How to Win a Giveaway

So I won the motherload of giveaways a few weeks ago and won a complete blog design from Lisette!!  How do you like the new look??  I think it is fantastic, and I feel like I have graduated to a legit fancy blogger.  I even have a bar on the top where you can find things?!  I am indebted to Lisette for her awesomeness, it would have been a bit down the road before I was willing to shell out for a whole custom design.  Every time I look here, I think “is this really my blog?!” 

If you want to check out more of her work, or get a design of your very own, check here for details!

I don’t really get ‘paid’ to blog, as in most of my ads are swaps, and I spend more advertising than I take in.  But if I count the stuff I win from blog giveaways I am totes coming out ahead.  In addition to this sweet blog design I have won hundreds of dollars worth of adspace, probably around a few hundred dollars in giftcards to Target, Starbucks, Sephora, Charming Charlies, Etsy several pieces of jewelry, makeup, a $1000 handbag(?!?), and a bunch of other cool stuff. So since fortune has smiled upon me fairly frequently in blogger land, I decided to pay it forward and share the secrets to winning a blogger giveaway!

1.       Get on that social media! 

If I don’t have a heads up about a giveaway, I 100% of the time find it via facebook and/or twitter.  Knowing the giveaway is happening is paramount to entering and then winning. If you don’t have one of the social media accounts, it is going to hurt your odds.  Go ahead and make one just for entering giveaways and then ignore it.  That is why I got an instagram account, lol!

2.       Take the time to enter 

This won’t work for you unless you don’t mind following a TON of blogs and twitter accounts and facebook pages.  If there is something I really want to win, I take half an hour and follow each blog, each twitter account, etc.  It pays off!  Day one is when the major time commitment is apparent, but when you enter enough of them you can get it done fairly quickly.  And eventually you will be at a point where you are already following most of the bloggers giving away things!         

**I think it is also important to do all the entries, or at very least follow everyone in some form.  I don’t know how everyone goes about choosing/verifying a winner but especially if it is a large prize that everyone pitched in for, they may not be too keen on giving a $500 prize paid for by 20 bloggers to the guy who is only following 3 of the hosting blogs...just something to think about.

3.       Be a thankful entrant

This is sound advice if you would like to parlay your efforts of entering giveaways into more followers for your own blog.  I try (unsuccessfully at times) to leave a comment when I am a new follower from a giveaway, and about half the time the person will visit me back and leave a comment or subscribe.  Win-win! 

4.       Your odds are fantastic in a small giveaway!

Don’t pass by that little giveaway for a $25 amazon card.  Everyone passes those by, so your odds are really good.  Usually they only take about a 3 minute time commitment to enter – a smart statistician wouldn’t bother with the giant ones and only enter small ones for a maximum amount of wins per time spent entering.

5.       Re-tweet Re-tweet Re-tweet (and be organized)

I eventually want to be better organized about my giveaway entering, but for a while I was very proud of myself.  When I found a new giveaway I would bookmark it and go back everyday and re-tweet for extra entries.  This is the #1 thing you can do to boost your odds and win more.  If you want to take it to the next level of organizing, you can compile a whole directory of bloggers who host these monthly giveaways and be on the lookout for them.

6.       As always, be a gracious winner. 

       Did you get your Starbucks card in the mail today?  Why not post a tweet thanking that blogger?  Did your new purse arrive? – Share a quick post on facebook or tag them on an instagram pic.  Bloggers shell out their hard earned dollars to get their name out there and hopefully get some new readers.  If you help them out it perpetuates the cycle and there will always be really awesome things to win.  Kind of like the circle of life.

Simba gets it.

That is really all I do when I enter, and it has been quite fruitful! 

For the non-math people, here is a quick look at how you can tell your odds in a giveaway:

This giveaway has 2286 entries and each person can earn up to 71 entries by subscribing to all the things.  If all of the people that have entered thus far have maxed out their entries you can assume 2286/71 - approx 32 people have entered.  Usually people don't do EVERY entry, so at this point I'd say maybe 40-45 people have entered.  If you are 1 person doing the average number entries you have about a 1/45 or about a 2.5% chance of winning.  (this is the story with most giveaways, so statistically you should win 1 out of 45 giveaways you enter)

 Only about 11 people have entered this giveaway! (394/35) That is close to a 10% chance of winning!!!

This is precisely what I was talking about with the tweeting.  If I tweet for this giveaway I get 10 entries!!  And I can do this daily!

Try to follow me, I am not a math teacher, lol:

Say this tweeting example is for that Starbucks Verismo giveaway.  Maybe 100 people will enter and the average entries will be 50. 

100x50 = 5000 entries

You read this post and knew to get all those entries.  You really love coffee.

so you have 71 entries

plus you tweeted for 10 entries the remaining 6 days of the giveaway = 60 entries

The average Jo has a 50/5000 chance to win - or 1/100 = 1%

You have 71+60 = 131/5000 chance of winning or a 2.62% chance to win

That is more than double the odds.  In fact you are 262% more likely to win.

Can you taste your freshly brewed single serve coffee yet?? :)

So that is my advice on winning big, I hope you enjoy all your prizes!!!

Aaron and his poker winnings on our Honeymoon cruise