If we’re friends on Facebook (and if we’re not we should be, I’m a lot more fun on Facebook) then you may have caught my little rant last night about the constant status updates by bloggers asking their Facebook Fans/Friends/Readers to “Like and/or Share” said status update as a condition to begin a giveaway…ummm what? Honestly, I thought it was just me who was annoyed as all hell by these requests, but some of my fellow bloggers seemed to agree with me and after reading this post by The Neat Things In Life, I couldn’t resist blogging about it myself!
Photo Credit: Mad Tomato
Aside from being super annoying, the whole “Like/Share this status and I will put up a giveaway”, is kind of like buying your friends; or definitely banking on the fact that your friends have nothing better to do than unknowingly help your inflate stats…oh yeah, I went there!
I’ve been a blogger since 2008 and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that the one surefire way to gain friends and readers online, is by being honest with them, definitely NOT using them for your own selfish gain—and I most definitely think that’s exactly what this whole “Like/Share” thing is about!
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a huge army of regular readers here on Misadventures, but that’s because I chose to shift my focus from a personal/parenting blog (which is how Misadventures started) to more of a review and giveaway blog; that switch came at the price of losing some amazing regular readers—a move that if I had it to do over I would definitely not make again!
Getting back to my original point, I think that asking your Facebook Friends/Fans to Like and Share status updates before starting a giveaway is a little greedy, and definitely tacky, and extremely annoying. I think that something that your Facebook Fans may not understand is that if it’s a sponsored giveaway (meaning that you are holding the giveaway for a company or PR firm) then you’re going to have to post the giveaway regardless…whether you get 1000 likes or none, if the giveaway is sponsored, it’s going up with or without the Likes! I will say that I did check out a few posts where people were asking for “Likes/Shares” to start a giveaway and at least a few of them were being sponsored by the bloggers themselves. In that case, as annoying as it is, I can’t really blame the blogger for trying to get as many “Likes/Share” as he or she can.
BUT if the giveaway is being sponsored then you just need to be smacked for assuming that your readers/friends/fans are stupid enough to continue to “Like” your posts so that you can maybe, if you’re feeling generous that day, start a giveaway. That’s seriously something that I see girls at my daughter’s elementary school doing; “Um, if y’all be my friend, I might give y’all some of my candy!”
My point—stop this crap already! Seriously it looks egotistical and sloppy and honestly, giveaway’s are hard enough already with all of the FTC and disclosure stuff…and even mentioning giveaway’s on Facebook is such a confusing topic for most bloggers, why make it worse?
So, I can’t be the only one annoyed by this…right?
I just added you to FB as Mary Beth Elderton. After much procrastination, I finally joined FB! You are right, it IS a lot of fun (as I;m learning to use it!)
ReplyDeleteFINALLY....a post relating to this. I've been seeing tons of these on Facebook lately and it drives me insane. I won't enter giveaways or "like" someone's status just to get them to feel like they can take the time out of their day to do a giveaway. Once I figure out how to "Unlike" or "unfriend" these blogs who do this, I'll be doing just that.
ReplyDeleteI see people doing this constantly- I mean 5-6 times a day!
ReplyDelete