Ever since the movie The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio, about the mother who helped support her 10 children by entering and winning hundreds of pageants in the 1950s, came out, I’ve been intrigued by the idea of ​​entering pageants. However, I was never intrigued enough to want to sign up to receive reams of spam and telemarketing calls for the rest of my life. That and I figured with thousands of people entering sweepstakes type contests, I would never have a chance to win to make it worth entering.

But Twitter has changed all that.

You’ve probably heard of Twitter, but in case you’re not too familiar with it, Twitter is a site where people can post any comment on any topic, as long as it doesn’t exceed 140 characters. Comments are called “tweets” because of their short length, and the only people who can read your tweets are your “followers,” or people who sign up and agree to follow you. The messages are usually about what one is doing or thinking, about an interesting news or event, or about a product or service that a company is trying to promote. This is where the competition angle comes in.

Many people and companies use Twitter, Facebook and blogs to organize giveaways for their products. They hope to generate widespread attention for their company, products or services by using social media to spread the news about the contests. The good thing is that this whole concept is relatively new. So if you’re interested in giving contests a try, now you’re in luck. Many contests only have a couple of hundred entrants, so your chances of winning are better than ever.

Through Twitter, I won two great prizes last month: a $100 Google AdWords coupon, which helped me promote my business this holiday season, and a really beautiful pair of Silpada earrings.

So, do you want to learn how to jump on the Twitter contest bandwagon? Here’s a crash course:

1). Get a free email account. Sign up for an email account that is for contest entry only. That way, you won’t clutter your personal email account with replies and input. Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail offer free email accounts.

two). Sign up for a free Twitter account. Go to twitter.com to find out how. It’s easy and addictive!

3). Start following people on Twitter. Once on Twitter, do a search for people or companies you know. Follow the people you like and enjoy the Twitter experience. Once you do, you’ll be able to start seeing the tweets of those you follow. People often tweet about contests they’ve heard about or even entered. Once you see one of your interest, follow the instructions in the tweet and enter.

So is it really that easy? Yes and no. Some contests require a bit of your time. Often a contest tweet includes a link for you to click. That link will often take you to a company’s website or blog with instructions on what to do to log in. Many contests are intended to generate attention for a new company or product. These companies often use blogs to promote or run their contest. Usually you have to visit a website and take a look at a company’s products and tell them which product you liked the most and why, or tell them something you learned from visiting their site. Often, to get additional entries, the person running the blog will ask you to subscribe to their blog or newsletter or follow them on Twitter and tweet about the contest. Sometimes a Twitter contest just requires you to “retweet” the contest information about the contest or post the contest information in your tweet. That would count as one entry. Companies do this to generate as much attention as possible on Twitter, because if one person tweets it to all of their followers, then one of their followers could tweet it to all of theirs, and so on.

I usually only enter contests for products that interest me and really grab my attention. There are too many contests to enter them all, though how many you try depends on how much time you’re willing to put into it. Most contests only ask for an email address, not a phone number or physical address, so a separate email is helpful. And the holiday season has proven to be a product giveaway bonanza! Many companies want you to know what they have to offer this time of year, hoping that a little extra attention will lead to a few more holiday sales. And in Silpada’s case, when I’m in the jewelry market, I’ll most likely remember them and visit their site.

I’ll leave you with one more tip: To find more contests on Twitter or people to follow who might tweet about contests more often, use the keyword search bar on the right side of your Twitter screen. Enter words like “contest” or “giveaway” to see who is giving away what or tweeting about the giveaways. Good luck! And happy contest!