Rita Reviews

living my best possible southern life

How To Enter My Giveaways

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I am not one big on rules and telling people what to do. I did, however want to share with all of you how to enter my giveaways. I make every effort to keep things as simple as possible but after  bit of confusion last week I thought I would give everyone the basic rundown.

Rafflecopter Form

I use Rafflecopter to manage my giveaways. This may change in the future but as of now this is it. Entering on the Rafflecopter form is pretty straight forward and simple. You follow the instructions and then click enter. There are times when I need extra information and I will usually tell you what it is I am looking for.

 

Mandatory Entry:

99% of all of my giveaways have some sort of Mandatory Entry. It is usually visiting the sponsor’s (of the giveaway) site and liking an item. I do every once in a while have one that doesn’t require anything first. The main thing is that you do whatever the entry asks. Comments that say things like pick me may not be counted as an actual entry if you didn’t do the mandatory one first. Believe it or not I do check each and every entry, when I say.. me I mean I have a teenage niece who I pay to double-check each and every entry. She’s young and get through them all much quicker than I can!

 

Newsletter Subscriber Entry:

I put a code in my newsletters every other week. This is the “extra information” I may ask for. The code must be put into the space provided on the Rafflecopter entry. Putting in the comments doesn’t count. The newsletter also tells you how many times you may use the code, the number of giveaways you may use it on, and when it expires. This entry is only valid for Newsletter subscribers.

 

Facebook Fan of the Week Entry:

Each week a fan of the week is selected on Facebook. If you are selected you may take 1 set of entries into the giveaway of your choice. As part of the extra information just list your Facebook name. This way I can make sure it is you. In order to be in the running to be selected as an FB Fan of the Week all you have to do is like Rita Reviews on Facebook and interact with us over there. The more you like and comment the better your chances are of winning.

 

Selecting A Winner:

Rafflecopter draws the winner randomly for me (which save me a ton of work), then I email the winner. Once the winner has confirmed and given me their information I announce them on my Winner’s Board (under Giveaways in the top menu bar.) I also take the Rafflecopter form down from the giveaway page. The reason I do that is to keep load times optimal.  I have checked other blogs and some do this and some don’t. Right now I do, it possible that down the road I will stop doing it. I don’t want you to come to my blog and then have to wait forever for the page to load.  There are times when Rafflecopter loads slowly as it is so my hopes is that taking the older ones down helps with that.

 

Winners:

If you are lucky enough to win one of my giveaways I would a photo of you and your prize. Please feel free to email it to me and I will add it to my Facebook page and here. I am hoping that you will all share pics so others can see all of my awesome winners!

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Good to know, I didn’t know about your Facebook fan of the week. Do you email the fan to let them know? I need to check your facebook page more often. Thanks for clarifying the rules.

  2. I try and visit on FB- but goodness knows facebook isn’t my strong suit 🙂

  3. Although I don’t like photos of me…I think submitting a photo is a great idea from someone that wins, if they can! (no problem of course for the person who wins your Canon bundle;)
    Thanks for clarifying your rules. I think I should have it figured out by now but often in my brain fog forget a mandatory requirement and voila’, a missed opportunity to try a great product. I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer as they say.

    • I thought the photos (if the winner wants to) would be a great way of showcasing their prize. If you wanted you could always just take a picture of the prize.

  4. Thanks for this info. I think the Rafflecopter is pretty straightforward and easy to use. It does load slowly sometimes, but as long as there isn’t more than one form on a page, it’s not a problem. Some of the giveaway sites have all their Rafflecopters on the main page, which freezes up my browser every time.

    One thing that confuses me, but I haven’t seen it in your giveaways, is when there is an entry for Subscribe via RSS, and it asks you to enter the email you used to subscribe with. I use Bloglines for RSS, and you wouldn’t be able to verify that with my email address. So I usually put in the URL for my public Bloglines page that shows all my subscriptions, and hope for the best.

    Thanks again for all of these great giveaways!

    • That very reason is why I don’t include RSS as an entry. I too use a Reader for RSS and hate when they ask me to signup with my email.I get a ton of emails already.I hope that people sign up for my Rss feed because they want to stay in the loop but it is also posted on my Facebook page