Product promotion giveaways can be a boon or a boondoggle for the company that sponsors the giveaway depending on the giveaway guidelines the company sets

1. give awaygat o r.co m http://giveawaygato r.co m/pro duct-pro mo tio n-giveaways-and-why-they-fail/
Product Promotion Giveaways And Why They Fail
by Steve Po ts
Have you considered sponsoring product
promot ion giveaways?
Product promotion giveaways can work wonders to
get the word out about your products or services but
if done wrong can be a total waste of time and
money and could even damage your bottom line.
You have probably seen many companies sponsor
product promotion giveaways and you have probably
been contacted by a f ew bloggers eager to do
giveaways f or your company .
Truth of the matter is that many Product Promotion
Giveaways f ail to do anything but gain the sponsor a
f ew extra unresponsive (zombie like) Facebook f ans
and Twitter f ollowers. Sad but true so let’s take a
look at where the mistakes are made.
The Blame Game
First let’s start at the source of Product Promotion Giveaways. T he sponsors.
In f ull disclosure I’m writing this post because I have had a somewhat odd experience with a sponsor. T he
odd experience got me thinking and so this post was born. I’ll get into the odd experience a bit later in this
post.
In another post we will take a look at the bloggers but f irst I need to deal with the sponsors.
I’m talking about sponsors who are contacted by bloggers who are eager to do Product Promotion
Giveaways f or them and sponsors who reach out to bloggers to do the Product Promotion Giveaways f or
them. I’ll deal with companies that run their own giveaways in another post too.
As a sponsor of product promotion giveaway you should be aware of a f ew problems you could create f or
yourself by either over restricting the bloggers in how they do the giveaways or by not setting sound and
well thought out guidelines in place at all.
I believe there should be guidelines in place so the bloggers will know what is expected of them. We need a
happy medium where both blogger and sponsor gain.
So what guidelines should you have in place?
Nofollow
First of all the most important thing you need to add to your guidelines is that the bloggers add the
rel=”nof ollow” meta tag to any links that point to your website. T his is important f or SEO (Search Engine

2. Optimization) f or your site. About three years ago you could pay f or links to your site to boost your site’s
SERP (Search Engine Results Page) ranking but today this is no longer advisable. Granted, 3 years ago it
was f rowned upon too but today Google and many other search engines regard this as unnatural links or
paid f or links and will punish a sites SERP ranking f or having too many (or any) unnatural links pointing to it.
If you don’t tell the bloggers to “nof ollow” your links there is a good chance that they will not do it and this
can lead to your site dropping of f the map in search results. If you are dependent on search traf f ic f or sales
this little gem could kill you.
You can learn more about it here. Link schemes – Google Webmaster Guidelines
The following are examples of link schemes which can negatively impact a site’s ranking
in search results:
Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts
that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in
exchange for them writing about it and including a link
Ask for more
If lef t to their own devices giveaway bloggers or bloggers that do product promotional giveaways will simply
add your Facebook Page link and your Twitter link in the promotional giveaway f or the entrants to Like and
Follow. If you are sponsoring a giveaway make sure you get more out of the giveaway.
You should pick some of your products and ask that the blogger add those to the giveaway to be
pinned on Pinterest.
You should provide the blogger with a link to a promotional post on Twitter f or the entrants (the
people who enter to win the product) to ReTweet.
Ask that the entrants be sent to your Facebook Page to comment on a post on your wall so that
you may engage them there.
If you make use of YouTube, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Reddit, or any other social media or book
marking sites ask that the entrants f ollow, like, subscribe and vote f or you on those sites.
If you have a mailing list ask that the link be included so that entrants can subscribe to your mailing
list.
T here are many other things you can ask f or to increase your social media f ootprint. Just having entrants
click like on your Facebook page is not going to do anything f or you other than give you f ake f ans that will
probably unlike you af ter the giveaway anyway. Make use of your product promotion giveaways to put you in
touch with people who have an interest in your product. If they don’t like your product why would they want
to win it?
Ask that your entries carry more weight
Okay look, if you and the blogger work together on a giveaway you should know that the blogger is going to
add his or her social media links and possibly other promotional entries in the giveaway too. T his is not a
bad thing f or the sponsor because you want the blogger you are working with to have a large social media
f ootprint and readership because this is what the blogger uses to promote you. How do you think I got
nearly 11,000 Facebook f ans and 5,000 Twitter f ollowers?

