Why End Giveaways At Midnight?
Jan 30th, 2010 Posted in Blogging, Technology | 4 comments »How many of you look at expiring sweepstakes on websites such as All Things Bloggy and Online-Sweepstakes? Have you ever found an awesome giveaway that you wanted to enter, only to find out that it ended earlier in the 
day? In the months that I have hosted giveaways I have discovered that my two biggest days are the first couple days and the last day of the giveaway.
The first day of my giveaway, my newsletter goes out and attracts a few visitors. Then, as I continue my promotion in the opening days of my giveaway, it is listed in all the “New Sweeps Added” sections of the giveaway sites. The last day, I usually see a nice upsurge in visitors due to being listed in the “Expiring Sweepstakes” area of many websites. PR Bloggers who end their giveaways early in the day are losing visitors and potential subscribers.
Many giveaway entrants will become subscribers, followers, and friends. It is also common practice to gain contest entries in exchange for backlinks/button placement. These are all invaluable tools to help promote the growth of our blogs. I am surprised by the number of people who end contests as early as noon!
A few weeks ago my computer failed. In the weeks that it took to get back up and running, I didn’t enter hardly any sweepstakes. Once I had my computer reformatted and texter reinstalled, I wanted to catch up on giveaways that I had missed. I checked up on many Expiring Sweepstakes to gain some last minute entries on giveaways I had previously missed. I am usually only able to “sweep” in the evening after the kids go to bed, so about half of the sweeps “expiring” that day had already ended!
When bloggers are promoting their giveaways, they are always asked to provide an ending date. The date (and not the time) is usually used to categorize the giveaway, so participants can find it when they seek out giveaways ending on that particular date. Failing to end a giveaway at 11:59 pm causes listings in the popular Expiring Sweepstakes sections of websites to be valueless.
Of course, the reason I say 11:59 pm and not midnight is because once midnight strikes, it becomes a whole different day. I currently end my giveaways at 11:59 pm CST, even though I would be better off ending them using PST which is an hour behind my time zone. I know that I have missed certain giveaways due to EST being ahead of our time zone.
For a blogger just starting out, it can be a huge mistake to end giveaways too early in the day. I have discovered many great blogs from looking at expiring sweepstakes lists. There are many other blogs that I have found from these lists and then left disappointed after realizing that a contest is over. This is probably why almost every PR/giveaway blog I subscribe to ends their contests at 11:59 pm. There may be many more reasons, but I don’t think any more reasons are necessary.
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