Give Aways and Prizes

[Reverie]

All forums typically have a contest or two during their life time. Do you provide any give aways or prizes? I know we can earn forum money to use on the forum, but what other give aways and prizes do you think would be an advantage to offer, and perhaps may be easier?

What are some ideas you can think of to offer? Forum specific, general niche, admin niche, etc.

 

[Ravenfreak]

You could offer a domain name as a prize for a contest. I don't think I've really seen anyone offer a domain name as a contest prize before.

 

[Cory]

I tried giving away a $25 Amazon gift card for a contest once, but it was a flop. I probably didn't promote it well enough or perhaps I didn't even have enough members to participate at the time.

I think offering online currency such as gift cards is one thing a lot of people would want or something impressive for their forum like a custom theme.

 

[ClicketyKat]

Oftentimes it isn't the prize that is the problem, it's not allowing enough time for members to sign up or enter, especially on new sites or lesser known sites. Unless you're offering $1,000, even $25 might not lure people in. A week is not long enough and a lot of times even a month is not long enough for a contest to run. Promote it weekly on sites that allow it and promote it daily on social media.

I've given away an Amazon gift card before (before I knew that it was only available for US users) and we only had a couple of members enter out of about 50 at the time that we had logging in during the month. When I asked about running contests on that site, my members replied they weren't there for contests, they were there for good conversation. So that's the goal for that one.

If you have a site that runs a service, sometimes members want a free service, or the best service you can offer! Again, give enough time for entries.

 

[Shortie]

When it comes to doing contests on forums, I would definitely suggest allowing plenty of time for as many people to participate as possible. You do not have to offer a huge prize which may break the bank, something like a domain name or even an upgrade on the forum to a VIP status would be beneficial and would entice people to enter the giveaways and such as well.

 

[Arantor]

The question of the prize is one of effort vs reward; if you're saying $25 as a prize, I'm going to mentally do the math on how long it would take me to earn $25 vs putting in the effort for the chance to win - since it's not a guaranteed thing.

$25 for me is not even an hour's work, so for me personally chances are it's just not worth my time to *try to win* that unless it requires no more than a few minutes' effort on my part.

Of much more interest is if the prize on offer is non-financial. For example, I entered a writing competition earlier this month. I don't expect to take home a cash prize, I'm not even sure I expect to make the next round, but I'm intrigued by the journey, and seeing the entries by other folks, as well as the judges' feedback.

 

[dahLabdo]

All making very good points.

I think that it's a difficult question because it's very specific to the type of forum that is in operation. For example, it needs to fit it's theme. A gaming forum could offer x amount of game vouchers, such as steam etc. A runescape can offer x amount of GP or x amount of months of membership.

A good time limit must be in place also as others have mentioned.

Best way to advertise is to follow your community footprint. Runescape forum? Advertise with runescape twitch streamers etc...