The Great Grid- TweetGrid

There it is! See picture above. I call it "the great" because I feel that it is. I have been using TweetGrid for five months now and have found its the best way to keep up during a Twitter party.

How many of you have attended a Twitter party by watching your feed only to give up because you couldn't keep up? I did when I first started. Then I researched parties and came across the wonderful www.tweetgrid.com and started trying out the different sites that ran feeds on Twitter for parties; (this one being the best by far.)

By being able to enter the hash tag and then only view tweets going to the one hash tag it keeps you in the loop of the conversation during the chat. Another genius appeal to it is the ability to have multiple feeds going in each column. If you are attending a party with multiple hosts and panelists you could possibly miss a question if you don't have them all listed, hence missing out on a great prize.

Note: Some chats require you answer all of the questions posted to be eligible for all or specifically the grand prize. Who wants to miss out on prizes?! I sure don't! Always pay close attention to the RSVP page so that u include all important people during chat.

Below you can see a screen shot of the grid. Depending on how many hostesses or panelist are involved you have a lot of choices as to how you want to look at the grid. I like it simple and usually go with 1x3, 1x4 or at the most 1x5.  In some cases the parties will tweet out a custom tweetgrid-check it out and if it's too busy for you go with what you know and feel most comfortable with. I like the simple ones.

As you can see here's the 1x3 grid. I follow the same routine on how I set up my grids, again it's up to you. I like to have the host on the left column, the hash tag in the middle and my feed on the right. I highly recommend that you always have your feed showing. When you win you will always receive a tweet and it will pop up in your feed and also if someone re-tweets you or asks you a question. It's handy. 

As the party gets going the feed will continuously go down what I do to help in case I miss out on something is have the hostess actual Twitter page up as well. You are probably thinking at this point "Are you kidding me! All this work for a measly prize?!"  But once you do it a couple times it becomes second nature and you don't even think about it. Trust me! Having the host's Twitter page up can help in case the feed is coming in a little slow you might be able to jump the gun and answer the question before anyone else at the party. There are some parties that reward the first correct answer. Again- keep an eye out for the rules and guidelines. 

For Tweetgrid that is pretty much it. Remember to give yourself enough time to get your grid set up. Login and get your hashtag entered. Make sure you have the hash tag and hosts names entered correctly, nothing like being a party and not realizing your hash tag has been wrong the whole time! Epic Fail! =(  Sometimes someone will point it out to you if they are nice. If not you are on your own. Don't be at everyone's mercy double check your grid before the mayhem begins. 

Remember: 

1- First & foremost RSVP! You never know if there will be a special prize for RSVPing. 

2-Set up your Tweetgrid ahead of time. Double check your spelling!

3-Make sure you are following the Host (Most important) the Brand (ie.@clorox) and the panelists.

4-Keep the host's Twitter page open and check when you see updates!

5-Follow along and happy partying!! 

6-Make friends with fellow party goers!! I believe in networking!  

If you have any questions please comment below! I'm here for you! and I hope you win too!! 

Still Skeptical? Start Partying, Keep Tweeting & You'll be WINNING soon enough! 

I'm back!

After what seems an eternity I am back to working on my blog. My family took a bit of an "extended" spring break and we are now getting back into the routine of daily life.

I tried to "disconnect" a bit from the wired world, sweeps and twitter parties. I will tell you that I did not sweep while away but I did join in on a couple parties. It's an addiction.. I'm afraid. An addiction that I'm dealing with and only allowing a party here and there now. Def a work in progress.. Have you joined in on one yet?!

Anyhoo back to being back- This week I hope to get into the different ways of winning on my dear Twitter. There are various ways that you can feel the rush of winning without even having to log into a tweetgrid or tweetchat for a party. The Trivia Questions.  Oh yes you can win doing trivia! So Trivia buffs get on your marks!

Speaking of Tweetgrid and Tweetchat, I will go into both of those formats for Twitter parties as well this week.     Instead of just watching your feed on Twitter during a party you can actually modify so that you are only viewing tweets for the specific party you are chatting in.

As most of you know this is my first blog, my "baby blog" as I like to call it; I'm still very new at blogging and am hoping to get creative with my posts.  Including pics and possibly doing a video blog here and there. I'll be adding video-blogger to my title! Snazzy! But nothing to crazy, I just want to slowly expand to new medias and see where this takes me. I'm not out to conquer the world but so far this is fun.

Which brings me to the question of the post- Do you have a blog? Do you have any desire to blog? Yes-No If you do or don't what's keeping you from doing it?

I plan on adding incentive to my atleast one blog post a month beginning in April. Possibly a $5 Amazon code.. What do you think? Remember I'm small time.. =)

Instant Gratification - Twitter Part 2

Instant gratification. The faster it happens the happier I am. During the month of January & three weeks of February I felt it everyday! I won pretty much every day except Sat-Sun (I don't do sweeps during the weekend).  I won from doing trivia and or participating in Twitter parties. The trivia or re-tweet contests are too easy not to do. The message will say "RT for a chance to win," so all you have to do is hit the nifty little Re-Tweet button and you're entry is received. No sign up for this blog, follow me here or there just Re-tweet. Of course I must add that you will need to follow the brand or person on Twitter to even be considered to win. But that's too easy right.

