Thursday, March 29, 2012

Bloggiesta Mini Challenge: What's a Rafflecopter?

Hello everyone! Welcome to the Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge stop here at The Competitive Bibliomaniac! The topic/theme over here is...

What's a Rafflecopter? A Guide to the giveaway site, Rafflecopter

One day you are sitting around thinking to yourself "I've just got too many books!" (Okay. I am not sure any of us ever think this...) "I need some more space in my bookshelves for some new books" (Better) "Let's host a giveaway!"

But how do I host it? Have people comment to enter, but then I can't do multiple entries easily. Have people use a google form? The setup for that is kind of long and the nesting just looks horrid with my new layout.

What to do, what to do?

If you have ever been in this situation, fear no more. Rafflecopter is here! Rafflecopter is a tool bloggers can use to make crazy-simple giveaways. Rafflecopter will allow you to be as specific or as broad with your entries as you wish. It also provides a cool way of tracking who entered. Let's delve in.

The first step to creating a rafflecopter giveaway is to sign up for an account. This keeps all of your giveaways, past and present, in one convienent place.

Now let's create a giveaway. These are the basic steps:
  • On your home page, your'll see a happening right now section, where it will list all your current giveaways or let you create a new one. I want to create a new giveaway so I select "Plan One Now"
  • First we give it a name. Mine will be called "Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge Giveaway"
  • Next add a prize. When we add a prize, it gives us the option to name it and put a total of how many are being given away. The cool thing about this section is you can update this any time throughout the giveaway and it will update the widget without changing the code! Great for when you add prizes halfway through!
  • Now we have a name and a prize, but how do you enter? There are multiple options of types of ways people can enter.
    • Leave a Blog Post Comment - You can even tell people in the task what you want to them to answer
    • Tweet About the Giveaway - This one is super easy for end users because they have a built in tweet to tweet for an entry
    • Follow a twitter user - Another easy, built in button so entrants can easy follow you
    • Like a facebook page - Get more facebook followers easily and fast!
    • Like this post - another easy tool to spread the word about your site
    • Create your own - This task is awesome because it let's you dream a dream. What task can you think of to make? The one I most commonly see is Follow on GFC.
  • Now that you've chosen any where from one to a ton of tasks, you can set some options for each. Is it manditory? Does a user get one entry or five for this task? There are so many options, and with the easy user interface, setting up a giveaway becomes a snap
  • Next, let's enter a date range. Mine will run for a week.
  • Finally we enter our terms and conditions and hit Get the Widget

After that it's as easy as copying the code into your entry! My favorite part is only having to do this once because it updates automatically.

One big thing to remember is that not everyone can see the Rafflecopter widget, so it is always nice to give an alternative entry for those readers, either email me or post it in a comment.

Now for your challenge.

The Mini-Challenge: The Rafflecopter experience
A Creator: Go over to Rafflecopter and play around with creating a Rafflecopter giveaway. Make some tasks, find out what you can do and not. No need for it to be real. See what the options are and if it fits your needs.

A Enterer: Enter my Rafflecopter Entry below to get the user experience. There is no need to be a blogger to enter this giveaway.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

(For those who cannot see rafflecopter please email me for a list of extra ways to enter. A free entry can be gained by leaving a comment with your email)

I will be reading comments so if there are any questions ask away!














35 comments:

  1. Great post! I can't wait to use this on my next giveaway. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I was so glad when I found it! SUPER easy!

      Delete
  2. Ooo. I just tried this and rafflecopter is so easy to set up! I was rather excited to see that there was a wordpress option because I thought wordpress didn't allow javascript. Then I looked at the FAQ and it looks like it works for self hosted wordpress, not for free wordpress.com blogs. Oh well. I feel like I still learned something and it is a DEFINITE contender if I ever switch to self-hosted wordpress. Thank you for the challenge!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh no! I didn't know that it did not work on the free wordpress blogs! That is quite unfortunate.

      Thanks for stopping by :)

      Delete
  3. This is so much more easier that making a form. Definitely something I'll use in the future!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes it is. I hated embedding the google form because it just increased page load and bleh. This is quite easy!

      Delete
  4. The link for me to follow you on Twitter (through the giveaway entry) didn't work ... but other than that, I love it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AH! I spelled it wrong. It's @bambbles. I fixed it through Rafflecopter's easy way of updating :)

      Thanks for letting me know :)

      Delete
  5. This is fab! I have wanted a way for non-bloggers to enter without posting their email publicly, and this was so easy!

