I Don’t Want That Target Gift Card
I have been blogging on and off since 2007 and have noticed some very interesting shifts in the blog world since then. I remember back then it was like every blog I read was a semi-anonymous person just writing interesting content about the things they loved and/or hated. There were sometimes advertisements, but there was no need to constantly shill products and host giveaways in order to bring in new readers.
Don’t get me wrong – I love giveaways and sponsorship opportunities and I am not trying to snark on anyone’s blogging method. I’ve swapped all sorts of ads with bloggers similar to me and actually will be doing a giveaway sometime this month. And a product review. This post is inspired by a very specific type of sponsor/giveaway process that I don’t understand – something I tweeted about a few weeks ago that immediately lost me like 10-15 followers because apparently this stuff is NOT A JOKE.
Here are the things about giveaways and sponsors that I feel have gone from “oh cool, you found this interesting small business and would love to promote and give away their gorgeous handmade goods” to “I WILL LITERALLY BUY YOUR SKIN IF IT MEANS YOU WILL CLICK ON MY SITE.”
1. Starbucks/Target/Amazon/Sephora/PAYPAL CASH giveaways: I’ll tell you this right now – there is nothing I love more than a Target that has a Starbucks embedded right inside it. I will KILL THAT SHIT. Nothin’ better than an iced latte while filling your cart with hundreds of dollars of things you don’t need, such as $2.50 knee socks in every print ever and those delicious gummy vitamins that make my mouth go numb from a B overdose when I “accidentally” take too many because they taste just like gummy bears.
HOWEVER, hosting a sponsor’s giveaway to a store that is the capitalist version of twee comes across as very disingenuous. Sometimes they include a month of advertising on their blog as well, then you go to their blog and one of the top posts is a giveaway from one of THEIR sponsors to Target. It’s like a big ole circle jerk for who can buy the most colorful knee socks and cheap cocktail rings. Blogging is all about being creative, so giving away something that is extremely uncreative and takes no effort makes me think the givers are not much different. I’d say this is an alright spot for an awkward segue to my next point:
2. Group giveaways: I guess we have Rafflecopter to thank for this. A lot of the giveaways mentioned above do not exist on their own. A blogger will host a group giveaway with all their sponsors, who each contribute a prize, such as – you guessed it – an ad space and Target gift card. The first time I saw one of these I thought “damn, that’s like $200 to Target, fuck yea!” I got halfway through the 76 ways to enter via Rafflecopter when I gave up because my carpal tunnel was flaring, then next time I opened my Reader I realized all I did was follow a bunch of blogs and Twitters that were also loaded with group giveaways to Target. I even saw one offering “Paypal cash” as a prize. Like, literally buying me for considerably less than my hourly rate.
3. Excessive paid promotion: I love giving tweet shout-outs to my sponsors because they are really cool people, but if you sponsor me, do not expect my Twitter feed to be loaded with “hey, do me a favor and go friend ___ on Facebook!” and then “oh, and follow their pin boards too!” and then “go check out ___’s giveaway to Applebee’s on their blog!” HOW ABOUT YOU SHOW ME PICTURES OF YOUR CAT, OK? I should probably shut up because one of my most recent tweets is an entry to a giveaway for a Kitchen Aid mixer, and the rest of it is pretty much my entire Instagram feed. It’s atrocious.
Anyway.
I love a giveaway that offers a quality good from an independent small business owner looking to promote their shop (or for a Kitchen Aid, shut up). I don’t even mind outfit posts with “c/o” littering the item descriptions because I like seeing how different people put outfits together, whether they got the items for free or not. I am also not any sort of authority on blogging, so if you read this and think “oh that little snatch is totally talking about me,” take it with a grain of salt because I really don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about and you probably have way more readers than me. I also don’t want to be the girl that calls out and rips apart other bloggers for the way they do business. That’s not my intent at all. I just want to find some bloggers that like writing about their life and don’t have to hand out coffee gift cards and host a link up with 288 other people to do it.
This entry was posted in Business and tagged blogger circle jerks, blogger group giveaways.
Preach.
APPLAUSE
I think there are bloggers that get genuinely excited about those kinds of giveaways, and readers who genuinely enjoy participating in them. That’s cool, seriously. I’m not in either of those groups, though. {shrug} End of story.
