A friend of mine asked me to teach her how to win stuff. I guess at this point I am some kind of expert in winning huh?
I can do you one better, I can teach anyone how to win stuff. I feel like deep down inside my little winners soul I will regret giving away my secrets, but it's really not a secret in the first place. It's going to be easy to lay these out as steps for you.
Step 1. Subscribe to Online Sweepstakes Websites. I have my favorite that I have belonged to for years now. It's not a secret, these sites exist, they are googleable (say that ten times fast). I like OLS, Prizey and Sweepstakes advantage. There are links for all of these sites on the right hand side of my blog under "links that are full of Win".
Step 2: Subscribe to every social network possible. Blog contests thrive on social media outlets and they compete by number of clicks, most likes, most "ups", all kinds of internet malarky. Your big ones are: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google + and Google Friend Connect. Of course there are many sites that bloggers use to promote themselves and their giveaways but those are the most frequented.
It is helpful to create an alternate email just for giveaways. Trust me, when you see the amount of spam you're going to get after subscribing to all these emails and publicly posting your email address on blogger you'll crap your winners pants.
Know how to use all of these sites by the way. If a blogger wants you to repin a contest and provide them a link to it in order to win, you sure as shit better know what to do and what link to post. This just takes practice.
Step 3: Use the force.. I mean Form. There are several form widgets out there used to allow people to enter contests more easily and faster than ever before:
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE! Raffelcopter is your big one. These forms not only make it easy for you to one click your entries but it also gets rid of a lot of cheaters. I love them and I usually enter these a lot more often that other contests.
Step 4: Take advantage of lazy sweepers. Because of step 3 a lot of people who enter sweepstakes and contest are now lazy and don't like the old method of entering 100 comments on a blog in order to win something. This is great news of course because if you aren't lazy you can throw your hat into a ton of low entry giveaways. Low entry means good odds that you'll win. I know several blogs that don't use widgets and still follow the tradition way of entering, I usually wind up in a pool of about 100-500 comments to win, if I entered ten times that means my odds are awesome!
Step 5: Enter as much as possible. keep in mind that you will go through periods where you don't win anything, this is when most people give up. If you keep entering than you'll win something eventually. I enter every day while I eat lunch, this is my deal and it's my hobby, it's just what I do. Maybe you do yours during your kids nap time, maybe late at night when you can't sleep, whatever.
Step 6: Use your bookmarks, save your favorites. There are five places I enter everyday, I have them book marked on my computer for easy access. If your serious about winning something make sure you save the best places to enter.
Speaking of entering... You can enter some contests daily. If there's one you really want to win and it has daily entry methods, perhaps book mark it and do that daily entry everyday, that takes like one second of your lunch break.
Step 7: Creativity. If you have it use it. There are some contests that only require something fun, if you have creativity you can destroy the others and come out with contest gold.
Step 8: Check back and claim your prize. Most blogs you enter will email you if you win. If you enter somewhere know how they'll be contacting you and if they don't email you be sure to bookmark it and check back to claim your prize. Also most emails must be responded back to within 24-48 hours in order to actually receive the prize, so check your email at least once a day to make sure you aren't letting prizes get away from you. Twice this year I checked my spam folder only to find I had won something!
BAM! I just blew the milk out of your cheerios didn't I?
So there you have it, how to win stuff in 8 easy steps. Now forget you ever read this because I don't need all you guys lowering my odds by becoming sweepstakes and contest pros.