    In your Rafflecopter there is an extra b in your Twitter address.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know! I hated people leaving their email's everywhere.

      Apparently I was just too excited and made some extra bs. All fixed now, and thanks for letting me know :)

      Delete
  6. Great post. I'm not sure if I'll ever do giveaways on my blog but this was fun to play around with, and sure makes the process 100% times easier.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup! It's always good to know your options in case something does come about :)

      Delete
  7. I love Rafflecopter so much! Makes giveaways really easy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It really does! This is my third one with them!

      Delete
  8. I like rafflecopter because people who enter know it is a fair and random pick for the winner.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly! It really is the easiest way to go :)

      Delete
  9. It's funny, yesterday I was checking out rafflecopter to see how useable it would be to set up a giveaway and it's totally easy! :)
    Thank so much for the giveaway!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not a problem :) Glad you like them too

      Delete
    2. I'm totally editing one now and it should be up pretty soon :)

      Delete
  10. Playing with the demo was so much fun! I'm going to use Rafflecoptor for my giveaway in April!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I need to try this out again. I once did and for some reason people could not enter via Rafflecopter. No idea why. Maybe I should do it this weekend and ask for volunteer enterer, :).

    ReplyDelete
  12. OK, I set a Rafflecopter up on my blog. I need some volunteers to test it, please.
    http://www.rikkidonovan.com/index.php/2012/03/31/bloggiestarafflecopter-challenge/

    ReplyDelete
  13. That was very easy. I am hosting a short giveaway, come check it out!

    My giveaway.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I had not even heard of Rafflecopter before Bloggiesta. I wish I had known about it when I was setting up my Facebook mini-challenge. Oh, well, next time :) In the meantime, I tried out the Rafflecopter on this challenge, and tested out the one on Rikki's blog.

    Thanks for hosting the challenge!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Planning a giveaway next week and had not heard of this, so this is perfect timing! Thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I gave it my first try at RAFFLECOPTER as a host for a giveaway! And actually, IT'S REAL. (That is, if I did it correctly.)

    Here's my post. Please let me know if I did it correctly. I'm on Wordpress.com so I couldn't embed it on my post, but linked it instead. I HOPE IT WORKS!

    http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/zara-alexis-bloggiesta-2012-real-giveaway/

    Thanks a million!

    Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez of The Bibliotaphe's Closet

    ReplyDelete
  17. I think Rafflecopter is great in that it's truly random in picking its winner and that it keeps track of entries. I've decided to host a giveaway USING RAFFLECOPTER BECAUSE of your Mini Challenge, which is I think is cool. I just hope the other participants in Bloggiesta realize it's REAL! LOL

    Thanks for a chance at winning YOUR giveaway and for providing help with this. It's my first time. :D

    Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez

    ReplyDelete
  18. I love Rafflecopter! I've used it for a couple of giveaways. It's so easy to use. It's so much better than doing giveaways manually!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Rafflecopter is the bomb! I seriously love it and wish EVERYONE would use it in their giveaways. It's so easy and quick both for setting up and entering. I also appreciate that I can get extra entries daily if people allow for that (and most do) and I like seeing how many people have entered the contest. I like to know what my odds are, you know?

    ReplyDelete
  20. This is Uniflame but in another browser haha. Rafflecopter is super easy! I will be hosting all my future giveaways with this tool :) Thanks for the challenge :)

    ReplyDelete
  21. I love Rafflecopter! It is super easy to set up a giveaway, and to enter them as well. LOVE. Thanks for the giveaway!

    - Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl

    ReplyDelete
  22. I love rafflecopter! Im using it for my challenge ! Thanks for the tips

    ReplyDelete
  23. It was fun playing around with Rafflecopter a bit, I have seen it around but have not tried it before. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Wicked cool! I've just been doing giveaways the lame way by requiring entrants to leave a comment with their email address, but Rafflecopter is amazing and so easy! And cute too! I have a giveaway coming up in a few days so I made a Rafflecopter form and scheduled it for then. Great post! Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Oops! The giveaway is over already, but doesn't matter! Thanks for your tips! I made a Rafflecopter giveaway on my site today to promote my photo ebook "The Misfit Bunny". Thanks so much for sharing about Rafflecopter!

    http://wp.me/p28BsZ-mH

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts with Thumbnails