How to enter most blog giveaways!

I remember entering my first few giveaways. I was SO lost. I felt like a fish out of water.The first time I ever came across a blog giveaway, it was by accident. A friend of mine was posting on her wall about some cloth diaper stuff and as a mommy who was interested in starting cloth, I wanted to win some before buying them. I am not quite sure which blog it was, but I remember they had over 1,000 followers and the contest had well over 300 entries. I didn't win. I was not doing twitter at the time, I didn't have a blog and I wasn't sure how to keep track of what I entered, so I only entered them once. Recently I have been contacted by a few people on how to enter my giveaways, so I am going to lay it all out for you. Let me know if I lose you on something. 

FIRST OFF: 

Most of the blogs have MANDATORY ENTRIES that require you to follow their blog via GFC (Google Friend Connect). This is SO simple and once you sign up, you are good to go with all the other blogs. I LOVE Google by the way, I used to use Hotmail and got hacked into but that is another story. Click on the FOLLOW button and look at your options, I am sure by now you have some sort of email, so just click on what fits for you. ALSO Make sure you are following Publicly, I believe that is an automatic thing but look as you are clicking through to make sure. We LOVE our readers and it not only makes us happy to see our count go up, but when we are trying to get reviews/giveaways on our blog, companies look at that number too. The more followers, the more awesome giveaways!! Besides, I know that most of us will catch if you are not following publicly or at all and pick a new winner. 

NEXT: 

Do as many EXTRA ENTRIES as you can! I ONLY started twitter to get those extra daily entries, then I got hooked. You could open a twitter account which again is VERY EASY and use it strictly for your giveaway entries. Most of us provide exactly what to post, to make it easy for you, all you have to do is copy and paste it into your tweet box and tweet away. When you do this, click on the date/time stamp and it will open up a new window for that tweet. Click on the address at the top of the screen and copy and paste it into the comments field, UNDER THAT GIVEAWAY. 

Here.. here are a few examples of what I am talking about.

@TheRhinoMissesRebecca

Test!!

1 minute ago via web Favorite Reply Delete

^^^^^^^^^^= time/date stamp.. click on this and it will open up and give you that exact tweet address, so we can verify it, if you win using that comment. 

This, is that tweet address

http://twitter.com/#!/TheRhinoMisses/status/56949933764378625 <--- check it out!

That address above it what I would post as a comment. The same can be done for Facebook. If you don't Facebook, think about doing it, JUST to get those extra entries and nothing more. 

As you may or may not know, I only started my blog at first to earn the extra entries into these giveaways. I didn't want a page full of buttons and links so I actually started playing around with it. Making it look pretty, then I started getting hooked. I LOVE my blog, I LOVE my readers, I LOVE the comments I get and I LOVE being able to host reviews and giveaways for everyone else.

Tweeting daily for my giveaways allows me to keep up on my entries. I open two windows for Twitter, one is on the "Home" screen and the other is on the "Your Tweets" Screen. 

On the "Your Tweets" page I scroll down to beginning of the day before and just copy and paste them into the "Home" Screen tweet field, and one at a time click on the time/date stamp (as we talked about above) and then copy the tweet address, and in that screen I click on the link to the blog that it goes too. After I paste my comment, I go back to my twitter home screen and start over again. 

Example

@TheRhinoMissesRebecca

"Spring Fling Blog Event with more than 30 giveaways and reviews! April 3-16http://tinyurl.com/4x4yuut RT @hayatiggs"

now via web Favorite Reply Delete

This is one of my tweets. I would get into the associated blog by clicking on the address posted. Make sense? 

Another thing, a lot of blogs out there, including mine allow you to gain an extra entry daily by voting for our blogs via Picket Fence Blogs (that cute blue button to the right.) This is just a way of recognizing our blogs to other bloggers or people who are looking for great blogs to go too. Simply click on the button you see and it puts your vote in. If you look hard enough, as I wasn't sure what I was looking for it will say something like this.. 

"You have just voted for One More Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest! Remember, you can vote every day. Undo Vote"

Very simple! This can be done for any blogs you visit,  daily. I used to think I could only post it for one blog a day and ended up missing extra entries.

Just post "Voted @picket fence blogs" OR copy what it says after you voted and past into the comment under that giveaway. Voting once can also allow you to gain an extra entry into each giveaway you are entered into (on my blog)

MOST IMPORTANTLY!! 

READ through the entries. Some offer picket fence, Some don't. Some offer tweets, some don't. Some offer FB posts, some don't. You get the idea. A lot of blogs have a standard way of entering, so you will be able to recognize them as you enter more often. Sometimes we offer extra entries AFTER the giveaways are posted, just look through each day/night as you are entering to see that nothing has changed or been added.  ALSO, make sure to pay attention to dates and whether they are open to your country or not.

Last and final thing

I offer anywhere from 1-5 entries for completing one thing, I let you know that by putting +1 or +2 in front of the extra entries. To collect on all your entries pay attention to how many you are allowed and post a comment for as many times as it offers. AND MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL!! 

I hope I have touched on the main points of entering the giveaways, so you can get started feeling confident. I have had a pretty successful track in entering blog giveaways, check out just some of the things I have won, and then see some of the things I am currently entered into.  Here!  

If you can think of more tips of the blog giveaway world, please post them here OR If you find yourself even more confused than before, let me know!!  Have fun! & See what giveaways I am currently hosting.