Just a quick question re: Facebook

purplevamp

This is quite interesting, I'm learning a lot about Facebook. MustangSally1 that's quite an impressive haul :T. I think I'll do a combination of the suggestions here and see what happens. Thank you all for your posts.
Congratulations Kitten Pie

Treacle1983

Hi I am the editor for competitionclub on facebook and twitter

Here is a copy and paste of my facebook guide: Hope it helps!

SANDY’S COMPING GUIDE TO FACEBOOK:

3 STEPS TO GET YOU READY TO START COMPING ON FACEBOOK:
Comping on facebook is very simple and straight forward – as long as you understand what you are doing and get set up correctly.

1)
Firstly you need to set up a facebook account – although a lot of compers set up a 2nd account to use just for comping this is against facebook rules and I advise against it. So if you already have a facebook account – use that one!

2)
If you have non-comping friends you are going to want to let them know about your new comping hobby otherwise they will think you are spamming them and get possibly upset. There is an easy way to use 1 facebook account for all your needs.
Simply let your friends know this:

If you have non-comping friends on your facebook account and don't want to spam and annoy them with all the competition posts.
Let them know that they can 'unsubscribe' from getting your posts showing up in their newsfeed altogether or choose to allow just certain types of post.

It's easy - they can either:

GO TO YOUR FACEBOOK PROFILE where there is an option along the top right called 'subscribe' which if clicked will show a drop down menu with all the choices on. They can choose to completely unsubscribe - which means none of your posts will show in their newsfeed or one of the other options such as 'only important' or 'only status updates'

OR

CLICK IN THE TOP RIGHT CORNER OF ONE OF YOUR POSTS which will bring up the same subscription menu and choices as above.


3)
Now you will need to make a decision with this next one: When you share post on facebook in order to enter a competition – the post MUST be shared as ‘public’ otherwise the promoter will not be able to see that you have entered and you won’t be entered into the competition!

So either change the setting as a default in your facebook account settings so you always post as public.
OR
Every time you enter a like and share type competition - make sure you change it in the corner to public before sharing to your page.



NOW YOU ARE READY TO ENTER SOME COMPETITIONS!!

To start with you aren’t going to know where to go to find the competitions – so find us on facebook by visiting this link http://www.facebook.com/pages/Competition-Club/143300759059767 and make sure and press the ‘like’ button so our updates and posts will show up in your newsfeed.

How to enter your 1st Facebook Competition
Scroll through our facebook page and find a competition that you fancy entering – we try to make it nice and easy by telling you in our post what the prize is, when the competition ends and what you need to do to enter, we even give you the links to click on!

Once you have found a competition to enter – read our post to find out what you need to do:
Competitions on facebook can involve: playing a game, filling in a form, liking, sharing or commenting in a specific area, tagging yourself in a photo, posting a specific phrase to your facebook status, or many other things..

LIKE AND SHARE
For most competitions you simply need to like and share a competition post.
In this case click the link at the bottom of our post which normally has ‘link to the competition post’ written just before it and you will be taken to the competition post on the promoters page – which is where you will need to enter.
Make sure you ‘like’ their page and then simply press the ‘like’ and ‘share’ buttons at the very bottom of the competition post.
Personally I always write a comment as well – even if they haven’t asked for it – something like ‘entered’ or ‘liked and shared’ so it’s nice and clear to the promoter that I’ve done what they’ve asked.


TAGGING A PHOTO
Make sure you ‘like’ the facebook page of the promoter – otherwise you won’t be able to tag the photo.
Find the competition photo – we will normally give you a link to the photo album on the promoters page.

At the bottom right corner of the photo should be an option called ‘tag’ press it and move your curser onto the photo – click and it will come up with a box to enter in a name of who you wish to tag – start writing your name and when you see yourself in the list click it.
Then simply press done tagging.

Photo’s can hold up to 50 tags – so if you get a message saying you cannot tag because the photo is full – don’t worry – just see of there is another photo to tag or simply comment saying you cannot tag as it’s full but would like to be entered – most promoters will accept that instead.


