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)
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
12 comments:
awesome post!! I've never won a big one but I did win ad space on like 6 different blogs which was really nice! your new design looks awesome too. congrats on the win!
Wow, I never thought to consider the odds. I hardly ever enter when the entries are high, but if I can get 75 points, why wouldn't I? Love the design by the way!
Love the new blog design!
www.lukerfamilytales.com
I've done all that but adding all those people to google and facebook and twitter who dont add you back is kind of worthless
Love your new design! Look at you the giveaway queen! I do better at winning random stuff. I've won 2 random drawing prizes from friends who have businesses in the last few months. I've also won one giveaway on blogs.
The new blog design looks great!!
Congrats Natalie. I love the new fantastic design. You deserve it.
I'm so glad you were the winner! Thanks for the shout out here and on Twitter! You da best!
I absolutely LOVE the new blog! It's really cute and all the colors work so well together!
The design looks great! And I apparently need to start following your ways, haha!
ah! your blog looks fabulous!! You're so legit! :D
I love your new blog design!!! And holy cow girl...you are on a role with winning things...and I'm still a terrible blogger for not getting you your stuff. I promise I have not forgotten!!
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