Competitions are great – they are a way to reward your followers and gain new readers, they bring traffic to your website, they often add to your following and they make you more visible. They are a great tool.
We all know that blogging for most starts as a hobby and hobbies don’t have rules right? Wrong..
Just like when you start earning from your blog you become self-employed and you need to let HMRC know – there are rules and regulations you need to adhere to when you start running competitions are in the UK they are governed by ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) and CAP (Committee of Advertising Practice) and if you don’t follow those rules, you could see yourself reported to them.
I’m not going to go into the whole ins and outs of competitions, if you want to know anything more please ask and I will address those at a later date, but I want to address two misconceptions that a lot of bloggers believe.
1. You can disqualify people just because…
Let’s look at this way, if you walked into a store or clicked on a website and it said sorry you can’t enter you’re a brunette – you’re going to be pretty annoyed, you’re going to complain, you likely take to social media and tweet / Facebook your disgust and that’s how compers feel.
In fact many compers are bloggers, they are all consumers and to a point many are blog readers, you get the odd bad egg, but don’t you in anything you come across? Tarring everyone with the same brush is wrong.
You are fine to disqualify those who don’t enter properly and those who cheat (yes we have all come across those people who enter with umpteen accounts when the terms say one entry per person), but because someone’s twitter feed has an egg and is full of competitions no. It could be a second account so they don’t spam their other followers and when they win, they could well have tweeted all about how fab you and your comp were on that first account, which would have upped your readers again.
So next time you see an account you think belongs to a comper; stop and think.. They are a human, a reader, a consumer and they may just be your blogs biggest advocate. So don’t diss them, embrace them and find out just what a wonderful bunch most of them are.
From the code:
8.2
Promoters must conduct their promotions equitably, promptly and efficiently and be seen to deal fairly and honourably with participants and potential participants. Promoters must avoid causing unnecessary disappointment.
8.7
No promotion or promotional item should cause serious or widespread offence to consumers.
8.24
Promoters of prize draws must ensure that prizes are awarded in accordance with the laws of chance and, unless winners are selected by a computer process that produces verifiably random results, by an independent person, or under the supervision of an independent person.
2. If a PR or company doesn’t send a prize, it’s not my problem..
Sorry to tell you this but it IS.
If a prize doesn’t arrive no matter if you yourself were sending it OR it was coming via a PR firm or direct from a company the likelihood is, if reported to ASA it will be you receiving that dreaded email because in their eyes you are the promoter, so you will be asked to re-send the original prize or one of a similar value.
I’ve been there with a prize worth £150, it was scary – I was in pieces and I wish I had listened to those original instincts that were screaming that something wasn’t quite right with the whole set up, yet as I had received my review item I went ahead and boy did I regret it.
So please before you think it’s OK, it’s my blog and therefore my rules – remember there are some things governed by a higher authority and by starting that competition post you are saying you know those rules and regulations and you are going to adhere to them.
Competitions are great and lots of fun to run, just remember read up, ask and follow the rules, before you start.
From the code:
8.15.1
Promoters must award the prizes as described in their marketing communications or reasonable equivalents, normally within 30 days.
To end with:
1.1
Promotions must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society and reflect the spirit, not merely the letter, of the Code. Fundamentally, promoters are
responsible for all aspects and all stages of their promotions and must avoid causing
unnecessary disappointment. Promotions should be conducted equitably, promptly and
efficiently and, notably, promoters must be seen to deal fairly and honourably with participants
and potential participants.
Great post, well done x
Great post. Running a competition is like an advertising campaign (hence coming under ASA’s jurisdiction) the companies don’t expect 100% of the people who have seen it, to buy their products, but the name does get into your subconscious. There’s many a product/company I’m now aware of, and purchased, through competitions, probably more so than TV adverts, as we usually fast forward through them!
With a beauty/fashion/music/food obsessed teenage daughter (just like her mother!) who loves Zoella’s and Tanya Burr’s videos, I’m sure reading blogs will be her next step and, as she’s like her mother, entering their competitions and woe betide them if they don’t play fair – I even got Trading Standards involved with a company who thought they could fob me off with a £7 product of theirs when they claimed the prize was worth £300!
brilliant read brilliant post
Thanks for this Sarah, this is a must read for all new bloggers, especially before they run any giveaways. There are so many lovely bloggers out there, just like yourself who run things fairly. Sadly though a few bloggers (just like some compers) don’t do things fairly.
Brilliantly written. So pleased that you have done this. I am a comper and have often bought from companies that I knew nothing of before I entered competitions they have run. After winning I have often bought from them again. Family and friends also get to know of them and sometimes buy. The nicer the service and the better they treat their entrants makes a massive difference to how much I try to help promote them. Compers are viewed as a valuable asset to promoting businesses by most decent companies so it is a shame that some are taking a less favourable stance against them.
Fantastic post thank you for putting into words how we feel and doing it in such a thoughtful thougher way x
Great post! I think people forget that no one is simply a comper, we all have a life too! We all buy things, we all spread the word when we find something we like. Through comping I’ve found some great brands and look forward to the latest posts on some of my favourite blogs. It’s not just blogs though, website owners can be the same. I once got an email from a folk music magazine website that was quite rude after I’d entered their competition. I was a dreaded comper and their prizes were just for real fans of the genre. Unfortunately for them I was also a reader of their magazine. I haven’t bought it since.
Brilliant article. Fantastic read. Thanks for posting
Fantastic article. Brilliant read. Thank you for posting.
As a person who enters competitions, thank-you for pointing out the dual twitter account. I often wonder if I’m disqualified because I use one account for giveaways only and another for personal use. Also, live in the U.S. and don’t think there’s laws governing competitions. Overall, I’m glad you pointed these things out. 🙂
great post!! I have heard a lot about some bloggers only wanting to run comps for their readers and banning compers. I am both a blogger and comper and love entering and winning. I also hold comps on my blog and find that a lot of my social shares etc, come from compers just as much as my readers.
I never knew about that if a PR didn’t send out a prize that I would have to do it myself, until this happened to me last year. Now when I run a comp I try to make sure the PR company are reliable and always keep a bit of money to one side in case this happens again and I need to cover the costs myself