Win a Kindle Fire with My Social Radio

The latest competition form My Social Radio  has a super prize - a 16 Gb Amazon Kindle Fire HD.

To enter, pop over to their Facebook app , Like the page and leave your details. You can gain extra entries for getting friends to enter either by sharing the competition.

It closes on January 19th and winners will be announced live on air.

Win an iPad mini with a short essay

I know that lots of you love writing - just dropping in to the lovely blogs some of you produce is proof of that - and even more of you are bored with just filling in your name and email address or clicking "Like" or "Retweet" buttons and yearn for something that is a bit more of a challenge.

The latest competition from 1st Choice Spares will appeal to you then - they would like you to write an essay of around 300 words on the subject of Why people should use recycled car parts.

You can read all about the competition, and get some ideas for your entry on their website  and then submit your entry through their Facebook page

The prize is an iPad mini and you have until February 14th to submit your entry.

Pruning your Facebook Likes

If you are a comper, you will inevitably end up liking hundreds of Facebook pages, even if you never enter "Like and share" competitions. And if you are happy to Like and Share, you could end up liking the maximum number allowed which currently stands at 5,000.

The trouble with liking so many is that you don't get chance to interact with them. Facebook decides for itself which updates you see, however carefully you try to make sure they are allowed, and even if you manage to set it to show them all, there are so many that you only see the most recent few at any given time. So it makes sense to check through them regularly and unlike those you are not currently interested in. The fewer updates that appear in your new feed, the more chance you have of seeing those that you DO want to see.

I've written before about how to prune the pages you follow, but Facebook seems to change every few weeks so here is the current way to do it.

First of all, go to your own Facebook page by clicking on your name at the top right of the screen. Now click on the "Update Info" button below your cover photo,  and use the  "about" button to select "Likes"  (clicking on the photo will enlarge it to make things a little clearer)

Now  click on "Edit" which you will find to the top right of the "Favourites" section and scroll down to the bottom of the Favourites section, just below "Inspirational people you like" (You HAVE all got me listed there haven't you? ....... Oh. ) and you will see "Other pages you like" in the margin at the bottom of the box. Click on that and a pop up appears listing ALL the pages you like.

Now you can go through the list and click the Unlike button against any page you are no longer interested in or simply don't recognise. You will probably find lots that you liked just in order to enter a competition, or worse still  in order to see the details of a competition you chose not to enter.

When you have finished your pruning, click the close button then make sure you go back to the top and click on the "Finished editing" button at the top. And hey presto, that's the first and, for a comper, most important bit of your spring cleaning done!

I've been pruning my own at the moment and I'm being ruthless! After all, it's easy enough to Like a page again if you miss it. But take care not to unlike any that you've entered a current competition with.

Get snapping for zulily's January competition

I'm sure some of you are now regular entrants to zulily's monthly Instagram competitions,  and are eagerly awaiting this month's which is now open.

The theme this month is "Give us a grin" and as usual you need to enter through Instagram.

Full instructions are here

They’re looking for the biggest grin possible! Their favourite photo wins a £100 zulily voucher, storage boxes from Feather and Black (for all those Christmas prezzies) and a Juicy Couture clutch for Mum.

How to enter:

1. Upload an Instagram snap of your little cutie in January giving a grin.
2. Make sure your profile is public, so that they can see your photo.
3. You need to follow zulilyUK on Instagram (@zulilyUK) and tag your picture with three things:

• #zulilyUKJanuaryCutiesCompetition
• @zulilyUK
• and either: #zulilynewbie (if you’re new to zulily) or #zulilian (if you’ve already joined zulily)

The competition closes on January 31st, and the winner will be contacted through Instagram comments, so don't forget to check those comments!

Two ways to win great prizes!

The University of Roehampton has two great new competitions - and you don't need to be a student to enter.

The first competition is being run through Facebook. You need to upload an image and tell them about your most exciting resolution for 2013 (note to a certain blogger who shall remain nameless - overcoming a fear of cheese sandwiches may not be quite exciting enough for them!). One iPad prize will go to the entry judged to be the most creative, and the other to the entrant whose personal link, which they can share after entering, results in the biggest number of new entries.  This closes on January 31st.

The second is a Pinterest competition. Follow the instructions pinned to their competition board  and  create boards that represent their values. There are two Nikon DSLR cameras to be won, one for the board judged to be most creative and the other for the most popular board. And all entries will also go into a draw for an iPad mini. You have until February 28th to create your board.

I know that lots of you have resolved to try more creative competitions this year, so these two could be a great way to start your year!

Lost Without Loquax - what now?

Many compers were surprised and shocked by the announcement yesterday that Loquax will no longer be listing competitions - myself included. Loquax was the very first website I visited when  I first got online in 1999, and I have stayed loyal to it ever since. That's a long time - I'm  used to it and the way it works, and it's going to take an old diehard like me a long time to get used to using a different competition listing service.  Many thanks to Jason and Kirsty for all their years  of hard work and their unstinting support of the comping community and best wishes for whatever direction you are planning for Loquax in the future.

