Win More Prizes with Facebook Sweepstakes

Facebook sweepstakes are becoming more and more popular as more people join the Facebook platform.  With such a wide audience to promote to, and such a great means for sharing and spreading, prize games and Facebook seem to be a perfect marriage.

Why is this happening?

There are three main factors involved with the flourishing of sweepstakes on Facebook.

1. Audience.  Any platform that has a lot of users is going to attract these games, because the whole reason they run them is to raise awareness for their product or brand.  The bigger the audience, the better the result.
2. Social sharing. The holy grail of these promotions is to gain "viral lift", where people tell their friends and they tell their friends.  Facebook is built around this kind of viral sharing and so is the perfect tool for viral lift.
3. Sweepstakes platforms.  A number of companies have launched recently that allow companies to quickly and cheaply run sweepstakes on Facebook.  Now companies that in the past could not have afforded a web site and a full sweepstakes can quickly and cheaply set up a Facebook page and put a sweepstakes on it.

What does it mean for me?

Well, more sweepstakes and instant win games means more prizes available, so this is a good thing.  A very good thing.  And a lot of these are very small, meaning not that many people know about them, meaning the odds of winning prizes are better.

Unfortunately for us, Facebook did a number of things that made it hard for Win.ly to work with it. 

1. First of all, it wouldn't allow us to put the Win.ly toolbar at the top.  
2. Secondly, since all these promotions happened on the same website (www.facebook.com) we weren't able to get an estimate on how many people were playing.

Problem solved

Luckily, we had a series of breakthroughs recently that now allow us to work with Facebook prize games.  The biggest was an innovate way to estimate traffic to each game.  We can't tell you how, as it's a trade secret, but it works and we now can closely estimate how many people are playing each of these games. 

Once this discovery was implemented we devised a way to allow you to still rate and remember wins on Facebook pages that don't allow the toolbar.  If you notice when you play a Facebook prize game now, instead of placing the toolbar on top of the Facebook game, it shows it back on the Win.ly page. 

So once you return from the game and your results are still fresh in your mind, you can simply check of your like/dislike and whether you won right there and then close the popup and return to browsing.

We hope all the new Facebook prize games will make winning prizes with Win.ly even more fun.  If you don't have a Facebook account, it's very easy to sign up and it's free.

Good luck!

P.S. Do you think we should mark Facebook games in the directory so you know before you click?  Let us know...

Want to Win a Motorcycle? Now's the time!

Trends in sweepstakes prizes seem to come and go, and for some reason there just seem to be an avalanche of motorcycle based prize games.

So if you've been looking to win a motorcycle, check out some of these currently running sweepstakes and instant win games that feature motorcycle prizes to win.

2011 7up/Dollar General Captain America Sweepstakes 
2011 Ardbeg Chopper Tour Sweepstakes 
The Complex Custom Honda Cbr250r Rider Performance Gear Sweepstakes

Grand Waileas 20th Anniversary Our Legacy Wont Sit Still Sweepstakes

Hair Club Custom Chopper Giveaway Sweepstakes  

Harlistas: The Ultimate American Journey Sweepstakes

The Honda Civic Tour MCR CBR250R Giveaway Sweepstakes 

Lean In And Ride With Us Contest 

The Mmi 2011 Superbike Sweepstakes 

The Popular Mechanics Triumph Thunderbird Storm Sweepstakes

Rev Up With 7up And Captain America

Remember, you can go to Win.ly at any time and search on "Motorcycle", or any other prize, for a current list of prize games that are awarding the prize you're looking for.

Good luck!

Looking to Win a Ford Focus Sweepstakes Prize?

If you're looking to win a Ford Focus, then now is the time to do it.

Ford is really taking the sweepstakes route with its Ford Focus.  There are no less than seven sweepstakes running now with a Ford Focus as their prize.

The list

http://win.ly/prizes/searchprizes/page1?search=Ford+focus&submit=Search

If you're interested, don't forget to log in (or register) first so you can track your play. And for the daily entries, add them to your "likes" so you can easily get back to them every day.

Click for more info on how to win prizes with Win.ly

Does 'When You Play' Have Anything to do with 'How Often You Win Prizes'?

Does time of day matter?

If you're trying to win prizes online, chances are that you're on the lookout for any way to improve your odds of winning.

If you're already using Win.ly Premium, then you have a big head start, since you are playing games with better odds to begin with.

But that doesn't mean you still shouldn't look for further ways to improve your odds.  Every little bit counts.

One thing to consider is time of day.  Does playing a game at noon provide less chances than playing at midnight?  Does playing when your first get to work make it harder to win than playing at 3:00 am?

Sweepstakes and Contests

Let's examine what's involved.  First, let's consider sweepstakes and contests.  The general structure of games in this group is that you enter (either once or daily or such) and then at the end, either by random drawing or by judging, a winner is selected.

Since every valid entry is taken into account at the end of the promotion (or the period) it seems obvious that time of day of when you entered would not play a factor.

But how about Instant Win Games?

Instant Win Games

Virtually all instant win games these days are of a type that is called "time seeded".  This means that prior to the promotional period, all the prizes are assigned a random time during the play period.  The first person to play on or after that time is awarded the prize.

One of the key ideas that drives Win.ly is that if you're playing a game that fewer other people are playing, you have a better chance of winning.  This is universally true for Sweepstakes, Contests and Instant Win Games.

But Instant Win Games have a further twist -- since the prizes are awarded instantly, you also can consider how many people are playing just at that moment.

