Facebook

My apologies for skipping "Good Deal Friday" this week... the holidays have been kind of crazy for me, as I'm sure they have been for many of you as well.  I WILL be updating this blog more regularly now that the holidays are over.  I promise!

Alright so let me start by saying, if you don't have a Facebook page yet... make one.  Even if you don't want to friend ANYONE on there, Facebook is a valuable tool for saving money, so just go make yourself a facebook profile and be a complete hermit (in fact having no friends to clutter up your facebook wall will make this easier, although thats not my personal preference).

If you don't know anything about Facebook (and I apologize for those of you who do), aside from creating a profile, telling people every detail of your life, and stalking high school crushes and ex boyfriends... Facebook has a lot of amusing features!  Like "liking" pages and companies.  You press the "like" button for a company and its as if you are friending them.  Instead of statuses (statusi???) about a person's life, you get status updates about things like SALES! and CONTESTS!  What could be better?

Start by searching for your favorite tack shops... Dover Saddlery, SmartPak, Beval Saddlery, Horseloverz, and Equestrian Collections all have Facebook pages.  Most of my local tack shops do too, so check for yours on there.... and don't limit yourself to local tack shops, "like" tack shops all over the country!  Action Rider Tack is no where near me and they have a couple of weekly contests where you can win cool stuff, like a brand new Tekna Saddle!  Also "like" your favorite companies, they frequently have give-aways and contests to win their merchandise.  Kerrits is a really good one, Irideon, Ovation, Mountain Horse, ADT, EquiFit... I could go on... you can search for your favorites of course.

A lot of times "liking" these pages is a lot like signing up for e-mail or mailing lists, but in my opinion is much less annoying.  They keep you up to date on sales and new products, which is always good, without crowding your inbox... and some of them have exclusive contests, give-aways and sales JUST for people who "like" them on Facebook.

A lot of companies will have "sample sales" only on Facebook, where they sell tack and other things at discounted prices!  These are usually floor samples, demos, discontinued items or items that never made it into their catalogs.  Five Star Tack just had a sample sale on Facebook and I scored a beautiful brand new Chelsea figure 8 bridle for over $100 off the normal price, you could have gotten one too... IF you were on Facebook ;)

One of my favorite things about "liking" Facebook pages is the contests!  Sometimes they make winning things as simple as "liking" a post or posting a comment on their wall.  Other times its about getting as many people to "like" something of yours as possible... and the person with the most likes wins!  Or sometimes you just need to post one of your photos or a link to a product, it can be really easy to win things, trust me!  But it CAN be involved too.  If you have a lot of time to write essays and things of that nature, then your chances of winning things increase (especially if you are a good writer!) people don't always have time on their hands so they skip those contests, but I wouldn't if I were you... some of the prizes are REALLY good.  My friend wins these contests ALL the time, I win a lot... but I don't put as much effort into them as she does, and trust me, it pays off for her!  So one of my new years resolutions is to put more effort into entering Facebook competitions.  I'm looking forward to winning lots of stuff in the new year!

For example, so you don't think I'm lying, this month I won a $50 gift card to SmartPak, just by posting a comment on a product page's wall.  I had even forgot about the contest until I was named the winner, and they posted a video of a sushi chef drawing my name, which means it was meant to be because I absolutely LOVE sushi.  :)

Quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever won was a saddle naming competition... and not just any saddle... an extremely high end, custom-made, european saddle which I named the Elkton.  It is part of Voltaire Design's line up of cross country saddles and costs around $4800-$5100 new.  It kind of blows my mind that famous riders all over the world are riding in a saddle that I named.  Pretty, no?

I WISH the prize for that naming that saddle was actually WINNING that saddle, but alas, it was not.  But still it was a pretty damn good prize... I could pick ANY Voltaire girth or breastplate to own, which ranged from $250-$450 retail.    One day I will own a Voltaire saddle... the leather and craftmanship is just SO nice.

Facebook is really such an awesome tool for getting connected and saving money, if you aren't on it... you SHOULD BE!  and I'm not sure why you wouldn't want to be after knowing that you can easily, with almost no effort, win a ton of cool stuff.

Which reminds me... you all should "like" my blog on facebook.  http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Economical-Equestrienne/313953985292040  <---- thats me!  So, most importantly, you can stay up to date on when I'm making a new blog post, and also get clued in on sales and other things I find that you might benefit from that I don't post in my blog :)  and hopefully join me for some productive discussions from time to time!

So has anyone scored anything awesome because of Facebook recently?