Giveaway ideas for contest from a Internet Marketing Company

[KyleChamp]

So I have been toying with the idea of creating a twitter / Facebook / Google + Giveaway. Users will just have to like/follow to enter and a random person will be drawing to win the prize. Seems like a solid and easy way to gain followers and such.

My main concern is lets say I go the straight up "cash" route and giveaway $250 to the winner. While anyone would love to have a free $250 and I may get a lot of likes and followers, I’m sure most of them would not be interested in my company or services. They just want a free $250 (who wouldn’t).

I’m been trying to think of other things to giveaway that people would still love to get but attract more people that would be interested in my services, any ideas? I was thinking maybe the winner could get free SEO for their website for 3-6 months or something like that. Something that people might actually want.

[deltasystems]

Giving away free SEO is a bad idea. You should never really give anything substantial away unless it's a non-profit organization receiving the 'donation.' If you want to go this route, the most I would do is give a free consultation (these cost around $1k where I'm from, so it's good value) so you aren't bound to a project you aren't getting paid for.

My opinion would be that giving money or credit away is bland. Why not brand something and give away a lot of them? For $250 you could give away small branded items to many followers, and now suddenly many people have a reason to remember you.

Just some thoughts. Best of luck.

[BrianCrouch]

Hi Kyle,

Just wanted to add that on Facebook, it's a violation of TOS to draw a winner at random from the list of fans/likes. In order to contact the winner, you'd have to obtain their email address after they have had a chance to see the rules of the sweepstakes/contest.  I know a lot of companies violate this ("Enter to win, just click like and we'll draw a winner!") but it's definitely against policy. And you never know when they'll get around to enforcing it.

[KyleChamp]

Thanks Brian, I did read that in their terms and it seems as long as you use a 3rd party app (like wildfire), its fine to do, just can't announce the winner on the page. We do plan on using some type of 3rd party app when we launch our giveaway.

[KyleChamp]

Thanks,

I do agree that giving away our service for free is probebly not the best way to go.