Yea, same here. I should probably include that it bothers me when I get a comment from one of them that says “love your blog!” then a link to enter their giveaway. That’s how I started to notice them. Don’t poke the bear!
Go check my blog for my giveaway of MY FUCKING THOUGHTS. Actually, don’t go to my blog because I haven’t updated it in fuck knows how long (doggy came down with life threatening illness, blah blah blah).
Seriously though, I think Galadarling and many other prominent bloggers already call this shit out. People who do post those giveaways are like the rubberneckers on the highway after an accident — They don’t realize they are slowing down traffic because they want to be a part of what’s going on in the Now. And that Now is a bunch of giveaways to drive traffic.
But does that bring quality readership?
IMO, quality content that brings the reader into your world drives the best traffic, and it’s something that the “famous bloggers” are known for. Bring the content, not the craptent.
Ha, rubberneckers is the perfect analogy for this. Now I want to find other posts about it. I haven’t looked into it or anything, just got fed up one day and decided it was time to say something.
It definitely doesn’t drive lasting traffic, but writing interesting content does. You don’t even have to post often to get a good following. If you write good stuff, you’ll develop loyal readers regardless of whether it’s once a day or once a month.
Also, I demand more giveaways of YOUR FUCKING THOUGHTS, because the ONE you have on there is good and everybody wins.
I’ve noticed this too and I’ve unfollowed a bunch of people because of it. I particularly dislike when bloggers offer ad space and sponsorships for a certain amount and then promise to promote this blogger on twitter, facebook, once a month, etc. and I’m all “But what if their blog sucks? Does anyone care?” Apparently not. Just because someone is willing to shell out more money to get more visitors doesn’t mean their blogs are actually good. /rant
I’ve noticed most blogs who do this incessantly are not very good. They are spending more time doing the exact same thing than they are actually writing interesting stuff.
EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS +1. The Rafflecopter group giveaways, especially. It annoys me to no end when they ask those who want to enter to subscribe to the blog AND newsletter AND pinterest AND twitter AND facebook AND leave a comment AND… etc. Like, why would I subscribe to your weekly newsletter if I already read your blog in my feed reader? Dumb.
YES. I just laugh when I see these and there are 104 ways to enter. Give me a break. I also do not understand why a blogger would need a newsletter if all they do is write a blog that is mostly giveaways and promotions. WHAT could they possibly put in a newsletter?
I signed up for a blog’s newsletter for a Rafflecopter giveaway (this was ages ago) and I ended up deleting the blog from my feed reader because it didn’t interest me anymore. Couldn’t figure out how to unsubscribe from the damn newsletter (not that I ever read it at any point in time, because it had the same info the blog did) and ended up marking it as spam. Now, is it really that impressive to boast that your newsletter has X number of subscribers if they can’t unsubscribe and just mark the emails as spam?
Just thought you should know there was a post sponsored by TARGET right below yours in my reader. ugh.
Perfect timing.
Instant new fan.
Glad to have you!
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+! from me.
I went through a short phase where I went around following all of those giveaway bloggers, because at first I figured… Well, two birds one stone… I’ll follow some new people, get some new interesting stuff to read.
Turns out, few of those bloggers were actually interesting, and they cluttered up my feed readers so bad that I had to do an actual legit clean out of it nor did I ever win anything. Hmph.
YUP, that’s exactly what happened here. I don’t know why I thought they would be writing anything worth reading… I still have some I followed through Google Friend Connect that will NOT get out of my reader or let me unsubscribe. Drives me crazy!
I join in the big group giveaways occasionally, but I try to keep them to a minimum. For me, the appeal is that I get hundreds of new FB fans from it, which means that when I do find a cool small business that I’d like to promote later on, they’re way more likely to sponsor a giveaway than when I only had a few hundred FB fans. Just having new people find your page via the giveaway is pretty cool, too. I’ve been blogging since 1999, but hardly anyone visited my site until I had something snazzy to lure them there. Obviously not everyone who visits because of a giveaway is going to become a loyal reader – it’s maybe 1%- but still, that’s a handful of awesome new readers to interact with.
That said, I think they have gotten a little out of control. I’m all over it when the prize is something like the one for a $3,000 Disney cruise a while back, but lately a lot of bloggers have been doing them for like… a Keurig. Keurigs are rad and all, but I don’t get liking eight million FB pages for a $100 prize.
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YES.