The Sidetrack Cafe No. 2: Giveaways

abbytryagain

Recently I polled on Twitter what people's thoughts were on giveaways. And to clarify what I meant by that was, giveaways of other artist's work on design blogs as a way to promote the artist's work.

What I've noticed as of late and what has started to concern me are all these giveaways happening and are they really working? Who is benefiting; the blog or the artist? So I thought it would be fun to take a poll here to see what you think. And then afterward let's take it to the comments section to discuss. It's an interesting subject and what I think could be a hot topic.




From my experience, I would think the blog who is hosting the giveaway is the one who most benefits, especially if they do it on a regular basis because it keeps people coming back to the site. Giveaways bring in more traffic, which in turn pays for their advertising, or future advertising (which many of them could be working up towards). Personally, I feel it is only ok if the design blog is sharing in the artist's costs with the giveaway. Other than that, the artist is being taken for a ride unless that blog has huge huge readership and is able to prove it by third party reports (don't rely on self-reporting stats ) and can really make an impact.

I feel so many artists are being taken and this concerns me. I have had giveaways here, and most of them have been because of a special occasion of some sort or because I know them. How I really feel? Psssssst! Artists/Designers, if you are doing giveaways, the blog (especially if they are smaller) should totally be paying for your work. You are only really helping them, especially if they are "giveaway blogs". Many of them too ask for samples. I've never asked for one sample, even for my market. Maybe they should be asking for better pictures.

I'm not saying giveaways are a bad thing - but I do think artist's are being taken advantage of in some cases and I just want to bring that out into the consciousness. Giveaway's are a gratitude for our readers (and at times to introduce new work I suppose) however it should be done with integrity.

This is my opinion.

What's yours? Is this selling out? Does this cheapen the blog? Who is really benefiting? Let's discuss (thread-style) in the comments section.