawings – meaning the best entries win. Of course, this should also entail that judging should be done by a qualified person.
3. Fairness – This relates to the previous point as well but also for random drawings. This should be done openly and as fairly as possible with no biases inserted.
4. Complete and understandable – Have you ever read a contest post and not know what it is talking about? It’s fine to be creative but make sure the contest details are clear and understandable and that all the details are given, such as rules, deadlines, prizes, method of judging etc.
5. Open to most if not all – This is a critical condition as many blog contests fail this test. The blogosphere today is an international arena, with many bloggers from diverse parts of the world. Yet, many bloggers are still having the “US only (or US and Canada only)” mentality when holding blog contests. Shipping costs come up as the main reason for this. I can understand this if the prize is that of a low value but if it is something rather valuable, then shipping costs would only be a fraction of the cost of the prize. And let me ask you this – how many people are there in the US versus the world? If you open your contest internationally, how many more people will you attract? Go figure this one out. And if you think that only people in the US speak English, you have been grossly misled. Having travelled to many countries in the world, I have met many people who not only understand the language, but are proficient in it as well. And even if shipping costs are an issue, I have seen some ingenious bloggers circumvent it by offering either a prize which costs little or nothing to ship (e.g. cash, eBooks, designs etc) or by offering a different prize to international entrants which costs less to ship. Now that’s being inventive! Check out my sister site, Blog Paradise contests for examples of contests open to many or all. See if you can find an “only for US and Canada” contest in there. You get the idea.