Contests and prizes good for promotion?

[PenguinManiac]

You see a lot of Youtube channels, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages making contests and giveaways to attract people and gain a large number of subscribers/followers in a short amount of time. They also manage to temporarily increase traffic, although for a too short span of time, and also increase their overall numbers and reach to a larger audience.
However, this has some obvious downsides. Most people will leave as soon as the giveaway is over, and those who'll stay probably didn't care about your niche at all.

So, are they really worth it in the end?

 

[blessing02]

Not to rule out the downsides of contest and prize in gaining subscribers and followers on your website or page, it is however of advantageous for a new and up coming blig, website or page, this is to promote your product and sell your idea to the people. Man( including women, youth and teen) by nature are draw to benefits and profit, therefore in other to gain such attentions and prominence in the ever busy world of internet and transient people it is advice-able to come up with these promotional ideas.

 

[PenguinManiac]

PenguinManiac

Yeah, they're sure to draw attention. I don't I've ever seen a post or a tweet promotion a giveaway with no likes or retweets. They figure out that they might as well give it a shot as long as it's free.
I like the idea of giveaways as "selling your product". It's similar to those shops that open up and offer free/discounted meals for the first week, don't you think? After all, it's a similar approach.

 

[shilpa]

I agree, most people may only care about giveaways, and after they have had some, they may leave. But while it is true, it is also seen that many are actually interested in such things. Also this sudden interest may arise from the fact that they are rewarded for their participation. When people are rewarded they may feel it obligatory to participate more. Some may feel that with more participations they may have chances to win more in future promotions. So all in all it isn't a bad strategy at all. Because if it were then the companies and others wouldn't have done it in the first place. It's done just to get user involvement.

 

[PenguinManiac]

PenguinManiac

Good point: if it still exists, it must work. Furthermore, I didn't take into account the loyalty factor. It could be due to both interest and prospect of more wins, but both lead to longer stay. This gain should probably be balanced out by your actual monetary investment in the giveaway itself (you might as well invest in an advertising plan if you're planning to spend hundreds of dollars on those), but it seems to be the best choice for small sums of money to spend.

 

[shilpa]

Indeed. Mostly spending millions or even billions at advertising turns out to unhandy at times. If the brands are to connect to actual people then they need to involve people with them, mostly by doing campaigns, surveys, and other promotions. And if people are paid or rewarded for their participation then further prospects of people participation can be guaranteed.

 

[Tania997]

It's something that needs to be done only when you're starting out, so the increased traffic will help you get noticed. It would be convenient to maybe make it once a year, to increase traffic during the life span of your account. It is well known people will leave after giveaways, so by doing this so often you are doing more harm than good.