Why, you may be wondering, would the editor of a competitions magazine want to use a listing service? Well, Grape Vine is primarily about competitions that are actually FOUND off line, even if the entry method is online. I spend many hours every week combing shops, so that I can give full entry details of as many competitions as possible. That means that if no purchase is needed, readers can get all the entry details from Grape Vine, and if they DO need to make a purchase they know exactly what to look out for. In general, competition that are promoted exclusively online are not included in Grape Vine - and yet online is where I do the bulk of my own comping. So yes, for many years I have been in the habit of visiting Loquax for half an hour every morning.

Several people have asked me if I will now be providing comprehensive listings - oh dear, if only I had time! There is just one of me, and I already work long hours producing Grape Vine, so that wouldn't be possible. Also this blog doesn't generate any revenue. The competitions that I list here, at the request of the promoters, are done free of charge as a service to all of YOU, whether or not you are subscribers to Grape Vine. My only income comes from the Grape Vine magazine (at this point I'll insert a little advert - why not consider subscribing? The more subscribers I have, the better the service becomes, and that includes the blog! And as described above, you will find LOTS of competitions that aren't covered by online listing services)

With the plug over, lets get back to Loquax. And the good news is that the forums are going to continue. Many competitions  are shared there among the Loquats, as well as lots of help, support and chat. But if you prefer less chat and more competitions, there are lots of other sites that list them. Some of them are currently quite small, but an influx of new compers may well help them to grow. Others are well established and already popular.

I'm not a regular visitor to any of these sites, with the exception of Prizefinder which is probably the biggest and longest  established, so I'm not going to give any personal recommendations - have a look around them and try a few, before deciding what suits you best.

They take several forms; conventional websites, forums where members contribute the competitions themselves although in most cases non-members can read the listings, and a newsgroup which is similar to a forum but open to the public, not just to registered members. There are also a number of private, invitation-only email groups, but these are not publicised and if you want to join one, you'll need to be lucky enough to find a member who will invite you.

I hope these lists will help you to find a great comping tool that will help you even while you are suffering from "Loquax Withdrawal Syndrome"

WEBSITES

The Prizefinder

Big Purple Moose

Competitors Companion

UK Competitions

UK Wins

Competitions List

Competition Hunter

Competitions Today

Only Cheaper

Prize Bug

Comps'n'Codes

Free TV Competitions (specialises in the competitions  shown on TV programmes such as Daybreak)

Comp Retweet -  despite the name, isn't restricted to Twitter competitions

Competitions Time

FORUMS

Win Prizes

Money Saving Expert

Hot UK Deals

I'm Worse Off Than You

Female First


NEWSGROUP

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/uk.rec.competitions

Tweeting to win - a beginner's Twitter guide for compers

This article first appeared on The Competition Grape Vine website in December 2009 but has been updated to bring it into line with current Twitter versions.

Twitter is a social networking craze that has become very popular over the last few years. It is also proving to be a rich source of comps - I first wrote this in mid-December 2009 and for the previous two weeks I had won an average of more than one prize a day through Twitter.

Getting started

So how do you join in? First of all you will need to register with Twitter. Go to www.twitter.com and sign up. When you choose your username, bear in mind that the messages, or “Tweets” sent through Twitter are limited to a maximum of 140 characters, and if somebody sends you a Tweet, your username is part of the count, so try to make it short and snappy. I didn’t realise this when choosing my own name of @janesgrapevine so anyone who Tweets me has only 125 characters to play with.

Once you have your username it becomes part of the address of your Twitter profile page so mine is http://twitter.com/janesgrapevine - this is where you can tell your friends to find you. At the top of the page you will see headings - Home, Profile, and Settings are the ones you need for now.

The Home page is where all the Tweets from the people you follow will show, as well as your own. So that is the page you will need to look at most. On the Profile page, only the Tweets you have sent will show. The Settings page is where you can put a few facts about yourself, and when you are used to Twitter, add a photo or a background to personalise your page.

Go to the Settings page before you start thinking about trying any comps, and make sure “Protect my Tweets” is NOT checked. Why? Because if you protect them, your Tweets don’t appear in public and that means if you enter a comp by Tweeting, the promoter won’t know you’ve entered so you won’t be in the draw.

Tweeting messages

Now go to the Home page. You will see a box near the top that says “Compose new Tweet”. This is where you write your messages. They must be no more than 140 characters long, and there is no limit on the number you can send but if you send several identical ones close together, Twitter thinks you are a spammer and might block your account.

When you Tweet a message, it will show up in your “Timeline” - the messages on your Home page. It will also show in the Timeline of everyone who is following you. If you want to send a message to somebody who is not following you, start it with @ immediately followed by their username (no space) eg @janesgrapevine but if you want your followers to see it as well put something before the @ - popular choices are a . or a * . If you want to reply to a message from somebody else, hover the mouse at the bottom right of the message until the Reply button appears.

