Competition Entering Tips :)

As I have mentioned a couple of times, I am a massive fan of entering competitions and would go as far as saying it was one of my hobbies! I only started around March last year but between now and then I have won over 125 prizes, totalling over £3,500! I have read stories of people winning over £25,000 of prizes in a year! It's well worth the time it takes to enter competitions, if I'm entering loads of competitions I went through a period of about 4 weeks where I had prizes delivered every day! The biggest prize I have won was £500 cash, as well as the whole range of Xen-Tan Self-Tan range worth £350 and 4 Non-Stick Pampered Chef Saucepans worth £325! In fact I won the Xen-Tan and £500 cash on the same day! It was and always is so exciting when you win something, however big or small!

So here are my tips for entering competitions:

1. I mostly enter competitions on Facebook and Twitter - like or follow any companies you really like, for example, ASOS, Dorothy Perkins, Play.com, New Look, Tesco etc. Then when/if they have competitions you can win something you want!

2. To enter most competitions on Facebook you have to 'Like and Share' a photograph from the companies wall. You can't do this on your phone, so these can only be entered from a laptop/computer. To enter competitions on Twitter you often have to 'Follow and Retweet', this you can do on your phone which is great but does mean loads more people enter, therefore reducing your chances of winning!

3. Friday is the best day of the week for entering competitions on Facebook and Twitter. A lot of companies do a giveaway EVERY Friday, so it's always worth checking their pages on Fridays! Most of the competition's finish at 5pm on Friday, so unfortunately not great if you work all day! Here are some companies with Friday giveaways on Facebook: Discovery Foods, She Likes, Imperial Leather, Steffans, Pick Me Up Magazine and on Twitter: Sacla, Mr Freeze, Wedding Magazine, Tesco Magazine, FD Avenue.

4. Quick Tip for finding Friday competitions on Twitter - Click on 'Discover' and type in #freebiefriday. Any company that has tweeted with this hash tag will come up, click onto their twitter page and retweet the competition tweet. Make sure you follow too, otherwise you won't get entered!

5. Find competitions that require 'effort', it could be submitting a photograph, making something, writing a recipe or getting other friends to like/follow the companies page. In my experience these are the best type of competitions to enter because a lot of people won't bother with the extra effort, consequently resulting in a lot less entrants. The less entrants the higher your chance is of winning!

6. Facebook competitions can also be found by searching the word competition at the top of your Facebook page. This works best once you have 'liked' loads of companies, as they don't all come up on your newsfeed!

7. Keep a list of the competitions you have won and when you won them. A number of times I haven't received my prize, so I've chased it up with the company and they have sent a replacement out. Most companies are really helpful but most will say don't contact them until 28 days after you have won the competition. I have a simple word document with a list of all the competitions I have won, I highlight them yellow when I haven't received them and un-highlight them when I do, so it's clear which ones I'm waiting for.

8. Find smaller companies, who have fewer likes, because there are less people that can enter the competitions. Always search for shops in your local town as they can often have giveaways and don't have thousands of 'likes', increasing your chances!

9. Magazine websites are good for finding loads of competitions in one place, that you don't have to enter through Twitter or Facebook. Magazines like Heat, Reveal, Cosmopoltain etc always have a large amount of competitions, but do bare in mind loads of people will enter them! I have won a Limited Edition bottle of Malibu from Heat magazine but that's it and I've entered hundreds of competitions from their website!

10. Entering competitions does take time! You have to enter the competitions to win, so why not take a couple of hours out of your day to enter competitions! The more competitions you enter the more you are likely to win, on a good day I can enter up to 300 competitions and still not win anything from that day! You may not hear back from competitions until a long time after it's ended, so always check back. The rewards are worth it but it does become very addictive! I've warned you! :)

11. It may sound strange but Google your name and the word 'win'. Once you have entered a lot of competitions you may not remember them all, (some people keep a list of the ones they've entered but I don't) so it's worth every now and again googling your name to see if you've won something that you haven't claimed yet!

12. Once you enter a lot of competitions on Facebook another way to find out if you have won, (without trawling through all of the pages you have entered competitions from!) is through Martin's Money website. If you Google 'Martin's Money Facebook Winner Forum' the first hit should be a Martin's Money Forum called 'Facebook winner's thread'. Some very kind people copy and paste winners from Facebook onto this forum, so you can see if you have won. It also works the other way around, you can see companies that have competitions and like them on your Facebook!

Hope these tips help your competition entering :)

Will you start entering competitions in 2013?