UPDATING YOUR STATUS AND TAGGING A COMPANY IN IT
Sometimes to enter a competition you will be asked to post a specific phrase as a status update – these normally will have the promoters facebook name in blue or they’ll ask you to tag them in the status.

Check you have ‘liked’ their page

Copy the phrase they want posted and go to your homepage

Paste the phrase in the ‘update your status’ box then you need to edit it – so don’t go posting it up just yet

If the promoters name is in the phrase already – then move your curser to the beginning of their name and type in the @ symbol then move you curser to the end of their name and start deleting a letter at a time til their name comes up in a little box below your curser – click their name

If their name is not already in the phrase – simply type in the @ symbol and start typing their name until it comes up for you to select.

If do correctly – once you post the status update their name will be in blue writing and the post will be visible to them on their page.


CONGRATULATIONS YOU’VE ENTERED YOU’RE FIRST FACEBOOK COMPETITION!!


FINDING WINS
A lot of facebook promoters – will not contact you if you have a win
Instead they will post your name up on their facebook page as a winner and ask you to contact them to claim your prize.

It is very very easy to therefore miss wins on facebook

I suggest the following:

GOOGLING FOR WINS:

Google yourself on a regular basis - personally I google myself a few times a week.

I use the following when I search - feel free to borrow this:

congratulations OR congrat OR winner OR won "sandy hallett"

obviously - change the name in the brackets to the name/s you use when entering competitions. It is also a good idea to check for incorrectly spelt wins - for example - I also search with my surname spelt: halet, hallet, halett

When you have pressed the search button you can go into the advanced search options on google (which is an option near the search bar on the right or if you are logging in on google in the very top right - looks like a cog wheel symbol.)
From the advanced search options you can choose things like searching for a specific timeframe (I always pick monthly) and even from a specific site - so if you only enter competitions on facebook - you could type facebook.com into the site name box.
These are handy hints for if you have a popular name.

You can also set up google alerts - which will email you when new hits for your search term are found - this does seem to be a bit hit and miss but worth setting up as a backup thing: http://www.google.com/alerts

CHECKING FOR WINS ON FACEBOOK

Request to join The Winners Circle group on facebook http://www.facebook.com/groups/315412321841373/?ref=ts where members post up lists of winners they spot for facebook competitions and if a member is friends with someone in one of the posts – they tag them in a comment so their friend spots it.

Request to join the group and then visit regularly and type your name or part of it into the search box to check for wins.

You can also search for your name via facebook - there is a little search bar at the top in the middle - type in your name and press the search icon on the right. You will have a page come up saying all results with possibly more people with the same name. press the 'posts by friends' and the 'posts by everyone' in turn which should appear in a small list on the left hand side. This will then bring up posts/tag etc.. which mention your name from pages you like/friends and then everyone.

Check your facebook messages on a regular basis for winning messages - and don't forget to check the 'OTHERS' folder - simply click 'messages' and then 'other' which should be underneath the word messages when you go in.


That’s it really – all the basics to get you started in facebook comping

HAPPY COMPING!!

Sandy

purplevamp

:T Thank you so much for that Treacle, I've put your post in my favourites so that I can refer to it :T

Ladychelington

brilliant treacle1983! Thank you so much :T:T:T

grannybiker

I don't know whether this helps, but I only have my "Real Life" Facebook account since my comping one was closed down.

I have far less friends now (Grannybiker was a bit of a FB tart who pretty much had everyone who asked!) as I'm not comfortable with all my RL stuff being "Out there." My comping friends are all folk I've talked to or interacted with, so feel I can trust.

All my comping friends are in a group. You can put friends into a group via the drop down list next to their names on your friend list. When I'm asked to share a comp, I only share it with this group

As Treacle says tho', this may mean it's not visible to the company running the comp. To get around this, I tag them on the comment part of the Share so they'll see it- Really hoping it works anyhow or I've been wasting my time!

HTH