I think I’ve had enough of blog contests. The blogosphere is inundated with them. The problems with blog contests at the moment are that there are just too many of them, and also, some bloggers are destroying people’s faith in contests.

Too many cooks

Almost every blog is holding or has held a contest. The concept is getting stale. John Chow has a contest almost every day to win some book that he’s promoting. Heck, there are even some people (great blog, by the way) whose blogs are entirely about contests. People like free stuff, me included, but the sheer number of contests is diluting the excitement.

Who am I to talk? I’m running a contest where you can win $100, but after kicking this contest through and sending the winner his or her money, I will be reluctant to hold another. The fizz is dying out, because people like Ashwin Khanna are out there running fake blog contests.

Scammers

Then there’s Rea Maor, who ran a contest to win an iPhone, but didn’t get enough entries, so he changed the prize to $100 instead. It’s difficult to trust bloggers, and this is the case even more so now that nobody can be sure that if they enter a contest on a new blog, there will even be a prize at the end of it.

I feel for Rea Maor, because if I were him I’d be a bit pissed off at losing an iPhone for so little in return, but lady luck played him a bad hand when John Cow came out as the winner (if it was a random draw, I mean). Of all the entrants, the winner ended up being the person with the most popular blog.

If somebody without any influence had won the competition then Rea Maor’s reputation would still be in tact, but John Cow dedicated a whole post to his not winning the iPhone, and people were pretty pissed. Kumiko from Cash Quests even went so far as to “blacklist” Rea Maor; now that’s one lady you don’t want to piss off.

There’s another contest over at The Cash Blog where you can win $250, but the blog author has mysteriously gone on hiatus. Who knows if he will be coming back.

How to run a blog contest during these trying times

Publicize, publicize, publicize

You won’t get any entries unless you publicize the hell out of your contest. That means going to people like Contest Blogger, The Prize Blog, The Link Bait and so on. You should be hitting the forums up, telling your friends, sending out emails. You should also be letting other bloggers know you’re running a contest, but this brings me on to my next point.

Give away something good

I think people have had enough of smaller contests. My $100 isn’t one of the big fish. You need to be giving away $500, an iPhone, an iPod or something equally big for people to really care. The bigger the prize, the more people will pick up on your contest and blog about it. And remember, people always enjoy easy ways to make money.

Make it easy to enter

I hate it when contests require some effort before you can enter. For my contest, I kept it simple: Stumble my site, subscribe to the RSS, and just mention the contest in a blog post with a link. That takes no effort at all; that’s what people want.

Get something out of it

There’s no point in running a contest if you don’t benefit unless you have a hugely successful blog. Make sure you’re at least getting link backs or RSS subscribers from your contest. You want to make money blogging, so make sure you achieve something that can help with this goal.

Don’t offer what you can’t afford to give away

If you’re giving away money or something of your own, unless you got it for free, you’d better be sure you can part with it.

Make the rules clear

Set a closing date and outline any specifics. And don’t change the prize halfway through the contest!

Are you sick of contests?

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