Chat online for an hour and during that hour you could potentially win a prize. What's easier than that right! Unless random chooser isn't on your side it's still a lot of fun to chat during a Twitter party. Either way it's an hour lost. Sometimes I think to myself that I'm just making time fly by doing these parties. Possibly trying to talk myself out of doing them but then "winning" takes over and tells it to hush. LOL

What if anything intimidates you about this process? Because it is intimidating, (or it is at least it is to me) I compare it to being the new kid in town. It can actually be like that at every Twitter party you participate in unless you develop friendships with other bloggers and twitter party-ers.  I'm not saying trade your bff's for the ladies online, just be able to sign into a chat and say, "Oh there's @candypo ! I wonder if she's won anything or which party she's going to after this one!" The more I see it, the more I think the world really revolves by networking.  That's why I highly recommend also joining in on a sweepstakes website such as www.sweepstakesmama.com  A lot of us" sweepers" "run" in tight circles where we bounce off of one another during parties. There was recently a party that the hosts were put in Twitter "jail" and myself and another fellow online friend were asking the special guest questions! We became the hosts for the party at that moment. It was very funny. Did you noticed Twitter "jail?" The Twitter Gods have deemed that certain people can only "tweet" so many times per day. I myself have been placed in jail a few times. My account is held and I can't post any more tweets. I can't even send a message, it's complete Twitter lock-down.  Pretty sad, huh? Eh, it gets better. Just taking watching my tweets from now on.

Most recently I noticed I surpassed the 10,000 mark for tweets! I should have paid more attention I would have done something cool. Oh well.. maybe at 20k? LOL

Have you tried out a Twitter party yet? Have you won?? Share with us! This blog is meant to share my experiences with doing sweepstakes and winning-sometimes.  I would like for it to be interactive so that my readers also share in their winnings and or experiences as well.  

The Balancing Act

My family and I will be taking a Spring Break vacation and I will be away from blogging during this time. Let's face it I can'y stay away. My posts may be a little shorter, but I am sure I'll be online to post a few blogs while on vacay.

I won't however, be participating in Twitter parties during this time; or at least not for my own personal purposes. I'm planning on doing a tutorial with a friend of mine. 

Recently a friend and fellow blogger posted a blog about finding the balance between being online doing sweeps and having time to do everyday chores and having family time. Check out her blog post here: http://www.blogher.com/obsession-sweepstakes  Check out her site too www.sweepstakesmama.com

I have spoken to other friends about the time they spend entering sweeps and being online for Twitter parties or searching for sweeps and etc.  Some of it may sound alarming to people that aren't normally "connected" as I like to call it aka being online.  Being on the computer isn't the only way you can be connected or online; you can be via your mobile phone, tablet or iPad or worst all of the above at the same time.  I have found that when I'm not sitting in front of my computer I check email, Facebook and Twitter on my iPhone.  You would hate to miss an email letting you know you won something right? It's part of the madness.. LOL 

How do you find your balance? Do you struggle with having to decide on what you want to do because of lack of time? Leave me a comment on what your struggles are with balancing life and fun. 

The Great World of Twitter Pt 1

Are you on Twitter? Are you active in tweeting? What celebrities do you follow & do they follow you back?

I have had a Twitter account since May of 2009- I must say I'm really impressed, I just looked up my join date. I only really began using my account last summer more heavily. I started off not sure of what the point of Twitter really was. It's not like Myspace or Facebook, it's totally different.  You can update your status but once you post it, it goes down the line when others that you follow post. A long time line that can loose your thoughts very quickly if no one is paying attention. I liked the idea of that type of anonymity. I followed a lot of celebrities and no of the followed me back so if I posted something to them they were probably not going to see it or even respond. My how that has changed. I have had several, I like to call them "Rock Star" moments with different celebrities either re-tweeting my tweets to them or actually answering a question I tweeted to them. Awesome! It rocks my socks what can I say.

Celebrities in my eyes are the ladies that have blogs that I would say are pretty huge in the blog-sphere, actors from tv shows some reality and some not and a football player, (only one #88 GreenBay Packer). Most recently Amy Brennemen (@TheAmyBrenneman) from Private Practice was online and I posted a question for you. Low and behold she answered me back. I was stoked!  Dont' get me wrong it's not all about star power, I also have actual physical friends and friends I've made since being on Twitter along with my two sisters. I kind of made them join since they saw I was having so much fun and winning by joining in on Twitter parties. It took me awhile to figure Twitter out and I must say I'm still learning. There are ways to filter your feeds so you only see tweets from people you really want to see tweets from and so on. Like I said I'm still learning. We can learn together! =)

This is a testing the waters post on what you know about Twitter.  Please reply with how long you've been on Twitter of if you've signed up for an account yet. What's stopping you from jumping in with the rest of us fellow Tweeps or what do you want to do with your account.  It's your voice and you can pretty much say what you want as long as it's not offensive or derogatory and of course it all depends on who's reading your posts. Do you have a blog? Have you linked it to your Twitter & Facebook account?

