So this same thing keeps cropping up over and over again on twitter, on facebook groups and on chat forums.
Bloggers hate compers!
Then you have massive arguments and much keyboard warrioring and it's basically the same arguments each time and I really dont see what the big deal is.
Now for the uninitiated this is how I see it:
Bloggers write blogs - sometimes about specific things, sometimes about whatever floats in their mind, sometimes dedicated to their favourite pair of pants and so on - a blog can be about anything you feel like sitting down and writing content about. I write this blog so I am by default a blogger BUT I am not a professional one - this isnt a job or a source of income for me. For me a professional blogger is someone for whom the blog is an income generator.
Bloggers run comps/giveaways on their blogs - companies want bloggers to try out and to review their items and to run these comps and giveaways - giving away 2 free items (1 for the blogger and 1 for the prize) is going to be a cheap and quick way to get your brand seen. The blogger reviews the item and then runs a comp which runs for oh I dont know say a month. To enter you have to do things like visit the companies social media or follow them or tweet or share on facebook and so on and lots of these comps have a daily entry option so your doing it every day.
Now imagine 100 people enter the comp and you can do everything daily to get extra entries - thats 3000 RTs/Followers & 3000 B likes and shares in a month... that doesnt seem much but most people have an average of 150 friends on FB and a similar amount of followers on twitter so thats actually a potential 450,000 people you are reaching on each site - so basically just under 1 million people in a month across both sites - and thats assuming most people have a low average number of friends! To get that kind of advertising on the regular media or even paid for ads on social media is going to cost way more than the item you have given. So it's a win-win situation - the company wins because they are getting a shed load of free advertising and the blogger wins because they are getting new followers, more hits on their site, more hits on their social media pages and so on which then means they are going to get noticed by more companies and pr companies and offered more products and the advertising bar on their blog is gonna earn them more money.
So it makes sense that actually they want people to enter and join in after all compers have friends and its likely that their friends are gonna see the comps and enter too.
So why do bloggers hate compers then?
Well the truth is most of the bloggers I know actually are compers themselves - some of the most successful compers also run very successful blogs.
And lots of bloggers are very comper friendly - some of them even have a nice little badge on their blog and on their giveaways saying just that.
I have won some amazing prizes with bloggers.
In fact there is only a tiny teeny small minority of bloggers who dont like compers and below are some of the reasons I have heard:
1. They want their giveaways to be for genuine followers of their blog
- but you can be a genuine follower of a blog and still comp! And since comping I have found so many interesting blogs who I follow on various social media - I now see people and companies in my social media feeds who I would never have seen before and I interact with them more - if I hadnt entered a comp on their site I wouldnt be following them now
2. People only follow them on social media for the duration of the comp and then unfollow - they repeat this each time there is a new comp!
- I think this is a completely valid point - however only on Twitter - I have heard of a mystical capped follow/like limit on FB, Instag etc but have never known anyone who has reached it. Personally I try to keep all the bloggers I follow on twitter on there - I only unfollow people when I have reached my follow limit and then I sort by activity and unfollow those who havent been active in a month. Since Twitter increased the follow limit for everyone to 5000 this is less of a problem than it was previously
3. Compers are rude - they dont say thank you,they dont appreciate the prize and they just want it to sell
- All sorts of people are rude not just compers - I personally always post a thank you to any company or blog I win form when they announce me as a winner and also I usually tweet or post an fb pic to their wall once the items have arrived. Most of the compers I know do the same, but there will be a few rude people who dont - but you can't blame all compers for their behaviour (just like all compers shouldnt be rude about bloggers because few refuse to let them enter their giveaways).
I would also say I appreciate each and every item I win or get as a freebie - and am grateful.
As for selling items...I will put my hand up and say yes I have done this. An example would be winning a blu-ray and selling it on ebay and then buying the dvd (because I dont have a blu-ray player) or winning a runners up prize which I dont want but I never enter a comp and think hmm how much can I get for this item on ebay? But really once the item is in someone elses possession its their item and you really have no control over what they do with it - and non-comper winners might also sell the item on or swap it for something else and so on.
To be honest if someone says I dont want a comper entering then I am prob not going to enter - whats the point of wasting 5 mins of my time? I'm not going to read the blog post, view their pictures or their videos or even check out the product on the companies website - in fact they become an internet dark spot for me and I avoid them. I'm sure the majority of other compers do the same.So the compers lose out on the chance to win a prize but so does the blogger and the company in terms of traffic and media reach.
The issue is there are some compers who make it their mission to go out on a limb and attack such bloggers - the quote ASA code and various other things and waste a lot of time and energy arguing and generating hate, they can be rude, they can get their friends involved - it becomes a social media shit storm. And after all that they wonder why the blogger doesnt like them.
Crazy!
Now some bloggers who comp take it upon themselves to politely nudge the blogger in the direction of various articles regarding giveaways and fairness and so on. They do it in a way which encourages them to reconsider their views and to allow compers to enter. This is totally the way forward. No shit flinging like monkeys in a zoo - just reasoned and correct information passed on in a friendly blogger to blogger manner.
So that's my take on the whole mess.
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