The amount of giveaways most bloggers hosted last Christmas got me thinking a lot about the future of blogging and giveaways. I have hosted a couple of giveaways, especially in 2015. Many were sponsored by brands, while a few were from my pocket. I believe giveaways in general are good, it is a good way to give back to the online community that read your blog posts everyday, and it brings in a little more traffic which is fantastic. However, my issue is when the ‘traffic’ only comes for the giveaways and nothing else, when the ‘compers’ have no real interest in your blog and are only there for the prize you have to give away.

Now if this is a sponsored giveaway, it should not be a problem, as the brand is happy with the ‘free’ advertisement, and your blog enjoys the heavy traffic, but when the prize is funded by you – the blogger, then it is a problem. Is the traffic worth the time and effort (trust me, it is a lot of work to host a competition) you put in to host the competition to just get ‘compers’ enter and never return, until the next big giveaway that interests them? Or unfollow or unsunscribe as soon as the giveaway is over?

I am not against giveaways, I am just starting to think it is not really worth my time and effort, especially when I am funding the giveaway. I was in the middle of writing a giveaway post when I stopped to write this post, believe it or not. It was like a light bulb moment. The questions now are how long would bloggers continue to use giveaways to draw in traffic? How long would bloggers be able to afford to run giveaways from their pockets? Food for thought right?

I know many very successful bloggers that do not run giveways at all, and they still attract a lot of traffic because the readers are there for the CONTENT. I also know many successful bloggers that run regular giveaways, sometimes weekly, and I guess the readers are there for both the content and the giveaways. I want my readers to be here for my CONTENT first, and everything else as an addition. I won’t want Fashion and Style Police to be known as a ‘Giveaway Blog’, but I would still like to host some giveaways.

Now this issue would be sorted if ‘compers’ could just be disqualified from taking part in giveaways, but unfortunately that is not allowed. It is seen as unfair to exclude ‘compers’ from taking part in a competition. I read a checklist post for giveaways some months ago, and I discovered, you could even risk the chance of having an ASA complaint, if you do not allow ‘compers’ partcipate (For those who do not know, compers are people who enjoy entering various competitions/giveaways on many sites, with the hope of winning).

So how do bloggers reward their regular readers and commenters without breaking the rules of the giveaway game? What do we do about ‘comper’s that only go on a blog for a giveaway and never return until the next giveaway? What is the future for blogging and giveaways? Do you host many competitions you fund yourself? I will LOVE to know your thoughts on this, because I am super confused at the moment.

Drop me a comment, let’s chat.

Thanks for reading and have a great day.

*For the record, I am not against ‘comper’s at all. A few of them have won prizes on here and they have been lovely to work with. This post is just about me thinking out loud about the future of blog giveaways and how long I can carry on hosting giveways with prizes I buy.