Again this isn't a sweepstakes post but it's related to winning in the way that if your successful in Twitter you can win  a lot of prizes answering trivia, doing scavenger hunts and participating in Twitter parties.

You can def be skeptical about the whole Twitter process. But you can choose to be open to it and give it a try just to see if it's something you want to learn more about.  Call it a waster of time or your time to win!

Once I get a feel for the questions some of you might have about Twitter, I will go more in depth into what works for me while using Twitter.

Skeptical Still? Keep reading... We will learn to trust in the process together.

SheStreams 2012

Since beginning to blog in January of this year I have made such wonderful connections with women all over the U.S. I have been shy to the process of blogging but am becoming more aware of why I decided to do this. It's my voice- as simple as that.  Thankfully living in the country that we live in we are able to speak our minds freely-Thanks to all of you who are members of our military and all those who support them as well.

I am a member of the Latina Mom Bloggers a wonderful group of Latinas that offer support to latinas like myself that are just starting out in blogs. I will be missing out on a wonderful conference in Miami in April, but when I saw SheStreams 2012 being held in Ft. Lauderdale (just four hours away from me) I said to myself- this is a great conference to join in on. Latina Mom Bloggers is a Media partner for the SheStreams 2012 conference. The conference itself is going to be two days of amazing information regarding social technology and how it can benefit our brands.

I am putting myself out there to the chance that I may win the All Access Conference Pass & Hotel Giveaway from Latina Mom Bloggers.  I think it would be fantastic conference to attend and hopefully make some wonderful networking connections.  As part of the contest I was asked to post a blog about the conference to be included as an additional entry. 


I hope I win! I'll keep you posted! 

Making Your Mark in March Giveaway!

 

Welcome to the Making Your Mark. In March $200 Beauty Products Giveaway Event!

 

You have a chance to win $200 worth of mark. products PLUS ‘Get Positively Beautiful: The Ultimate Guide to Looking and Feeling Gorgeous’ Paperback Book by Carmindy (a $15.99 Value)!

  The $200 Prize Pack contains the following: * mark Super Flip Color Kit – 9 Eye shadows, 1 Highlighter/Illuminator/Bronze/Blush ($20) * mark Super Flip It Kit – 9 Eye shadows, 9 lip glosses ($20) * mark Sassy Fragrance Mist - 1.5 fl. oz. ($16) * mark Multifaceted Necklace in Smoky Mix (Light Color) ($30) * mark Midi Cosmetic Bag ($7) * mark Bling On the Brushes Mini Brush Kit ($16) * mark Make It Go Away Makeup Removing Wipes ($10) * mark Mist Opportunity Multi-tasking Refresher ($8) * mark Primed for Perfection Face Primer - 0.4 fl. oz. ($10) * mark Keep It Going Longwear Eyeliner & Shadow in Iconic ($11) * mark Glow Baby Glow Hook Up Lip Gloss in Smooches ($6.50) * mark Glossblossom Ripening Lip Tint ($6.50) * mark Make It Big Lash Plumping Mascara in Raven (Black) ($7.50) * mark Get in Line Hook Up Liquid Waterproof Eyeliner in Cleo (Black) ($6.50) * mark Glowdacious Illuminating Powder in Shimmied Up ($13) * mark Get Misty Lemon Sugar Body Mist ($12) * ‘Get Positively Beautiful: The Ultimate Guide to Looking and Feeling Gorgeous’ Paperback Book by Carmindy ($15.99)

PICTURES of EACH product can be seen by CLICKING HERE! :)

  The giveaway will run from March 1 till the 15th (ending at 11:59PM EST on 03/15) but the winners will not be announced until March 17, 2012 so we can make sure that everyone who entered followed all the rules. I made sure to double check the links and made sure everything was working but if you run into any problems, let me know! This giveaway is open to U.S. & Canada readers only – we wish we could include international readers as well but we hope you guys understand. (If you're in Canada, please check our Giveaway Policy to make sure you qualify to enter You may be asked to answer a question if you win.) Must be 18 years old & older to enter. Winner will be chosen using Random.org. Winner will be e-mailed & will have 48 hrs. to reply or we have no choice but to pick another winner. The Rafflecopter will be split & the links will be put on 3 pages. Just in case it doesn't work below, here are the links to find the follow links for Facebook, Twitter, & Google+. Below are the following blogs who helped sponsor in this giveaway along with the Rafflecopter! We all have the same Rafflecopter code so just as long as you enter in one blog, it’s okay – as long as you make sure to visit each blog to follow them according to the Rafflecopter form below (we check for duplicate entries)! ALL ENTRIES WILL BE VERIFIED so please don't try to cheat. ;) Good Luck!

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Making you Mark in March Giveaway!

As promised here is another giveaway for the month of March! If you LOVE Mark products this one is for you! Check out the giveaway for full details & make sure to sign up!! Hopefully one of my readers will win the giveaway!

Make your Mark in March by signing up for this giveaway and my blog!

Candy