Photography: “Awa” Dance by d’n'c

Most bloggers and webmasters don’t get it right when holding a competition. It’s usually because of, not in spite of, their best intentions. The person holding the competition invests time and money in the project and naturally they want to see it become as successful as possible.

In order to encourage this, they write something about it and keep that post on the main page for as long as possible. They promote it elsewhere. They let their friends know. After all, it seems like a reasonable tactic when you want as many entries (read: inbound links) as possible.

I think this can be a pitfall for many of us, and I want to use an analogy to illustrate what I mean, and how you can avoid it. Care to come to the party?

A Bad Party

The blogger or webmaster promoting a contest can be compared to someone who wants to throw a big party at their house. They focus on getting as many people to that house as possible; and they do get a lot of guests when the day of the party finally arrives.

When the guests get inside the house, though, the person throwing the party is on the phone, still trying to get more people to turn up. There is no music. No games to play. No beer, no wine. The party thrower has the potential to provide all these things, but has kept them behind closed doors: they’ve been so focused on the act of getting people to the party that they forgot what would make the party great.

Most of the guests file out of the house as quickly as they came. Worse still, the party thrower’s friends have been coming over during the week only to find her/him distracted and disinterested in them, concerned only with throwing the biggest party possible. They start to think that perhaps the party thrower is not such a good friend after all…

The number one mistake I see people make when they launch a contest is to neglect what makes their web presence valuable. The perfect competition brings people to your blog or website, then shows them what is so great about it. Launch your competition, create a banner for it, put it in your sidebar somewhere high up, and get back to creating content that will make new (and old) visitors want to stick around.

Don’t neglect your existing readers, and your web presence as a whole, for the sake of repetitively promoting your contests. They’re not going to be worth anything if you don’t give these new guests a reason to stay at the party.