When Giveaways Require You to Like or Follow

I entered giveaways for several months, and jumped through all the hoops. In the end, I had about 20 items of cheap merchandise and hours of time that I'll never get back. No, thanks. www.1hundred-words.com

I think it really helps our site to do these promotions. Most of our marketing is viral and if people are RT on Twitter that explodes the information about the contest and our site. I've seen a huge increase in our entries just by applying these techniques because more people hear about them. Is it pushy? Maybe, but in the end, I'm giving away an Xbox 360 and people want that.

I rarely enter contests that require you to jump through hoops. I don't mind, however, if there are extra entry possibilities, such as a tweet/blog/facebook/follow/etc. I just don't want that to be the only entry is to do 20 things. For the giveaways I host, I normally just require a comment for the first entry, and then have something for tweeting about the contest. I used to do the jump through the hoops and it's just too much work for me.

I like it to be simple - "leave a comment w/ blah blah blah." I don't want to have to like anything, tweet anything, or follow anything. I tried that once in a giveaway I hosted and it made me sort of uncomfortable. Lots of people tweeted a promo message, per the instructions, but very few actually followed me or returned and left comments on future posts.

Now, if a giveaway *requires* me to do something extra, I just won't enter nor will I host contests in the future that ask others to do the same.

I don't like anything as a requirement other then a comment. However, if there is an "extra entry" option I don't mind that. Some giveaways I want to do my best to try & win so I don't mind liking on FB or following on Twitter, but I think as the main or only entry option kind of blows.

I like leaving comments in order to enter. 'Liking' a FB page in order to enter a contest is against their [FB's] TOS, actually. The 'following' is a little sticky, as some people may just hop on the blog just for the giveaway and then never be seen again...

A tweet to perhaps get the word out to more people who may be interested is fine by me, but if I have to jump through hoops & tame a lion just to enter a giveaway....no thank you!

I'm a big fan of the good old fashioned "leave a comment to enter." I don't enter contests that require me to follow or Facebook (I don't even have FB). But I do understand that if a big company is giving away something BIG, they want the eyeballs on their products. If someone just wants a tweet or something, that's OK with me, but when you have to do like 10 things to enter, I don't want to do it.