A seriously sweet win!

Comping is a wonderful hobby; like any other hobby there are times when it is more fun and times when you just get bored and maybe stop doing it for a few weeks. I had a couple of weeks last month where I didn't enter any competitions at all and a couple more weeks where I entered a few here and there.

I often think that it doesn't matter whether the win is large or small, it can be just as exciting to receive that winning email (known as WEM in the comping world), social media message or good old-fashioned letter. Today I have received two prizes that I won a week or two back, the first bought a smile to my face when I opened it:

I won these courtesy of New Magazine and Maoam via New Magazine's twitter page. Have to say that the bag was opened for testing purposes *cough* not long after the had been unpacked.

The other prize I received today was strip spot-lights, which are going in the hallway to brighten it up as we don't have windows there. I will take a photograph of them once they are up so that I can properly thank the sponsors. I do think it is important to thank companies for running competitions. Although we all know that they run competitions for the express purpose of promoting their products, they don't have to promote them in this particular way; I think that thanking them for doing so is a great way to let them know that we appreciate it and that it is working as a way to get new people looking at their products.

The rewards of comping

It's funny how even the smallest prize can bring a smile to your face when you win. This week has felt really stressful, purely because some small things have cropped up. However this week I have had four winning notifications. The largest of these was an email from litecraft today to let me know I had won their 'Great British Bake-off' inspired competition. The prize was any one of four lights that I got to choose.

I also had a notification from La Redoute that I had won an Abrams and Chronicle book, plus a message from New! Magazine that I have won a packet of Maoam Rhubarb pinballs. Those will be heading straight for my stomach once they arrive. But that doesn't cover all of my wins for this week; I have also won a couple of books and keyrings that I am looking forward to receiving.

Comping is an excellent hobby and can be great fun. There an awful lot of very friendly people out there who are willing to help people new to the hobby understand what they need to do to enter and how to avoid the pitfalls. One of the biggest things has to be people not reading instructions properly and so they end up not entering the competition. That, of course, means that they never win. Since that works the same in exams - people not reading the question properly and so not achieving high grades - I'm just going to go with thinking that it gives me a better chance of winning! 

Twitter and facebook competitions

Everyone has different things that they enjoy, whether that is an energetic hobby like cycling or a slightly more easy-going habit of reading everything in sight. Most people will know by now that I am disabled due to chronic pain conditions, which feels a lot worse than it sounds, meaning that I am unable to participate in any of the more physical hobbies that I used to love; weight training, hiking and swimming have gone the way of the Dodo for me. So instead I have been annoying the hell out of all my friends by comping.

Many of the competitions that I enter are online via social media such as facebook or twitter. One of the things that I have noticed is that when people first begin entering competitions via these sites they don't always enter correctly. This, of course, means that it is impossible for them to win. So I thought I would post a quick guide to entering social media competitions.

For facebook competitions you must enter using the original post that has been put online by the competition sponsor or the site providing the prize. Many people make the easy-to-do mistake of simply sharing the post that appears on their friends timeline. Unfortunately as this is simply your friends shared post, this means that you aren't entered into the competition or giveaway. What you need to do is:

• Click on your friend's shared post to bring up the original - or go to the sponsor's facebook page and look for the original competition post.
• Make sure that you read the instructions carefully - most will simply ask you to like their facebook page, the post and to share. Technically facebook doesn't allow sharing to be part of competition requirements, but many sites put it anyway. I err on the side of caution and share.
• If the instructions say to comment with a particular phrase or ask you a question - make sure that you do so. Check carefully, because I've messed up more than once with this!

For twitter competitions, once again you must make sure that you re-tweet the original post and not the your friend's re-tweet or you will not be entered.

• Again, your options are to either click on the re-tweet until it flicks up a pop-up of the original post, or simply go to the sponsor's twitter profile page and find the original.
• Make sure that you read the instructions carefully - I can't emphasise this enough.
• If it asks you to re-tweet, simply click on the button on the post that looks like two arrows forming a square.
• You may be asked to reply with a message/answer to a question as well as the re-tweet. Make sure that you do so with any hashtag key words or correct answers that they sponsor asks for - and make sure that you use their @address!

And that is pretty much it. The biggest problem that I have seen is people inadvertently replying on a shared post rather than the original. You will find that a lot of the time people do go out of their way to explain this, so if you are unsure about anything to do with entering competitions - just ask a comper!