3. I f ound the f ollowing point structure works well with Giveaway Tools and Raf f lecopter (the two top giveaway
widgets or tools) Ask that each entry in the giveaway that promotes or f avors you be worth 2 points and all
the other entries be worth only 1 point.
Also ask that there be no f ollow pages or Facebook Farm pages where hundreds of other blogger’s
Facebook Like buttons could be lurking.(I have done Follow pages too I admit I’m not perf ect but I don’t do
them anymore)
If you don’t know what a Follow page is it is basically a long list of Facebook or Twitter buttons that are
collectively worth a great deal of points or entries in the giveaway. T he entrant is asked to like or f ollow all
to qualif y f or (usually) 25 points.
What you might not know is that Facebook only allows you to like 2000 Facebook pages. If the bloggers
Facebook Page or Facebook Farm is worth more than yours the entrant will likely like the blogger’s Facebook
Page and skip your Facebook Page to gain the entries.
You should understand that Bloggers work in groups and of ten bloggers will share giveaway posts within the
groups. To gain the support the bloggers who help out are going to gain something in return f or their
help.It’s a small price to pay f or the additional promotion
Just ask that the bloggers entries not be bundled together on f ollow pages so the entrants can pick the
ones they want to f ollow or like and gain only one entry f or each like or f ollow as apposed to 25 points f or
all.
Don’t restrict the bloggers too much just guide them (a case study)
As I have said bef ore I had an odd encounter with a sponsor, or to be more clear PlaSmart. T his is a case
study so try to learn f rom it.
My wif e contacted PlaSmart and asked if we could review the Perplexus. PlaSmart contacted us back with
some reasonable guidelines and at least one that made me f eel uncomf ortable and a f ew that were just not
smart.
Simply put, I was given very strict guidelines as to what my review of their product should look like. T he very
f irst thing they insisted on was that bef ore they approve a giveaway they wanted to see my review post. I’m
okay with this but to me it would seem that if I did not give them a shining review that they would not be
interested in doing a giveaway with me.
I have to be honest here, as a product promotional giveaway blogger I sometimes sugar the product just a
bit so that the bad points don’t leave a bitter taste. As a blogger I still need to be honest with my readers so
if I don’t like something I will say so but I will not dwell on the negative things and rake the sponsor over the
coals f or them.
I don’t see the point in negative reviews. If you don’t have something nice to say say nothing is my motto.
In the past I have declined a f ew sponsors f or product promotion giveaways because their products were
not suitable f or my blog or something was terribly wrong with the products they sent f or review.
Two weeks ago I declined two sponsors. One candy maker and a cookie maker because the candies were
marketed and priced as gourmet while being cheap and bland and the cookies smelled and tasted like paint.
I’m prepared to sugar a review but I will not outright lie to people in a product promotion giveaway.
Other than basically (as I interpret it) asking f or a shining review PlaSmart asked that I do not use any of
their images or videos on their site in the review and that the giveaway post be posted only on my blog.

4. As f or the photos I agree to a point but I’m used to using product photos f rom sponsors sites along with my
own because those photos are usually f ar better than mine. I also use the sponsors f ull logo.
T here is such a thing as branding and incorporating the sponsors logo in the review and giveaway helps the
readers and entrants in recognizing the sponsor’s logo. Telling me I can’t use your logo is just silly on your
part and not allowing me to use your photos might result in my poor quality photos making your product look
bad. I’m not stealing your photos and as I’m already talking about your product and linking (“nof ollow”) to
your site I don’t see the problem here.
As f or only posting the giveaway on my blog, PlaSmart is missing out on an opportunity to put their product
on more monitors and gain more traction and possibly more clients f rom the giveaway. Why restrict me on
where I post your promotional giveaway? More blogs = more readers = more traction. I network with
hundreds of of bloggers to gain my sponsors more exposure. I also use a paid service that shares my
product promotion giveaways on 117 giveaway linky blogs and at least 7 giveaway directories.
PlaSmart insisted on only having one entry per entrant. So…they don’t want me to provide Pinterest entries,
Twitter f ollows, Facebook page comments, ReTweets, shares and posts likes or any entries f or myself ?
Interesting!
How am I going to educate my readers about their products? Let’s take a look at a ReTweet in one of the
Product Promotion Giveaways I’m doing now.
Let’s take a look at the reach …Ooh back at 117 ReTweets we already had a reach of 81,000 Twitter
users. Nice!
Not only did I just educate 127 readers (the giveaway is not over yet) that Lugz sells kids shoes, those
readers promoted Lugz to their Twitter f ollowers. How cool is that?
T his Lugz giveaway already has 1600 people entered and it still has a week to go bef ore it ends. Myself and
the Bloggers I work with are rock star promoters, end of story!
Here is the kicker… in PlaSmart’s restrictive guidelines. If I dont f ollow their guidelines they will decline the
giveaway.
All I can say is this: T he giveaway benef its one of my readers (the winner) and the sponsor. I don’t get
anything out of the giveaway so if PlaSmart pulls out of the giveaway I don’t lose anything. PlaSmart just
opened a slot f or one of many sponsors who are waiting f or me to promote them.

5. Guidelines should not be self restrictions. Let those that know how to promote do what they do and benefit from
it.
Last but not least
Sponsors should ask the bloggers that want to promote them f or examples of their work. You can spot a
“I’m in it f or the f ree stuf f ” Blogger a mile away so take a look at their blogs and the Product Promotion
Giveaways they have done.
I promote alot of other bloggers Product Promotion Giveaways so I know that 90% of the bloggers out
there are only doing reviews and giveaways f or the f reebies. Look around on my blog some of the
giveaways here will make your hair stand on end (not mine lol) but compare them to giveaways we do
ourselves.
You can tell our Product Promotion Giveaways f rom the others because we mention ourselves as hosts in
our giveaways. If is does not say the giveaway is hosted or brought to you by Giveaway Gator on it it is not
mine.
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