How often does this happen...... you are looking at your Facebook news feed and a friend's share of a competition pops up in front of you. You'd like to enter the competition, so you click on Like and Share, and maybe add a comment. And hey presto..... you HAVEN'T entered the comp! All you've done is like, share and comment on your friend's share of it. How on earth is the promoter supposed to know you've done that? It's your friend who gets the notification of your interaction, while the promoter gets nothing and sees nothing.
You always, always ALWAYS need to do your liking, sharing and commenting on the promoter's original post. Otherwise you're simply wasting your time!
If you find the idea hard to understand, think about it like entering a postcard competition from a magazine. Let's take Prima as an example. There are always lots of postcard competitions in it, which are usually entered by sending a postcard to their handling house. Your friend might buy a copy of Prima and enter the competitions then pass on her copy of the magazine to you. (OK, it could be HIS copy, I'm not being sexist here but it is classed as a woman's magazine!)
You then decide to enter the postcard competitions. Would you address the postcards to the friend who had given you the magazine? Of course you wouldn't, you'd send them to Prima, just as she had done!
So if you are ever confused about what you should be liking, sharing and commenting on on Facebook (or retweeting on Twitter, or repining on Pinterest) just think of the postcard analogy to remind you that only entries sent directly to the promoter will reach the promoter!
I have a couple of followers on Twitter and also on FB who keep on reposting or retweeting my entries. I've told both of them twice and they've thanked me and haven't done it for a while but then slip back and do it again. I'm not sure what to say to either of them now as I'm worried it would come across that I'm being rude but I'm just worried that not only are they not entering (I'm thinking Twitter here) but they also might be negating my entry if the promoter sees my name twice! What can I do now?
ReplyDeleteIf they aren't close friends, the best thing to do is block them - it sounds harsh but it stops them from doing it. If you don't want to do that, on Twitter you can delete the tweet that they've retweeted. Make sure you copy it first, and then tweet it again straight afterwards. Deleting your tweet deleted all retweets of it, but the person won't RT your new one as they'll think they've already done it. If they are resharing your shares on Facebook, you have nothing to worry about - the promoter won't see it at all and they won't be entered into the competition.
DeleteTwitter is slightly different in regards to - if you get a notification saying XX has RTed a competition tweet you have RTed - it has not invalidated your entry, and in fact the other person does have a valid entry too, twitter has just decided to notify you about it.
ReplyDeleteIf they have RTed a TWEET that you have made, you can delete as Jane has said above.
I have seen bots win from rting tweets though.. so :shrug:
Jane is right about facebook though ^^ best to click right through to the company on Facebook and go from there.
Good article Jane, thank you :)
Great advice thanks Jane, I did struggle with Twitter and spent excessive hours on it so I deactivated my account a few months ago (although I might open a new account later this year for non-comping). I know of many people who do not use Facebook and Twitter correctly in this respect (me included but hopefully rarely) and urge us all to share this article with friends. Mike
ReplyDeleteThanks Mike, I try to find "real life" (as opposed to online life!) comparisons to help to make things clear - I hope the magazine analogy helps people to remember it
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