New to Entering Blog Giveaways?? Here's some advice.

I have listed the answers to the questions that I have been asked often, from my own sweet friends who are new to blog giveaways.

We were All new at one time  :-)

The 1st few things you want to do BEFORE you click on that first blog giveaway is ... Log in to your facebook account, your twitter account, your google + account and your pinterest account. If you do not already have an account for all of those sites, now is the time to start one. There will be many potential entries just for having accounts at all those sites and being able to add, "Like", tweet, follow, etc .. is very important.

To "Log In" does not mean you have to leave all those windows open. Make sure to click the "Remember Me" right below your log in information, so the cookies from those accounts will stay on your computer and you can go back to those sites whenever needed, without keeping too many windows open.

Another new kid on the block is Bloglovin. If you don't have an account with them yet, Get one. It's easy to sign up, just use your facebook account or your email account. *When asked on a blog giveaway to provide your bloglovin user name.. you should put down either your FB name or email address that you used to sign up with on bloglovin.*

**If you need an invite to Pinterest or help setting up an account on any of the sites above, just send me an email, I will be happy to help you :-) **

Most blog giveaways use an app for giveaways, one of the most popular apps is "Rafflecopter". Click the "Log in with Facebook", as this will make it easier for you to get a lot of bonus entries.

- If the giveaway has an entry that says "Share this to your facebook and leave your link here." Scroll to the top or the bottom of the giveaway post and look for the share buttons. Find the solid blue "F" (I say this because some blogs have a facebook "like" button as well as the solid blue share button, for a new user this can be confusing.). Once you click that button, a post for FB pops up. Make sure it says "share with public" and has the world icon (see pic below), instead of the people icon that just shares with your friends. Once you have shared the post on your FB wall, Open another window and go to your FB profile page, find that new post you just shared from the giveaway and find the time stamp.

See where I have underlined in red? That's your time stamp. You will need to hover your mouse over it, the date and time will appear in a small box, right click on it. You will see a drop down menu... like this

Then left click on the "Copy link address", Go back to the giveaway page and hold down your "Ctrl" button on your keyboard and while its down click "v" . This will paste your link into the box. Viola!!

- Optional (sometimes Daily entry) Tweet. When you get to the Entry that asks you to "Tweet", Click the button they provide to post the tweet that they have already set up. Then go to your twitter account, I always click where it says the number of tweets I have made... Look for the tweet you just made, here's mine

Hover your mouse over the time stamp (mine is 46s) and you should see the time and date of the post, click or double click on that. (sometimes I have to double click for it to open to a new screen). Then it should look like this ..

Notice the area highlighted in yellow. You will need to copy (ctrl + c) and paste (ctrl + v) the link into the blog giveaway where it says "Link to tweet" or whatever wording the blogger puts there :-) They ALL want to see where you actually tweeted. Here's an example.

Then click the Green button to collect your entry. The more you do this, the easier it gets.

- When asked for your Pinterest name, Go to your Pinterest account and copy (ctrl+c) your url. Here's mine.

Then paste (ctrl+v) into the box for your blog entry. You could put down your name, but how many other people in this world have your name? I know I am NOT the only Renea Greathouse in the USA. Even though there are not a lot of us, putting in my url is a fire proof way of saying "this is me!!" But yeah, Sometimes I will put both, if it doesn't say "pinterest url" I'll put my name AND my url, because I don't want to be confused with anyone else who shares my name.

-- Just remember, All of the blog giveaway entries can be checked, so don't take an entry if you didn't do the task to earn it. If they find out that you did take an entry but find no proof that you did the task, it's an automatic disqualification.

If you have any questions or advice that I haven't discussed here, please leave me a comment. It could really help a new user in need.

Here's some useful facts that I found out the hard way.
- Facebook only allows you to "Like" 5,000 pages.
- Twitter only allows you to "Follow" 2,000 people/pages

When you read those facts do they make you laugh and think "I'll never get that many!!!"

I've hit my limit on Twitter several times, I often switch accounts so I can wait a month or two before deleting everyone I followed on that account, without losing entries to contests or giveaways.

I hit my limit on facebook 5 months ago and struggled for a month to unlike pages without disqualifying myself from any sweeps I had entered. Of course it took me a little over a year and a half to hit that limit, but when you enter as many contests, sweepstakes and giveaways that I do, it's easy to rack up some liked pages.
I recently had to make a new account on FB, since facebook wouldn't let me "like" any new pages. I found this to be highly unfair and even though I've had my old account since 2009, My passion needed to be satisfied.

I figure I will wait until 2014 before I start Un-liking the 5,000 pages on my old account. It takes a lot of time to un-like that many pages and between taking care of my family (which includes my elderly mom, 4 nieces and 1 nephew, 4 step kids and an awesome hubby) and the hundreds of other things that I have to do, un-liking pages is low on my list.

Hopefully my advice will help a new user to entering blog giveaways. I absolutely LOVE reading reviews and entering. I find a lot of useful things on blogs, not just giveaways. I am a complete coupon-ista and I'm so frugal I can make a penny beg for mercy, so finding coupons and shopping deals are high on my list too. Not only do we have to buy Christmas presents for our 9 children , but we also try and be secret santa for at least 3 more children every year (and last year we were able to be secret santa to 5!! Because I had won some gift cards and we were able to use them to purchase more toys.)

I must stop this post.
I'm a rambler.
:-)