Giveaway entries: the Facebook comment reply template
Confirming entries by hand is what makes giveaways miserable to run. This template likes each entry as a receipt, @mentions the entrant in a public confirmation, and is scoped to the one giveaway post — and it is clear that Mentbot does not draw the winner.
Entrants want proof their entry counted. Unconfirmed entries produce a comment thread full of "did mine go through?", which is the noise that buries the giveaway.
Checked against the product on
When this fires
Paste these into the rule’s keyword list. Any one of them matching is enough — keywords are an OR list, not an AND list.
donejoinedjoiningentereddone posalisali pocount me inเข้าร่วมร่วมสนุก
How Mentbot reads them
- Matching is a plain substring test, not a whole-word test. A keyword matches anywhere inside the comment — which is why the list below matters.
- Case is ignored, and text is NFKC-folded first, so ＳＡＬＥ matches sale and full-width or styled characters still match.
- Thai, emoji and any other script work the same way: the comment is compared as text, with no language detection.
- Leading and trailing spaces in a keyword are trimmed, and a blank keyword row never matches anything.
The public reply
Add these as separate reply variants on the rule. Mentbot picks one at random each time a comment matches, so the same post does not fill up with one identical sentence.
- Variant 1
You're in! 🎉 Entry confirmed — winner announced Friday.
- Variant 2
Entry received ✅ Good luck! We draw on Friday and announce here.
- Variant 3
Counted! 🍀 Keep an eye on this post — winner goes up Friday.
{comment} is replaced with the commenter’s own text. It is the only token Mentbot substitutes — there is no {name} or {page}.
The Messenger DM
The private reply Mentbot sends to the same commenter. On Facebook this is a Messenger private reply to the comment, so it only works while Facebook’s reply window for that comment is open.
Your giveaway entry is confirmed 🎉 You commented: "{comment}" Winner announced Friday on the original post. While you're here — everything in the giveaway is in stock now if you don't fancy waiting for luck 😄
Settings to turn on
The four switches on the rule, and what this scenario needs from each.
| Setting | This template | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Reply once | On On. One confirmation per entrant per post — giveaway threads are where people comment five times, and five confirmations makes the automation obvious. | Answers each commenter once per post for this rule — and an attempt Facebook refused still counts as that once. The same person commenting again on the same post gets nothing more from this rule, but a different rule can still answer them, and the same rule answers them again on a different post. |
| Mention the commenter | On On. The @mention is what turns the confirmation into a notification the entrant actually sees. | Puts an @mention of the commenter at the front of the public reply. It applies to the public reply only, never to the Messenger message. |
| Hide the comment | Off | Hides the comment once this rule has answered it. The author and their friends still see it; everyone else does not. Separate from your Page’s moderation filters, which run earlier. |
| Like the comment | On On. The like from the Page is the entry receipt, sent straight after the public reply. | Likes the comment from the Page, straight after the public reply goes out. |
Scope
Where the rule is allowed to fire.
The rule only runs on the posts you list. Paste either the plain post ID or the pageid_postid form; both are accepted.
Post-scoped to the giveaway post. This keeps the loose keywords safe, and a post-scoped rule outranks every keyword rule you have, so your price and shipping rules will not answer entries instead.
When two rules could both answer
Exactly one rule answers a comment. Mentbot ranks every rule that qualifies and runs the most specific one; the rest are recorded as outranked, not run.
- A rule limited to a list of posts wins first — even if it also has keywords.
- Then a rule with a hashtag or keywords.
- Then the catch-all with neither.
- If two rules tie on that rank, the older one wins. There is no priority field to set.
What will not match
Comments a seller expects this rule to catch, and does not. Each one follows from the matching rules above.
| The comment | Why it does not fire |
|---|---|
| A comment that is only ✅ or 🙋 | Not with the word keywords above. An emoji-only comment is ordinary text, so add "✅" and "🙋" as keywords and they match like any word — on a giveaway that matters, because "✅" alone is one of the commonest ways people enter. Stickers are the ones you cannot catch: a sticker carries no text. |
| A comment that only tags a friend | A tag is your friend's name, not one of your keywords. If your mentions moderation filter is on, the comment is hidden before rules run — which would quietly kill a "tag a friend" giveaway. Check that filter before you launch one. |
| Entries on a shared copy of the post | A share is a different post with a different ID. The rule only fires on the IDs in its post list. |
| Comments posted before you added the post ID to the rule | Scope is evaluated when the comment arrives. Adding the post afterwards does not reprocess what already came in. |
What Mentbot will not do here
Stated plainly, so you do not build a workflow on top of something that is not there.
- Mentbot does not draw a winner. There is no picker, no randomiser and no entry list to draw from — that is a separate tool, and pretending otherwise would be the easiest way to ruin a giveaway.
- It does not count entries or de-duplicate entrants. Reply once stops repeat confirmations to one person on one post, but there is no tally you can read.
- It cannot verify that someone followed, shared or tagged anyone. It sees comment text and nothing else.
Cost at your comment volume
Rules are not metered separately — you pay for comments handled per day across all your Pages, and every plan includes every feature. Prices come straight from the pricing page.
| Comments per day | Plan | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Basic | $9 |
| 1,000 | Pro | $19 |
| 3,000 | Premium | $29 |
Unlimited Pages on every plan, and a 14-day free trial.
Questions
Can Mentbot pick the giveaway winner?
No. There is no winner-picking feature in the product. Mentbot confirms entries so entrants stop asking whether theirs counted; choosing the winner is still yours to do, with a comment picker or by hand.
Why scope the rule to the giveaway post?
Because the trigger words are deliberately loose. "done" and "joined" are safe on a giveaway post and dangerous everywhere else. Scoping also means the rule outranks your keyword rules automatically, so entries get the entry reply rather than a price list.
Should I hide entries after confirming them?
No. A giveaway post with two thousand visible entries is the giveaway working. Hiding them removes the only visible proof the thing is popular.
What about people who enter with just an emoji?
Add the emoji as keywords. An emoji-only comment is plain text to the matcher, so "✅" in the keyword list matches a comment that is only ✅. Stickers cannot be matched — they carry no text — and if your emoji-only moderation filter is on, it hides emoji entries before any rule runs, so turn it off for the giveaway.
Other templates
Related guide
The long-form version of this, and the tool comparisons.
Every behaviour on this page is checked against Mentbot’s own source. If the product changes and this page does not, tell us.