A polite suggestion.... And a bit of help!

jaibaby · 2 October 2013 at 7:27PM

Having a competition just end on my blog, I was quite stunned to have to disqualify no less than 11 entries picked as a winner. And that was without going through every single entry!!

It occurred to me that maybe people don't understand how to use Rafflecopter. Most comps hosted through RC are easy, some have just one entry, others can have hundreds

But, however many ways, they can help in the way to winning

So here's Jaibaby's guide to entering Rafflecopter comps

I'm using this post (thanks Lakshmi7) to help explain some points.

Firstly, you DON'T have to be a Facebook or Twitter user. You can sign up with just your email address. But you may have to have one or the other for a mandatory option (if any) so please remember to check!
Many have a daily entry, some have a few daily entries - check & bookmark!
Check to see what options, if any, are mandatory - if it says "you can earn X more entries today, it normally means those showing are mandatory.
ALWAYS read the T&Cs - obviously this goes for all comps, not just RC - the T&Cs should clear up any queries about daily entries and any mandatory options, as well as inform you about the age / location etc that the entrant must be.
If they ask a question - answer it! So many people write something along the lines of "Great comp, thanks!" When the promoter asked a question such as "What is your favourite flavour?"

If you go to the HeyUGuys Rafflecopter comp - you'll see it asks you to sign in. You can either sign in with Facebook or email.

On this particular comp, there are no mandatory entries - which mean you can enter as little or many as you like. Obviously you need to enter at least one, but you can choose which one you like from:

Answering a question
Tweet about the giveaway
Like their Facebook page
Follow their Twitter
Follow another Twitter
Subscribe to their YouTube
Follow them on Instagram

This is a nice simple Rafflecopter comp, but still people get confused. Especially with the Tweet (often daily).

When you click on the button next to "Tweet about the giveaway", it'll come up with a box.

Now, this is where people are missing out. You MUST click the little "Tweet" button in the box - which will bring this up:

Then click on the "Tweet" and watch for the screen to change to this:

[URL="[URL=http://s1296.photobucket.com/user/jaibaby84/media/9f624f91-7a6b-454a-af66-acb6883dc045_zps29c93728.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1296.photobucket.com/albums/ag7/jaibaby84/9f624f91-7a6b-454a-af66-acb6883dc045_zps29c93728.jpg[/IMG][/URL]"][/url]

Now you can do one of three things.You can click on "View it on Twitter" - this will bring up your tweet in a new page, where you can copy the link. If you're not quick enough, just go to your Twitter profile, find the tweet, right-click the time stamp (where it says "8s ago", "5 mins ago" etc.) and copy that link. Or you can right-click on "View it on Twitter" if you're fast enough, and copy that way. Then all you need to do is paste the link in the Rafflecopter

Another big mistake on Rafflecopter is that when it comes to comments on Blog posts, follows on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram - is that people sometimes don't use the same name.

Same goes for Twitter and Facebook usernames. They are both so simple to find yet many get it wrong! Go to your homepages on both and you'll be able to find them easily! Twitter is the name that comes up when you tweet or the one that people add when they want to talk to you - mine is @thecrazperfblog for example. Facebook is a little more difficult, go to your homepage and copy the web address - it should look something like https://www.facebook.com/TheCrazyPerfectBlog or it'll have a series of numbers instead of words .com/xxxxxxxx - if you're having any trouble, give me a shout and I'll help!

I've done it, used jaibaby as a username on something but put my real name in the Rafflecopter form

Massive fail on my part because if I was lucky enough to be picked, the promoter wouldn't be able to link my username with my real name. Such a simple mistake but so often done

Don't let the number of entries put you off - at the end of the day, it takes one entry to win. And with some RC comps, there are 100s of entries available for any person, so it doesn't truly reflect the amount of people actually entering!

If you do still struggle, feel free to PM me - I'll help whenever I can, or check out Rafflecopter's Support page

Hopefully there'll be less disqualified entries next time

Wishing you all the best of luck

xx

A big thanks to everyone's contributions in the thread!

Blulu · 2 October 2013 at 7:50PM

:T:T:T

That is sooooooo useful. Do we think it should be C&P to Velvet Glove's guide, or somewhere else, so that when people ask how to do RCs we can point them to this excellent summary?

