Merlin wrote:I have been a memeber of Legit reviews for over ten years. I cannot join the video card giveaway without signing up for marketing e-mails from two different entities?? I can't post on comment on your news section without signing up for Lockerdome or Discus. That seems like maybe legit reviews isn't what they started out to be anymore. I could be wrong but thats what it seems like.
Merlin,
ASUS approached LR with a proposal for a contest and I accepted how they wanted it done. It was basically accept the terms and conditions or walk away. I went with Lockerdome as they have an account manager that sets up the contests, they have an app that allows people to enter and get credit for completing various tasks, they contact the winner, they arrange shipping and handle all the behind the scenes stuff like sending tracking numbers, conflicts, rule breaks, tax stuff and everything else. By using lockerdome it (the contest) also gets to tap into that community and help expand the LR name. Things are different now than 10 years ago. The forums have slowed down big time with social media coming to age (facebook, twitter, youtube, reddit and so on) and sadly how companies want contests handled is different.
In 2012 when the site turned 10 years old I gave away 10 Kingston SSDs on the forums. Less than 500 people joined. A month or two before that we gave away a killer 1200W PSU and less than 150 people joined...
For the Lockerdome contest this month it looks like over 1,300 people entered in just 8 days. LR went from 9,746 Facebook followers to 10,196 as well, which is a gain of exactly 450 users. Even giving away
a $2,699 computer on our forums didn't bring in that much traffic!
In terms of signups, hundreds of additions on the sites Facebook and Twitter pages, and ease of having the contest handled by Lockerdome it makes me want to hold more again. Are they the perfect solution? Of course now, but does it help me out by saving time? Yes Will that allow me to do more contests? Yes.
In fact on Monday I'll be starting another contest with Corsair for a water cooler. IT will be hosted on Lockerdome, but you won't have to signup with Corsair or anything to win this time around.
I truly appreciate all the guys that have been with LR for over a decade. Maybe once a year or something I can do something for just the forum guys. I know in the past KnightRid was willing to help, so if some of the old timers have some time and want to piece something together for the forums maybe I can make the prizes happen. I got burnt on doing contests and people were cheating, other tech site writers were winning more times than not, it was costing me close to $1,000 in shipping expenses, took a couple hours of work a week and winners complained about constantly and seldom said thanks. Contests sound easy to do, but they aren't!