Less competition equals better odds of winning

So even if you're playing an instant win game that has a high volume of players overall, as long as you play at a time when they are not playing you could improve your odds.

Take for example a game with a prize seeded around noon and one in the middle of the night.  If there were tens of thousands of people playing during the day you would have very little chance of winning the daytime prize.  But then everyone goes to bed and there are only a dozen people playing at the time of the night time prize, so your chance of being the winner are quite good.

Night time is the right time

There is data to show that for most games, fewer people play at night (which is understandable, since people do tend to go to bed and sleep).  So to win prizes online playing Instant Win Games, you're generally better off playing at night than you are during the day.

The actual times vary from game to game but generally speaking, following that pattern will improve your odds to win prizes.

Time Zones and Coasts

Something to keep in mind with this is where you live.  If you're on the East Coast, even though it may be 1:00 am for you it is still 10:00 pm for folks on the West Coast.  You may consider getting up early to play instead of staying up late.

And on the contrary, for West Coasters you'll avoid more East Coast competition by staying up late rather than trying to rise and shine and beat the rush. 

Wrap it all together for more prizes

So we know that time of day does matter and you're better off playing at night (if you can).

Keep in mind that all these strategies to improve your odds work in combination.  So, the more you employ the better your overall odds. 

And likewise, if you can't stay up late don't sweat it.  Try and compensate with some other tactics. Time of day helps, but remember that the strongest tactics are:

• Playing the games with the best odds to start with (from Win.ly Premium)
• Playing as often as you can.  (Playing every day for a month gives you 30 times better chance of winning than playing once).

Be sure to use Win.ly's "Last played" tracking and "Like" lists to easily make sure you play the games you are targeting every day.

The better your odds, the more you win.  But a little luck always helps too.  Good luck!

Win.ly is up - but it's down

All of our web servers are up, operational and live.

Unfortunately, "Win.ly" is not resolving to our web servers so you probably will not be able to get to them.

As some of you may know, the ".ly" extension is managed by Libya.  We are suspecting this has something to do with the current unrest there as we also can not contact the Libyan company that manages the name server.

We are on top of this and will keep you up to date.

Holiday Instant Wins and Sweepstakes are Heating Up

The holiday prize games are starting to come in and there are some really good ones this year.  Big brands are really trying to outdo each other with big prize numbers.


Here's a sampling of some of them we've come across the last few days.

27 Days of Giveaways Contest is giving away 1,602 prizes over 27 days, worth $200,000!

Bake Sweet Memories Game (Bake Your Holidays Merrier) is giving away 10,000 free product coupons.

Chevrolet and Conan O'Brien are giving away Twenty Pine Tree Air Fresheners in Twenty Nights (oh, each one "wrapped" in a 2011 Chevy Cruze).  That's 20 cars being given away, worth over $580,000 in total!

American Express Season of Surprises is giving away one $100,000 check, ten $10,000 checks and 2,000 $25 gift cards.  That's over 2,000 prizes with a total value of $250,000.  (See the "more info" button on Win.ly for the secret to getting a free code without purchase).

Wow.  That's over thirteen thousand prizes worth over one million dollars in just those four.

There's plenty more and new ones are coming in each day.  Now is a good time to really get in the habit of playing every day to get the most out of this fun time of year for prize hunting.

Don't forget to sign in to Win.ly and mark these as your "Likes" to remind you to play each day.

Good luck!  Let's see how many Win.ly members take a home one of these prizes!

Top 5 Craziest Sweepstakes Prizes

The world of sweepstakes prizes sometimes gets repetetive.  Another trip?  Another gift card?  A car or motorcycle?  The latest Apple products?  Join the group.

Here's to the brave and brazen who take a risk with their prizes and make things a bit more interesting.

5. Swarovski-Encrusted Gotchi Figure

I know very little about Swarovski crystal outside of I think it's expensive and used to "encrust" things to make them expensive.  I know less about Gotchi Figures.  But I guess put them together and there's someone who really wants one.

http://win.ly/prizes/sweepstakes/prize-game-3115

4. Nothing

This is a clever prize description to support Jones' "Zilch" soda, with the tag line "Win Absolutely Nothing".

The trick?  The prizes are actually having various bills paid for you for a month by Jones, so you pay "nothing".

http://win.ly/prizes/searchprizes/prize-game-2817

3. Bacon

Ok, it's not actual bacon.  They advertise it as bacon, but the prize ends up being groceries (which you could buy bacon with).

But, the second prize is great.  A bacon-shaped USB drive containing Farmland® recipes.  (There's a picture on the site).

http://win.ly/prizes/sweepstakes/prize-game-3018


2.  Underpants

You don't actually win underpants, but you win a trip to run in the "BVD Underpants Run in Kona".  Who knew there was such a thing?


http://win.ly/prizes/searchprizes/prize-game-3081

1.   A Corpse

Well, almost....

Just in time for halloween, Fear.Net is running their "Halloween Hung & Skinned" Sweepstakes.  The prize?

From the Creature Corps' Haunted Attraction Catalog comes "HUNG & SKINNED", a highly-detailed life-sized corpse, suspended from the very wooden rack on which he met his demise. On the rack you'll find implements of torture and pain, while a metal tub sits firmly at the bottom, waiting to collect the victim's bloody entrails as they drip from the lifeless body.

http://win.ly/prizes/searchprizes/prize-game-3172

Hurry, this one ends on 10/22.
 
For more fun with prizes, visit Win.ly