Don't be a Bad Egg on Twitter

Are you a comper? Do you have an avatar on Twitter, or do you still use the egg picture you were given when you signed up?

If you are still an egg, you might be surprised to learn that it might be reducing the number of competitions that you win. This is because most people on Twitter, including many of those who run competitions, believe that if you haven't personalised your account,  you are

a) brand new to Twitter, possibly having only set up the account to enter that particular competition
or
b) too lazy to change it, in which case why should they make the effort to give you a prize
or
c) a spammer - all those "throwaway" accounts that send you the dodgy "Free Starbucks gift card" and "Free iPad contest" tweets have egg avatars.  Spammers with egg avatars are getting into such a problem on Twitter that many people hit the "Block and report spam" button as soon as  they see a tweet from an egg, so you could be a genuine person and find yourself blocked.

Now I'm not saying that everyone takes that attitude, but why not take a few minutes to make sure that NOBODY ever deletes your entry just because you look like an egg?

Not everyone want to show their face to the world, so here are some ideas for pictures you might use.

• a picture of something you would like to win. A lot of compers believe this can bring them luck - why not give it a try?
• a picture of a family pet.
• one of your holiday photos
• a close up of a flower
• something relevant to the current season - for instance a Christmas Tree or the Easter bunny

Have fun thinking of something. Try to make it something that will make your tweets instantly recognisable, so everyone will know it is you.  Don't choose a copyright image, such as a Disney character or a photo you've seen on somebody's blog, without permission from the owner.

To change your avatar, log in to your Twitter account and go to the arrowhead to the top right, by your name. Choose "Settings" from the drop down menu then go to the "Profile" tab. Use the Browse button  to choose a picture from your computer,  and once it appears in the box, click "Save" at the bottom of the screen. It may be a few minutes before your tweets start to show up with your new picture, and you may need to send a few tweets, but once it starts to appear, you won't be a Bad Egg any more!

Win Strictly Live tour tickets!

If you are a fan of Strictly Come Dancing - and I know that a lot of you are - you'll be pleased to learn that Hotels4U are giving you a chance to win tickets to see the tour next year. Shows are to be held in London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff, Dublin and Belfast. One lucky person will win a pair of tickets to their choice of venues on the tour.
To enter, you will need to like their Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/hotels4ucom then click on the "Win....." button in the left hand menu and  answer one simple question.

But hurry! The competition closes at 11am on Monday December 12th.

And on the 13th, they will be launching a "12 Days  of Christmas" competition, so look out for that too.

Win one of 5 pushchairs from Silver Cross

Silver Cross have gone all out on their last competition before Christmas and are giving away five Pop Classic pushchairs (which comes with a cup holder, harness pads, ventilated raincover, shopping basket and carry handle).

It's the same entry process as the two previous competition as to enter you have to like their Facbook page then go to the competition tab then answer the simple Christmassy themed question.

The competition lasts until 3pm on Friday 16th December 2011 and you can read the full terms and conditions here

Good luck - but save one for me. If you also read Mellow Mummy, my daughter's blog, you'll know I'm going to be a grandma again in the spring so I'd love to win one of these.

Those boomerang postcards!

Have you ever had a boomerang postcard? That is, one that you've sent off for a competition, but comes back to your own address instead? They are annoying, aren't they - and expensive too, as the stamp has often been franked when it comes back to you, so just popping it back in the postbox might not work as the recipient might be asked to pay a surcharge, and refuse the delivery. Also, sometimes it takes so long for these boomerangs to come back to you that it's too late to send it again - the closing date has already gone.

When it happens, you might be lucky enough to get a refund of the cost of the stamp, if you complain to your local Post Office. If they are feeling very generous, they might give you a whole BOOK of stamps. But of course that won't compensate you for missing out on the prize that you could have won if the card had reached its destination.

So here are a few tips to help to make sure your cards go where they are intended to, and don't come flocking back like homing pigeons.

First of all, remember that most post is sorted by machinery these days. The "magic eye" in it isn't trained to look for words like "to" and "from", so most of the time putting those on your card doesn't help. All it looks  for is the postcode. And it expects to see that clearly and boldly written, on a line on its own, at the very bottom of the address. So when you are writing the address you are sending to, make sure that it really is as clear and distinct as it can be.

Now turn your attention to your own details on the other side of the card. This time you want the sorting machinery (which apparently isn't clever enough to think "Oh, the stamp is on the other side so that must be where the card is  going to" - something that would solve all our problems) to be as confused as possible and miss spotting your postcode. The first thing you can do to help is to turn your postcard through a right angle and have the short edges at the top and bottom. As it goes through the machine with the long edges top and bottom, your postcode will seem to be sideways on to it, so it won't be able to read it.
Then make sure the postcode isn't on the bottom line. Put something underneath it - your phone number, your email address, the answer to the competition question if there is one, or even a pattern of pretty squiggles! You could also put  your postcode  on the same line as your county, if the card is wide enough.

If you are using picture postcards with all your writing on one side, your finished card would look like this. Note how the sender's own details are as low down the card as possible, so that they don't get obscured by the postmark. If your card is drawn as a winner and they can't read your address, they'll have to throw it away and draw a different winner!

All this is good practice anyway as it makes your card clear and easy to read for the promoter as well as the Post Office. It won't guarantee that your cards don't come back to you, but it will make sure it happens less often.

But there is one way to make sure your cards DO come back to you, and I experienced it  just yesterday. I picked up the mail and there was a boomerang card among it, so I started to get angry and turned the card over to see which competition I'd lost out on. Yes, the card was stamped, but I'd been in such a hurry to post my entry that I had completely forgotten to write the address it was supposed to go to.  Please don't ever do that!

