A bloggy marvellous way to win!

If you are looking for competitions with small prizes and a good chance of winning, rather than huge prizes with a much lower chance, then blogs are the places to look. There are thousands  of blogs around now, often running competitions with prizes related to the theme of the blog. If you're not familiar with blogs and  don't have one of  your own,  it can look a little daunting. There are often several steps to complete and a comment to be made. This means it can take a little longer  to enter a comp on a blog rather than on a "normal" website,  which puts some people off. Hence instead of hundreds or thousands, entries in competitions  on blogs often have just a  few  dozen entries.

So how do you get started? You will find  it very helpful to have a Google ID and a Twitter account. You can set up  a Google ID at http://www.google.com/ or the first time you make a comment on certain blogs.  For information on how to set up a Twitter account, see the Grape Vine website Next, you need to find some competitions on blogs!

Every Friday, SuperluckyDi posts a  blog comp roundup and  Mellow Mummy posts "Prizes for Parents" which mostly features blog competitions. There is also a  list of them on Loquax, updated regularly. Once you have found a  blog whose subject matter interests  you, so it is likely to run competitions you'd like to win, have  a look to see if they have a list of favourite or recommended  blogs. They might also run competitions that interest you. And if there is a link to follow the blogger on Twitter, use it because they will almost certainly tweet about any new  competitions they run.

Once you have  a  Google ID, you will  be able to follow most blogs using Google Friend Connect,  and then you can pop over to www.google.com/reader to see a  summary of all the new  posts in the blogs you follow,to  see what you are interested in reading in more detail. That means you never need to miss  a new competition, or any other article of interest, even if you don't have time to read every blog every day.

Now to entering the actual competitions, and the first rule is "There are no rules". Bloggers are for the most part individuals, not big companies, so  don't expect to find slick organisations with neat lists of terms and  conditions. They are friendly' chatty places and the running of the competitions can be a lot more casual than you are used to. Each blogger will have their own rules and  way to enter, so you really MUST read the instructions  carefully every time. Sometimes you will be asked to follow them with Google, sometimes to comment on an item on the sponsor's website, sometimes to tweet about the competition.

There will often  be a list of tasks. Work through the tasks one at a time  and  make sure you do any that the blogger says you MUST do. If they say you MUST follow them, and you can get an extra entry for tweeting about the competition, it's  not use just posting a comment to say you have tweeted. If you don't follow them, your entry won't count.

You will almost certainly need to leave at least one comment (if you can't see a comments box,click on  the word  "comments" at the top or bottom of the post) , and unless they have an entry form with a separate space for your email address, you will also need to give them a way to contact you if you win. Please, please PLEASE don't give your email address in its normal form. There are dozens of "robots" constantly searching blogs for email addresses  to send spam emails to, and  I'm sure you already get far more spam than you want. Instead, leave your Google or Twitter ID, or write your email address  out replacing the @ with the word AT  - eg instead of fred@bloggs.com write  fred AT bloggs.com. If you leave your Google ID, your Google account must be a  public one or the blogger won't be able to contact you if you win.

Sometimes you will see that there are  several tasks to perform,each giving you an extra entry,  and the blogger asks  you to leave  a  separate comment for each one.  If they do that, it means they are going to number the comments in order to do a random draw, so don't decide to save time by putting everything into one  comment.  If you do that, you'll only get a single entry in the draw.

Blog competitions can be great fun to enter, especially for people who are still mourning the lack of tiebreaker competitions around now,  and you may well make some new friends along the way. Enjoy the journey! And remember, it's fine, in fact it's GOOD, to interact with the blogger. Bloggers do what they do for love  rather than for money, mostly, and even blogs run by bigger businesses are written by a real, friendly person rather than being put together as part of a web page.  Although they can seldom offer big prizes, they can do a lot to make comping a real pleasure!