How To Find And Enter A Twitter Contest: Win Prizes, Trips, And Money

I've been on twitter now for about 3 years, and in that time, I've won a number of contests solely through my twitter account!

Prizes I've won by entering twitter contests include paid airfare, hotel, and trip to Santa Monica, CA to attend a party at the Playboy Mansion; two tickets to a Red Wings hockey game; tshirts; software; and food.

Contests are constantly starting, so if you're serious about entering, you have to look for them on a daily basis. If there are specific prizes that you're looking to win, it's easier to narrow down your choices. It's also best to only enter one contest a day, at most, so that if a publisher is to look at your twitter stream, they don't ONLY see you tweeting about contests. Most contest holders are looking to pick a winner that can increase the publishers visibility (via retweeting, mentioning the contest, mentioning the prize if they win), and someone who only enters contests on twitter is unlikely to be engaging with a lot of credible followers.

There's a few different types of contests you may find on twitter, including those that just require you to retweet a person to those that promote a contest on another web site.

For the contests that are solely on twitter -- no linking off to another website to enter -- at minimum, you will be required to have a twitter account. Twitter contests may require you to do one of the following to enter:

• Follow the person or brand holding the twitter contest
• Retweet (RT) a specific tweet
• Use a #hashtag in one of your tweets
• Respond to a question or be the first to reply

There's a few tools and methods you can use to find a variety of twitter contests. Every once in awhile, you'll see a friend retweet a contest, but in the case your friends are entering any twitter contests, here's some tips:

• TWTAway: A search engine geared towards finding twitter contests
• Twitter Search: Visit twitter search and type in any of the search engines (or view the RSS feeds above): "RT to win," "RT to enter," "Contests," "Follow to win," "Follow to enter," "win"
• Google: Type in "twitter contest" in Google, select search, then on the results page, select "show options," then on the left hand side under "any time," select "latest"