One of the things you’ll see on Twitter at least once a day is a blogger complaining about the chance to enter a competition by writing a blog post for a company.
First, lets look at why we’re being asked to do those things. A company will contact lots of bloggers, declare that they just adore your blog, and tell you about a fabulous competition that they’re running to win something – all you need to do to enter is to write about their specific topic, and (occasionally) include a specific link. This seems like a win win for the company, because they’ll benefit from lots of links and mentions to their brand with a fairly minimal cost. These approaches are disliked by many bloggers however because it feels like a lot of work for very little reward.
A better approach to these sort of things would be for the company to pay for posts on a few key influencer blogs with the details of how to enter – bloggers wouldn’t feel like there was an obligation to enter. Companies could also post about the competitions on their own site and link to them on Twitter with relevant hashtags, or on Facebook in blogger groups set up for that purpose.
Bloggers should, however, remember that the idea for these competitions probably didn’t come from the person sending out the email – it usually comes from higher up the chain, from people who may not understand how bloggers prefer to work. Slating the emails on Twitter isn’t putting you in the best light, and could mean that you’re passed over for future opportunities. If you really never want any of these emails, then send a polite email and tell someone that.
“I prefer not to recieve emails about competitions like this, but look forward to working with you on other campaigns”. Let’s face it – who would you rather work with as a brand, the blogger who called you morons to their 3000 Twitter followers, or the blogger who was polite and graceful in declining?
What do you think of these sort of emails/competitions? How do you respond?
I never do these types of blog posts as, like you said in the post, it seems a lot of work for very little reward. I also just feel that writing about a competition wouldn’t fit with my usual content and would seem a bit odd to my readers. But I certainly wouldn’t be rude about it if I was emailed. There’s not really a lot of point in being unnecessarily rude, it benefits no one, and tweeting about it/otherwise publicising it will probably put off other brands who might have better opportunities.