Blog Giveaways--Free is a Nice Price

When you think of retirees you think of people who have time to engage in hobbies.  For many people it is also a time when money can get tight. What if there was a way to get items to use, sell or give as gifts, and all it took was a few minutes of your time?

Many of my  "Kickfurther Merchant of the Week" posts  include a giveaway--and there is a reason for that.  Giveaways attract readers, which makes both me and the company about which I am writing happy.

Like most online giveaways, mine ask entrants to visit the sponsor's webpage and/or facebook page, to follow me and the sponsor on social media and to spread the word about the giveaway.

How to Find Giveaways

It's great if a blog you follow regularly is offering a giveaway, but how can you find the really GOOD giveaways?  Well, first of all, you have to define "good".  Some people are looking for high-value prizes, but the reality is that giveaways of high-value prizes attract hundreds if not thousands of entries and generally allow multiple entries per person. In short, while the value of the prize may be high, the chances of winning are low.  On the other hand, there are plenty of giveaways in the $10-$30 range that take only a few minutes to enter and which attract few enough entrants to give everyone, particularly those who are willing to take time to earn all the entries, a decent shot at winning.

General Giveaway Link-ups:

Link-ups are a popular way to publicize giveaways.  Below are some link-ups that accept links from any giveaway.  They help bloggers get more entrants for their giveaways and help readers find more contests to enter. 

•  Living Montessori Now
•  Living Well Mom
•   2 Wired 2 Tired
• Stacy Tilton Reviews
• The Steady Hand 
• wahmresourcesite.com
• Frugal & Fabulous

Low Entry Giveaways:

If you only want to enter contests you have reasonable odds of winning, check out these link-ups.  They only allow contests that have fewer entries than their rules allow, and some only allow contests ending within a week.  

•  Low Entry Giveaways ending within week
•  Your Golden Ticket Low Entry Giveaway Linky
•  Airplanes and Dragonflies

Don't forget Google:

I just decided I wanted to win an I-Pad.  I Googled "I-pad giveaway" and sure enough, I found some.

Twitter

Many giveaways required entrants to tweet about the contest.  Go to Twitter and search for #giveaway or # contest 

Your Feed Reader

You are using a feed reader to follow your favorite blogs, aren't you?  My favorites are Bloglovin and Feedly, but there are others out there.  Feed readers allow you to subscribe to your favorite blog and then view the title and first few lines of posts on the reader app or website.  If you find a blog that offers a giveaway that interests you, subscribe to it.  Feed readers allow you to skim through a lot of blogs in a little time, and when those giveaways hit, you can follow the link to enter. 

How to Enter:

Many online contests use either Rafflecopter or Giveaway Tools.  Both offer bloggers either free or paid versions, and of course you are able to do more with the paid versions.  However, on either one, a blogger creates a contest and selects one or more entry methods from the offered choices.  

There are a lot of high-dollar contests what start on one blog, but invite other bloggers to participate, either for free or for a fee.  This can result in giveaways where you can earn dozens of entries by following various bloggers on various forms of social media, by commenting on various blogs and completing other assigned tasks.  

On the other hand, some bloggers simply ask you to leave a comment on their blog in order to enter.  

What Have I Won?

I don't spend a huge amount of time entering blog giveaways because the blogs I frequent don't offer them frequently and I don't have the time to spend a lot of time looking for giveaways.  However, I have won several book giveaways over the years. While most were for individual books, my biggest win to date got me a huge haul. I have won holiday decor and snack samples as well.  Unfortunately, I have not won an I-Pad, yet.  

Which Ones Should I Enter?

It depends.  If you see a prize you'd love to have, enter.  If you see a prize that you know you could sell for substantial money, or that you know a loved one would enjoy, then enter.  However, the more valuable the prize, the longer entering is likely to take and the lower your chances of winning.  I have had my best luck with niche prizes (like a boatload of Catholic reading material) or simple inexpensive prizes simply because few people enter those contests.

Any Other Tricks?

Many people who enter a lot of contests have email and social media accounts just for that purpose.  If you have a Twitter following that cares about financial planning you may not want to innundate them with "enter this contest" tweets, but tweeting is a common way to earn entries in most giveaways.  You may like to keep your Pinterest feed very curated, but many contests ask you to pin things or follow people.  If you have accounts solely for giveaways, you don't have to worry about losing hard-earned followers because they don't want to follow contests.  

Entering blog contests can be time-consuming but it isn't rocket science.  It is something you can do while watching TV or for a few minutes here and there as you surf the web.  Who knows, you could end up winning something really great, and you can't win if you don't enter. 

Leave a comment and let us know if you've won any giveaways!

*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on brokeGIRLrich.*