The messages which show in your timeline are:

all those you have written, ReTweeted or replied to

messages to all their followers from people you follow

@ messages to you from anybody, whether you follow them or not

@ messages from people you follow to other people you follow

ReTweets (RT) from people you follow

You will soon find that there are more messages in your Timeline than you can keep up with, so you can make sure you haven’t missed any messages mentioning you (for instance saying you are a winner) by clicking on the @connect header at the top and selecting "Mentions" from the left hand menu.

If you want to say something that doesn’t appear in public, such as sending your address details when you have won a comp, you need to send a Direct Message (DM) which will only go to them. You can only send a DM to somebody who follows  you. To send one, click on the cog wheel at the top right and select “Direct messages” from the drop down menu then click the "New Message" box at the top and type the person's Twitter name into the top space and your message into the larger, bottom space  . You can set Twitter so that you receive an email when you receive a DM.

A ReTweet is a message from somebody else that you send again so your followers can see it too. For instance if I get a message from Fred telling me he is running a competition, I can click on the ReTweet button at the bottom of his message and send it, so more people can read it, This way, comps (and other messages) are quickly spread throughout Twitter.

Following and followers

Almost as soon as you send your first Tweet, you will start to get messages from Twitter telling you that people are following you. Don’t feel obliged to follow them back - click on the link to their profile that will come in the message and see whether you are likely to want to read what they have to say. If it looks at all pornographic, choose the Block option. There are automatic robots out there trawling Twitter accounts and following them in the hope that you will automatically follow them back so they can send you ads for porn services.

So who should you follow? If you want to find as many comps as possible, the best thing to do is find another comper and follow them - you are welcome to follow me. When you visit their profile, you can look at lists of people they follow and who follow them - you may well find more compers on these lists, so follow them too. Compers are also likely to be following Twitter feeds of businesses that run regular comps, so you can follow them too. Don’t be afraid to follow lots of people - you can always Unfollow them if they turn out not to interest you.

You can find a list of compers, comping websites and businesses that encourage compers to follow them at http://wefollow.com/twitter/competitions

Many businesses make it a condition of entering their comps that you follow them, which makes it easier for them to monitor entries and to contact you if you win, so you will soon build up a long list of followers and people you follow.

Finding and entering comps

Once you are following a few compers, you will have no problem finding comps, as a lot of comps are entered by RTing messages and most compers are generous about RTing other comps to their followers too. This is the best way to go about finding comps, even if you are used to using Google to find Internet comps. Twitter comps tend to be very short lived and the Google robots don’t visit most websites regularly enough to pick up on comps that might be only open for a matter of days or even hours.

When somebody RTs a comp you are interested in, go to the profile of the user actually running the comp and decide whether it is the sort of business you want to follow and possible be followed by. And before clicking the Follow button, check that they are UK based, unless the prize on offer is something like web services or a download. I have noticed a lot of UK compers are Tweeting comps run by American companies, who might be reluctant to send a prize to the UK. Even if they do, you may be asked to pay carriage, and if your prize is worth more than about £25 you will also have to pay duty and a whopping £8 administration fee levied by the Post Office for collecting it. These charges could wipe out the value of a prize.

To enter a comp, you may be asked to RT a message, to send a Tweet containing an answer, or to visit a website or blog. Make sure you do exactly what it says. You may also be asked to include a Hashtag in your Tweet - this is a particular word, chosen for the comp, that starts with a #. Twitter has a system for storing all Tweets containing the same hashtag in one place, which makes it much easier for the promoters to monitor entries. If you are asked to include a hashtag, your entry won’t be seen unless it is there.

And of course, check when the comp closes, how many entries you are allowed and whether there are any restrictions that might rule you out - all the usual things you would check when entering a comp.

Top tips to be a Tweeting Winner!

 

• Make sure you are RTing the right tweet! If you retweet another comper's entry, your tweet will show up in their own timeline and NOT that of the place running the competition, so you won't be in the draw. To make sure you are RTing the right thing, click on the name of the sender of the original tweet, to take you to their Twitter page, and scroll through the timeline to find what to RT.
• You are sometimes asked to tweet a hashtag, and the promoter will use this to seach for entries. In theory, all you need to tweet is the hashtag, but from running my own Twitter comps I have discovered that tweets only containing a hashtag don't always show up in the search, so it's a good idea to write something, even if it is only "hello"
• Do post some original messages and interact with other people from time to time. Twitter occasionally suspends accounts that do nothing but retweet, and you don't want that to happen!
• When you win, you may be asked to send a Direct Message to the promoter, with your name and address. Not all promoters realise that they have to be following you in order for you to be allowed to DM them, but a polite tweet to them saing "please will you follow me so I can DM you my details" almost always sorts it out.

Have fun and good luck!