Blu X

fire**fly · 2 October 2013 at 8:03PM

Blulu wrote: »

:T:T:T

That is sooooooo useful. Do we think it should be C&P to Velvet Glove's guide, or somewhere else, so that when people ask how to do RCs we can point them to this excellent summary?

Blu X

agree blu, velvetglove always asks if we see anything/or want anything added to the comping guide to pm her with the details so she can add it for us all,
thanks jaibaby :T

fire**fly · 2 October 2013 at 8:06PM

sorry, forgot to add post...

velvetglove

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=60294439&postcount=435

Big thank you to all the compers who PM me to let me know when there is something to amend in the Guide. It may be my name on the posts but it is kept up to date by effort from all of us! :beer:

If you do spot anything on the Forums that you think should be added to / amended in the Guide then please send me a PM - I would prefer 15 different members send me a message about the same thing than everyone thinking someone else will do it & I don't get any!

Likewise, if you read anything in the Guide that you think may be old or things have changed, please send me a PM. I have read the Guide so many times now that I can't see things for looking!

Thanks x

................................

Marg2k8 · 2 October 2013 at 8:07PM

Thank you for that. It is very useful. I did enter your competition, because I recall reading on it about people not understanding about how the tweet works.

There is one thing that I wonder if I do right. This is when posting a comment on blogs. I choose the name /URL option if this is available. I put my name, then for the URL, I put the URL of my twitter profile, because I figure the blogger could contact me that way if I were to win. Do you think that this is ok?

Blulu · 2 October 2013 at 8:14PM

Ok, you know how interfering I can be? Don't answer that

Suggestion, what if we leave this for a day or two so that peeps can respond, ask Jaibaby questions and perhaps, if it's not too cheeky an ask, Jaibaby might end up adding/changing bits in response. Then when it seems finished me or someone else can pm VG.

Whadyafink?

Blu X

fire**fly · 2 October 2013 at 8:18PM

Blulu wrote: »

Ok, you know how interfering I can be? Don't answer that

Suggestion, what if we leave this for a day or two so that peeps can respond, ask Jaibaby questions and perhaps, if it's not too cheeky an ask, Jaibaby might end up adding/changing bits in response. Then when it seems finished me or someone else can pm VG.

Whadyafink?

Blu X

fab suggestion blu as always from you :T

Luckyone · 2 October 2013 at 8:21PM

Thank You very helpful & agree we need this on velvetgloves thread

I will more than likely be one of the people who do not fill out the rafflecopter correctly.

I will explain why

I find rafflecopters to post on this forum. When I find a Rafflecopter competition it may well be something I don't actually want to win. But I need to find out if it is a daily tweet. Most Rafflecopters have steps before you can get to the tweet option. So on those ones I cheat & say I have left a comment when I have not, & often need to skip past FB which I don't have either.

I only do this on comps I don't want to win & don't for one moment think I will win them as I have not filled them in correctly & it's a one off to get the details for the forum

I understand this would be annoying if my name was picked out then find I did not enter correctly but I can't think of another way to do it. Plus clicking on the leave a comment one makes it easy to see that I have already entered it & not dupe the comp on the forum.

jeddentad · 2 October 2013 at 8:49PM

re Twitter post link

you can also just alt-click on the "View it on twitter" link and "copy link address"

One-Eye · 2 October 2013 at 9:06PM

jaibaby wrote: »

[*]Check to see what options, if any, are mandatory - if it says "you can earn X more entries today", it normally means those showing are mandatory.

I don't think this is true. They are only mandatory if you want to earn the 'X more entries'.

In the example shown below you can do any one (or more) of the options to get the relevant number of entries. If you just leave a blog comment you get five entries and you can leave it at that. You only have to do all six options to access the extra options.

jeddentad · 2 October 2013 at 9:11PM

I've just got a question come up after viewing a recent rafflecopter which is requiring you to leave your email address as a public comment so they can "contact you" (aka, woot spam bot lovin)

I assumed the person running the Rafflecopter had access to the email address of the account the comper was logged into rafflecopter with?

A polite suggestion.... And a bit of help!

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