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OK, I think you all may have figured out that I don’t like Rafflecopter. I find it unreliable, it goes down several times a month it seems, and I have heard people say it loses their entries. I find nothing wrong with the way things are now. It always works, and nothing is lost. That said….
It seems people want Rafflecopter and can’t be bothered with any giveaways that are not. I don’t know why, I don’t think they are faster or better by any means- but hey, this site is for YOU, not me! So, tell me what you want, dear readers. Please let me know what you prefer.
Thanks for your thoughts!
I could go either way on giveaways, but I can say that I tend to go away from the ones that require too many hoops to jump through in order to enter. For example, must follow and like on Facebook and leave a comment after visiting a website as the first mandatory entry. It’s overwhelming. I’m not saying you do that; I’m just providing an example.
I actually prefer to use Rafflecopter for giveaways because it helps me feel more organized, since my comments aren’t numbered. And when I would go to Random.org to choose a winner, I had to manually count each comment to get to the number. It was time consuming and I feared I would accidentally skip an entry when counting. I don’t think I’ve ever had an issue with Rafflecopter, but then again I don’t have 20 giveaways a month.
Come on over to the Copter side Sam…you will not want to go back once you get the hang of it.
After we all get used to the changes with the updated Copter the missing place to add names and extra info will be worked out…that is really a user error and to answer Grace’s question, yes you can Tweet daily for extra entries.
It doesn’t save just a minute or two…when you blog it saves hours over the course of time. Entering is faster too, especially if you don’t have the latest and greatest computer. Comment loading and page loading time is such a suck…I won’t even enter giveaways that don’t use it anymore, with the exception of a few blogs and then that is out of respect for the blogger.
I seemed to have better luck with any giveaways when it was old school 🙂
If it’s a prize I want I will enter with or without rafflecopter. I do like that rafflecopter makes it much easier to keep track of what entries that I have done. I don’t like that sometimes there is no place to enter the things that are required such as GFC name, url for tweeting etc.
We are waffling on it too. We have used it off and on for many months, but currently are not using it. We don’t care for some of the functionality of it and the new form is a PITA. You actually get more entries on a giveaway by the manual system…
We are on the fence… yes sweepers love it, but I don’t know what to do either lol
Rafflecopter all the way! I skip giveaways that don’t use it.
Well, I think Rafflecopter is so much faster. I’ve been using it for months now, and have never had a problem with losing entries, or anything. The only time there was ever a problem was during like 1 week, they accidentally recorded everyone as having the same IP address.
So my vote would be yes to Rafflecopter! 🙂
I prefer rafflecopter too. It is definitely faster. I’m going to be 100% honest though and say the main thing that stops me from entering a giveaway of yours us that you have so many entries that it can be time consuming. For example, 3 separate comments for being an email subscriber. If you made your comment entries simpler than you might see an increase in people entering.
if the prize is something I will use I will enter it either way. 🙂
I am actually a fan of Raffelcopter. Comment entries are very time consuming and often I may not have the time to do them so I will put them off for days or not do them at all no matter how much I like the prize. Every new app has it’s bugs, but I think many of the bugs are now worked out and I also believe it would attract more people to the blog if they felt that it was progressive and not old fashioned in it’s ideas.
The new RC bothers me because it seems to take longer to load,and the bloggers (no offense) set the dates wrong and the contest ends sooner than it is stated. I don’t like when there is no space to put my emaill address or whatever and I don’t know if it is supposed to go in the comments.
Yes, RC is faster, but I like leaving comments. With that said..maybe I can win more on the comment giveaways because people aren’t entering them. I win a lot less now because so many people are entering on RC.
suebunting1977@gmail.com I prefer a system that works. I have entered several different style of giveaways and RC is not the only system I have had trouble with, but the comment system has given me the least trouble. So I say use a system that you can count on to do what it is supposed to do.
Def RC. It’s so much easier and faster and with the new version you can go back and fix any mistakes in your entry. It keeps track of what you have entered which is great.
I will not enter non-rafflecopter giveaways unless the giveaways are for something I really want. I can enter a Rafflecopter in a minute or two and on some blogs, it can take me 20 minutes with copy and paste.
As a blog owner, my giveaways have gotten SO MANY more people entering because I use Rafflecopter. My traffic and readers has grown by leaps and bounds. Some people think if you don’t have all those entries refreshing, then your stats will go down. It’s uniques you should care about anyway so it really is a false sense of security.
Downfall to that, my chances of winning have decreased because people enter giveaways more.
I think it is the best thing to happen to giveaways. I was on the fence for a bit but got over it fast.
Just my two cents….
Honestly, unless it’s something really big or something I am just dying to win, I skip over giveaways that are comment entry. UNLESS it’s a very limited entry giveaway (like it has only 5 methods of entry per person), because I enter giveaways when the kids are napping or in bed at night, and it consumes too much time having to do copious amounts of comment entries.
RC is MUCH faster then entering a comment for each entry. I actually never enter non RC giveaways anymore unless it is a really cool, expensive, awesome prize.
Rafflecopter, I will enter giveaways that don’t use Rafflecopter but I really do prefer to use Rafflecopter. I just find it considerably easier, then going back up to the post to see what the next task is and then back down to the comments to leave a comment, back up to the post, down to the comments….
I also like that RC remembers what I have followed when I can’t, that also is a timesaver.
I’ve thought about this a lot too.
People seem to like RC but truly? You still have to click buttons and go tweet and get you url to your tweet and come back and paste it in.
Also on the manual give aways you can cut and paste your answers in and I think it takes the same amount of times.
There are the issues of the emails addresses and I don’t want it linked to my facebook account.
Also on my giveaways people seem to like the ability to come back and tweet for more entries daily and I’m not sure you can do that with RC can you?
I’m so lazy, I hardly ever enter non-rafflecopter giveaways anymore.
I prefer rafflecopter.
I know a few times, I’ve wanted to enter one of your giveaways, but didn’t because there wasn’t a rafflecopter. I know it is lazy, but it is just a pain to have to go through and add up all the points myself.
RC is a lot faster for me. I find myself so busy these days that the only giveaways I really get to enter anymore are RC. I would love to see you switch over, IMHO <3
I am one of your followers… I am having more issues with entering on the NEW version right now. I am an email subscriber using a yahoo addy and some have a box to enter how they subscribe and some dont. I am being ‘counted’ as having a gmail addy and when I use the subscribe entry the blogger only see the wrong addy :/
If I want to enter for something it doesnt bother me to use whatever method the blogger prefers- well unless the captcha is as small as a head of a pin or something!
I have NEVER had any complaints about (my switching to) rafflecopter from my readers. The times it has gone down the rafflecopter guys have been able to get it back up in a decent amount of time…not like that time when blogger went down for over a day and lost several of my posts and hundreds of my giveaway entries. It is much easier to sort and verify entries and it is soooo much quicker to enter with their updated system.
I’ll start the comments Sam! 🙂 I personally like rc because I am able to do lots of entries faster. But I also hate that we as bloggers and readers are getting so dependent on something that is currently free. I’m afraid the future will require bloggers to buy the service. Then because people are used to it, we’ll be forced to shell out money. I hate bandwagons, but right now, looks like all my giveaways have been converted. I hate when it goes down, but it sure is easier than counting 100s of entries to find a winner lol…. I’m really curious what kind of response you get. I’ll be watching! 🙂