A week ago I won $15 on Amazon as part of a giveaway from Michelle Martin for Reader Appreciation Day. Thank you Michelle for running the giveaway and for continually enagaging your readers and making us a priority. There is always a lot of great discussion over at her blog and I have gained a lot over time from Michelle’s insight so if you haven’t seen her Bamboo Project Blog yet, be sure to check it out.
A comment to the post announcing the winners from Robin Reagle, who initiated the idea of Reader Appreciation Day, got me thinking:
Hi Michelle, I think it’s cool that in addition to being unacknowledged readers–as far as I can tell–neither of the winners are bloggers themselves. It really speaks to the meaningfulness of your work. Thanks for this wonderful project.
Posted by: Robin Reagler | April 16, 2008 at 08:14 AM
For one thing I feel a bit sheepish that I forgot to include my url in the comments. I also don’t feel that my actually being a budding blogger diminishes from Robin’s point. Encouragement from more experienced writers like Michelle is what’s gotten me off my duff in the first place to start to share my own thoughts, so again thanks Michelle!
I’ve been formulating some thoughts about the impact of giveaways more generally recently. I’ll post more on this tomorrow, but right now I’m interested in what you think?
Can giveaways foster community? Have you found success using them yourself? What was the response?