Blip your way to a win!

Technology is moving frighteningly fast these days, and every time something new turns up, it isn't long before promoters start to use it to run competitions. One of the latest  innovations sees competitions being run through apps for smart phones and iPads.

The last few weeks have seen prizes being offered through apps from Black & Decker, Richer Sounds and  Wetherspoons  - all of which are still running as I write this.  I'm afraid I only have links to the Apple versions and don't know whether they produce versions for other phones.

Latest on the scene is a fun app called BlippAR which comes in Apple and Android versions and can be used on a phone or an iPad, although the larger screen of the iPad gives more dramatic results. You simply open the app and hold the camera of your device over the item to be "Blipped"  and information about the product, links to online content, recipes and even  competitions appear on the screen as if by magic!

Here I am blipping a jar of Marmite - can you see how the link to the recipes has  appeared over the image of the jar on the screen? All I needed to do after that was touch the screen and I was taken to a selection of tasty recipes.

But I know that you are probably not here to read about Marmite Omelettes, you are thinking, "But where are the comps?"

Well right now, if you blip a bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup, you could instantly win  one of two packs of Heinz branded kitchen goodies every day until January 19th. You can enter once a day and I entered early in the morning and won a pack while I was testing it for this article.

And  if you blip the cover of the new album Now 80 you could win one of 80 prizes, from a signed  iPad to a Spotify subscription. Unfortunately the terms of this competition aren't working at the moment so I can't tell you when it closes.

The really good news is, you don't always need to have the product to hand - the BlippAR Facebook page often puts blippable photos of the products up for you to try, or, as you can see from the photo above, you can simply search the web for a decent photo of the product and try blipping that. It worked from me, when I wanted to enter the Now 80 competition.

Your Blippar app has a catalogue of things that are currently blippable, and updates with any new ones each time you open it, and new ones are announced  on the Facebook page too. Another current blipping competition is the Mercedes Benz "Escape the Map" game - there are no photos of it here because I can't make head nor tail of it!  And I believe there has also been a competition in Metro.

It's incredibly easy to use, great fun and trying out new blips can  be quite addictive! One more tool to add to your comping kit.

What on Earth were you looking for?

I can't resist looking at the search terms that people have used to find this  blog, and recently have chatted to a few other bloggers  who do the same. Sometimes I wonder what they were REALLY looking for - and whether they found it here or went away disappointed. If you are a blogger, do you do the same? I'd love to hear about the terms that were used to find your blogs!

Obviously the most frequently used terms are to do with competitions. And judging by the number of people who come here by searching for "Competitors Journal" there are a lot of us older compers who still have very fond memories of the magazine.

People looking for help with Twitter also regularly find their way here, with searches such as

• how to get out of Twitter jail
• blocking on Twitter, how it works
• what does "dm your address mean", and
• what does #followfriday mean

Captcha code queries also bring quite a few visitors, as do gardening queries about growing grape vines (I'm very sorry to disappoint you if that's why you are here but here's a bunch of grapes for you to look at).

But some of the more unusual searches that have brought people here are

• rising taste
• 1950s image source
• Ireland souvenir shops
• grape design on a plate
• comebacks for "don't do as I do, do as I say"

and one that really puzzles me, especially as it seems to have been used several times

• sex hotel roof vancouver

I promise you, you can search every single post on this blog and while I HAVE written about a trip to Vancouver, I didn't make any mention of sex on the hotel roof!  But,  for those who might get excited by the thought, here is a  photo of a hotel in Vancouver. I'll leave the rest up to your imagination.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

.... and a  a comper, we all know what that means - ADVENT COMPETITIONS!

I'm not going to make a list, because that has been so expertly done by two of the biggest and best websites for compers. So I'll recommend that you look here for the Loquax  one and  here for the Prizefinder one.  Both are excellent lists and thoroughly well researched and  I'll certainly be referring to them many times over the next 24 days.  There seem to be more than ever before this year!

So since I'm not making a list (and checking it twice)  I have shared a few photos of my hand made Christmas  cards with you, and I'll give you a few tips for coping with the Advent comping mania.

• First of all, allow yourself a set amount of time for Advent competitions, and no more. It might be an hour, it might be half a  day - just don't let it take over your whole day.  Entering every single one would be impossible!
• Once you've read through the list of competitions, choose the ones that interest you most. If there's a baby in the family, or a teenager, there will be some that are aimed at people like you. Pick ones with prizes that match your hobbies and  interests. When your time is limited, it's not worth spending time on the Your Cat Advent if you aren't a cat lover! I plan to pick 15-20 competitions and concentrate my efforts on those.
• Don't enter the competitions first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Some of them are only open during office hours - a problem for people out at work all day - and some are manually updated every day so aren't ready until the person responsible has got to work and had their first coffee of the day. If you try to enter at 6am (my preferred time!) you will waste a lot of time going to sites that are still showing the previous  day's competition.
• Don't have too high expectations. We compers love this time of year,  so lots  of us enter the Advent competitions, so don't expect a huge number of prizes to suddenly come rolling in. And bear in mind that although some are drawn, and winners contacted, daily, some promoters leave everything set to run automatically while they cope with the Christmas rush, and don't draw winners until the New Year. My personal record  for a  late Advent notification is March!
• Remember  that lots of other competitions are still running! Because it is such a busy time of year, and many compers are concentrating on either their own Christmas plans or the dozens of Advent competitions, other competitions can be neglected and see entry numbers falling dramatically. And low entry numbers mean good odds.

Finally, having said I am not making a list,  I HAVE made a little list of sorts. It's a Twitter list, and I'm hoping to add  to it all the Twitter pages that are running Advent competitions. It's still very much a work in progress, but you can follow it here