Competition Winners – a new Facebook group

If you enter competitions on Facebook then you’re probably aware of the big problem – how on earth do you know if you’ve won?

Prize draws and comps hosted on Facebook apps are great because they either allow a promoter access to the entrant’s registered Facebook email address, or the promoter collects details via an entry form. But for comps on a Facebook timeline where you simply have to like, share or comment to enter, the promoter has no access to an email address and can only attempt to contact a winner using these methods:

• Announcing the winner in a new post/status update – and hope the winner sees it!
• Replying to the winner’s comment or announcing them in a comment on the original competition post – but sometimes Facebook notifications are unreliable
• Tagging the winner’s name on the original competition post – but pages can only tag people who have commented on the post and it can’t be guaranteed a winner will get the notification
• Sending the winner a message via their Facebook profile – this will either appear as a Message Request, or go to the Filtered Messages folder, which lots of people aren’t aware of!

There are several things you should be doing to ensure you never miss a win – check your inbox (including Filtered Messages) daily, search for your name using www.google.com/search (see my video guide here)  and www.social-searcher.com, and join the Facebook group Competition Winners.

About the Competition Winners group

Unlike other closed and secret groups, Competition Winners is an open group where anyone can search to see if they have been announced as a winner in a UK competition or prize draw without having to join. Winning emails, messages, status updates or Facebook notifications are often missed, and the purpose of this group is to help people claim their prizes by sharing these announcements, and where possible tagging group members or friends who may have missed them. 

The success of the group is dependent on members posting, so please do join the group and help out!

• The best way to share a winners list is to copy the direct link to a Facebook post  – right-click or ctrl-click the ‘timestamp’ (time/date) on a post and select ‘copy link address’. Then paste as a new post in Competition Winners – this is better than sharing, as the page admin won’t see that it’s been shared in a group (a few pages aren’t keen on compers!)
• Ideally add the winners name(s) to your post – this is because the SEARCH only works on names posted directly in the group, rather than shared links.
• You can also simply highlight the text to copy and paste a full Facebook post (including the page/promoter name), but including a link is helpful for winners to track down the original announcement.
• If you’re on a mobile, you can tap the ‘timestamp’ on a post, then scroll down to Share and choose ‘Copy Link’ – or simply screenshot a winners list and upload it as a photo post – add the name too if possible.
• Members can help out by tagging winners in a post or comment – type @ and then their name. If they are a group member, a friend or even a friend of a friend, the name will automatically pop up. Tag them and they get a Facebook notification – this means we can contact far more winners than a closed group!
  
• If you decide to join, you’ll probably want to turn off Group Notifications (top right) so you don’t get a message about every post!
  
• Search the group for posts at the top right by typing in your name – this will search any text posted in the group, but not the text in shared links, so you may want to pop in regularly to scroll through the latest announcements. Note: you can’t search using the Facebook app on a mobile device, so open your browser app, navigate to the group and choose ‘Request Desktop site’ from the browser menu. Or download the ‘Groups’ app and search using that.
• Add Competition Winners to your Facebook Favorites menu at www.facebook.com/groups/?category=membership – dragging it to your browser’s Bookmarks Bar is a good idea too!

You can find the group at www.facebook.com/groups/CompWinners, please share the link with your comping friends and add them to the group — admin must approve every member so you may need to wait to be accepted. Be sure to read the ABOUT section for rules and advice.

Lucky Learners

Don’t forget, if you’re new to comping there’s also the Lucky Learners group at www.facebook.com/groups/luckylearners for chat, advice and the chance to add comping friends. Once you add a few compers, they will know to look out for your name and tag you in Competition Winners.

Be lucky!