Are You Losing Money by Not Checking Your "Other" Facebook Messages?

If you're an avid freebie-finder, deal-seeker, or giveaway enterer, you likely use Facebook as part of your daily arsenal to get more for less.  Facebook is one of the hottest online properties for companies to tout their special savings offers, newest sweepstakes, or even customer loyalty rewards.  If you're like me, you check your message daily, and likely do so only after being prompted by the bright red number hovering over your message notification icon. 

Were you aware, however, that this is only alerting you to half of your messages -- the half that likely won't tell you about the most valuable opportunities?

The Consumerist recently reported this phenomenon just days after I figured it out on my own.  I am actually one of those who enter sweepstakes daily--and can count trips, cash and an iPad as the loot I've won by being diligent about the practice.  I also won a LED TV this fall, and was alerted to the fact by happening upon the status update of the company awarding the prize.  I commented on their wall that I was delighted to have won, and then I sat back and waiting for them to formalize the claim process. 

Weeks went by, then a month, and I still hadn't gotten an email or phone call about my prize.  I again contacted the company on their Wall.  I contacted them via Twitter.  I contacted them through their customer service number on their website.  I finally made contact with a customer service rep through their live chat function who directed my issue to the marketing department, and they promptly called me at home to arrange prize delivery.

I received my TV just a week later, but I was confused as to why it took all of that effort to get my prize.  Why hadn't the company contacted me?  It turned out that they had.  They used the same messaging system that most companies do.  If you "Like" a company on Facebook, you aren't technically a "friend," so any messages coming from the company go into an "other messages" folder.

You may not have heard of this folder; I hadn't.  If you check your messages like I do, you only click on the most recent messages from the top of your browser where the notifications pop up.  If you click at the bottom of the notification window on "See all Messages," however, you'll be taken to a new window.  On the left of that screen is a tab for "Messages" with a small "Other" link below it.  Clicking on this will grant you access to all those messages sent to you by people you haven't friended (like companies trying to give you free stuff).  This is the folder where I found my prize notification--from three months before.

As it turns out, I had won two other giveaways and also received a super savings offer that had since expired.  I was bummed to have missed out on these goodies, but happy to have no longer been in the dark about "other" messages.

If you sign up for free stuff, I suggest you run--don't walk--over to your Facebook account and see what's lurking in your "other" folder.  You won't see notification of new messages here, so schedule time to do it regularly.

What did you find in your "other" folder?