13 Ways To Drive Me Away From Your Giveaway

You know what I discovered? People are actually driving me AWAY from their giveaways. After hosting a few giveaways I can't say that I'm an expert at doing it. Apparently, neither are a lot of other people. I've entered more than I'd like to admit and it's actually cluttering up all of my social media. I had to spend 3 hours combing my twitter to purge it of all these junk accounts that I only followed because of a contest. Same with my facebook and now I'm getting that way with my Google Reader/ Bloglovin and other readers. I'm compiling a list of reasons why I am NOT entering anymore giveaways no matter how delicious the prize.

1. This should be the most important thing for any giveaway: KEEP IT SIMPLE.  We aren't trying to win the cure for cancer or a vial of water from the fountain of youth. Unless you are giving away $1000+ the requirements to enter should be simple, one click ordeals and not a scavenger hunt for the lost city of Atlantis.
2. Don't have me follow anyone who isn't in the giveaway. For example, if there's 3 different blogs who are giving away ad space I shouldn't have to follow 13 different facebooks, twitters and blogs when 10 of those aren't giving anything away. 
3. It shouldn't be mandatory to complete all tasks before I am fully entered into the contest/giveaway. If you have 50 tasks that's too much. See number 1.
4. Don't have me follow you on Bloglovin + GFC + Hello Cotton. PICK ONE, I shouldn't have to get 3 alerts about your one blog post. I also shouldn't have to suffer & get 3 alerts for your 3 blog posts a day.
5. Speaking of GFC, don't make me hunt you down. You want me to follow you remember? If I click "GFC" on rafflecopter, it better take me directly to the thing that says "follow publicly/privately" or to Feedburner to add to my Google Reader. DO NOT send me to the main blog page.  See last sentence of number 1.
6. If you do require GFC and send me to the blog make sure they have an RSS icon or the little GFC box. If all they have are FB, twitter and e-mail social media icons WTF is that? BYYYEEEE
7. Do not make me follow a twitter that posts more tweets about other giveaways or just promotional bullshit. Especially if that number of tweets is more than once per hour. You're clogging up my timeline and I will delete you. The point of gaining twitter followers is to actually retain them, not drive them away. CHILL OUT.
8. Make sure the links work. Don't tell me to go follow your boards on Pinterest only to discover the link doesn't work. I will sometimes go to the blog to see if maybe the person has a pinterest link there. If they don't - SEE YOU LATER!
9. If you make me post to someone's FB. Unless it's a contest being run specifically on FB I'm not posting to their wall. They can check to see that I liked the page. They'll know if I'm fibbing
10. Make me subscribe by e-mail. Maybe I have enough shit clogging my inbox that I don't want your 16 blogs a day also begging to be deleted too, okay?
11. My computer runs pretty slow these days, make sure the blogs you are asking me to visit for whatever reason are optimized for their content. If you are crazy with the graphics or if it's a photoblog just loading your page is going to be a nightmare for me. Try breaking up your picture posts with the "read more" link. Everyone who uses blogger has one of those and if you use wordpress then you can either add a plugin or you should have something similar. If you make my computer freeze I'm going to give up completely. I'm not coming back for extra entries. Fuck that noise.
12. I'm not jumping through hoops for an entry. Keep it simple. That means a blog comment, like on FB, follow on twitter, follow on pinterest and ONE subscription site PER blog participating in the giveaway. Anything else is just greedy and I'm not down for it.  SEE NUMBER ONE!
13. Is your time precious? Yeah, so is mine. I don't want to spend 6 hours trying to get through all your requirements. The max amount of time I'm willing to spend is 5 minutes. If it takes me longer then that, bu-bye.

Seriously you guys. You are driving me and I can bet a few other people away. Look at your analytic pages. If your bounce rate is particularly high or if your page views are significantly high but your entries are low during the giveaway period you've driven people off with your ridiculous requirements.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand that for some of these prizes, like giving away $500, you would need a large number of people to chip in to help keep the cost per person down. But you know what? Don't give away $500. Just don't. It's not worth my time to enter and maybe get it. I'd rather win something small like a piece of jewelry or a $5 Gift Card to Starbucks than have to follow 50+ blogs just to have to go back and unfollow them because they don't fit my tastes and they are clogging up my feed. I want to follow people who's writing I enjoy not for a contest entry.

I would also like to add that I am aware that no one is forcing me to enter these giveaways. I've passed several of them up do to their entry requirement. I'm more concerned with my next point.
Bloggers are getting particularly greedy lately and I don't like it. Why is your whole life about page views and readers? What happened to the joy of blogging? Of doing something you love just to do it and not because it helps you get money? I'm unemployed right now so I understand needing money. I do. But I also have a strict moral obligation to myself to retain my voice and the integrity of my blog. I don't want to become a corporate machine. That is important to me. You may not see yourself that way and that's fine. I'm simply offering up a point of view that may not have crossed your mind.

What is the craziest amount of entries you've had to endure for a prize you really wanted?

Did you win?