Do Giveaways work? I'll be your Crash Test Dummy!
Do giveaways work?
I just spent editng my latest YouTube video longer than I've edited any video before. So, I hope the quality is now higher! I put probably more time in this video than in 3-4 videos normally :D
I've been thinking already for a year if I should start doing giveaways on YouTube.
And....
Now I'm FINALLY taking action and trying giveaways myself!
I'm going to document my journey here and act as your "Crash Test Dummy" to see if giveaways work or not. So, I will be revealing you some inside here at Wealthy Affiliate "behind the scenes" like Kyle documented his Instagram journey.
The reasons why I wanted to start testing giveaways are these:
- I get almost daily emails like, "Roope, send me money! [Insert x-reason]"
- I want to pay something back for those who have been following me on YouTube.
- I have seen promising results for other YouTubers who have done giveways.
My plan is to make a weekly giveaway where I'll be going to send free PayPal money to one commenter.
If it seems that this doesn't work at all or if I get a YouTube community strike, this may end already after 1 or 2 giveaways. But if things go well, I will start making weekly giveaways on YouTube.
While planning my giveaway, I noticed that there are some legal guidelines that you need to take into account.
You need to follow YouTube's contest policies and guidelines if you do a giveaway.
This includes for example:
- Showing official rules in the description.
- Saying that YouTube is not part of the contest.
- Giveaway must be free to enter.
- You must include YouTube community rules & guidelines.
- You are NOT allowed to ask for likes or subscribers as a requirement to participate the giveaway.
- Etc.
I think that 99% of the YouTube giveaways that you have seen are illegal. Most people haven't even heard of these guidelines. I hadn't either.
So, I spent some time researching the guidelines and watched videos from some "YouTube authorities" to find out if I can really even do a giveaway.
Therefore, I found the official YouTube giveways rules templates and tried to follow the guidelines well. I hope for the best but I acknowledge that this is also a bit risky strategy.
It's kinda strange because why wouldn't you be able to send money for free to your followers? But there are a lot of strange bureaucracy things in the world anyway...
I'd love to hear from you now! :)
Have you done giveaways?
On which platform?
How well did they perform?
Looking forward to your answers below!
All the best!
- Roope "Your Crash Test Dummy" Kiuttu
PS. I guess I am not allowed to add the link to my video but in case you want to check it out, you will see it in my Wealthy Affiliate profile in the links on the right side.
Recent Comments
17
Thank you Fran!
I shared some results here in my latest blog post: My first YouTube giveaway was success. I continue it now weekly! The results were very positive!
We've done giveaways on twitch and they are fun and attract some extra hype (more people but also more internet trolls) to your channel.
It gives back but in the same time also invites for a lot of engagement.
Haven't done so on YouTube yet, but got no big following yet to see any effect.
Looking forward to hearing your experience!
Steven
Thanks for sharing Steven.
Do you think that overall the Twitch giveaways that you did were worth it and would you do them again?
Yes, they did work and created more engagement. Will definitely do so again, but we usually do them when we got something to celebrate. Or periodically. Not every stream.
Steven
Brill idea!
Not sure about the cash part, tho.
I think 15min affiliate marketing Skype coaching (or similar) with you would be a more valuable option for your followers.
Looking forward to your next blog,
Alenka
Thanks for the idea Alenka!
I was thinking about other giveaway ideas too. Maybe I'll do that coaching session as a giveaway too or some product like Russell Brunson's book or something else.
An interesting idea! But generally speaking, aren't giveaways something of value related to the niche to draw them into an email list?
If you draw people into your email list for money, they may just be there for that, not really caring about your message. Of course to win the contest they would have to at least pretend that they do, so it depends on the amount of money you're talking about.
So you might just add a lot of fluff to the email list doing this and you'll have to track those email members to see if they buy anything from you.
Just my 2 cents worth (and may be worth less -- haha) cheers Marc
People want to make money through PayPal.
=> I give away free money on PayPal and in each video I will show them 1 practical way how they can earn money on PayPal by themselves.
-> It's fulfilling the need in 2 ways.
I agree though that there may be some "fluff' in the subscribers after this but for sure there will be taking action also to making real money based on my advice and tips.
I second Paul's. comments.
Sending money / paying your readers to readers can influence their behavior and hence mess up the outcome of their algorithm - similar to black hat SEO.
I know many affiliate programs ban the practice of offering giveaways in return for buying via affilaite links however I think that they are a staple for optins etc.
So if YouTube strike you you could offer an optin and do it via that rather than straight through Youtube...
Paul
But I think that YouTube was banning this kind of action some time ago. They don't like if you send the traffic away from YouTube. Their goal is to keep the people on YouTube platform.
Of course they were!! hahaha..
It is so hard to keep up with the 'rules' these days.
I have subscribed to your channel today so I look forward to following your results..
Paul
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I'm so sorry I am running behind in dealing my post. Your article what's amazing, Very specific and educational. Thank you!
Peace💗