Twitter Party Help!

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• I will have to keep Tweetgrid in mind! Thanks everyone!!!

• I have used tweetgrid and it does move rather quick. One other option you have is to use Twitter itself. Go to search, type in hashtag used and keep refreshing, or you can follow the hosts on the web if you don't mind missing other peoples answers. (sometimes these are good options for a huge party) So many people retweet during the big parties it is easy to get lost, distracted and miss questions entirely.
  I have had both tweetgrid and regular twitter open in dif windows, and it does make it easier.

  Best of luck and hope to see you at the parties!

• always wondered about the parties too. Been to my fair share, but would leave early due to the mass confusion and trying to figure them out. Thanks Amber for your great tips. I will have to check out twreetgrid. I swore off twitter parties, but now maybe I will give it another chance.

• I was going to say that I really like TweetDeck myself -- I haven't noticed any major lags. I actually found more lags with TweetGrid when I tried it a few months ago. Yes, with TweetDeck, you have to manually pull the hashtag from your recently used drop down if you don't hit reply to the person questioning. That's the only downside for me. I also setup a Twitter List for each party I attend that has the hosts in it, so I can follow it more easily. I don't know if it's just my netbook, but I also find TweetDeck much easier to read than TweetGrid.

  Winning-wise -- I won a My Little Pony car for my daughter. I have learned some interesting things, but of course would love to win more! The "n-th response gets it" questions are frustrating, although somehow it was that kind of question that I won the car on (I heeded the warning the hostess gave and had the My Little Pony website open already to the birthday page before she asked the question). So if your host/hostess drops hints like, "let's talk about company X's new toy Y", go find Y on the website before the question gets asked.

• Wow, I'm definitely not a professional (great tips, Amber and Dana!) but I do also like Tweetgrid. It seems to keep up pretty well for me and as long as I'm paying attention (that's my problem - I get too distracted doing other things during the party) I can keep on top of what's going on. As for winning, I won a beach towel from a Lands' End party once - does that count as exciting? :)

  (P.S. I just saw your BlogHer button - you had better not leave there without giving me the chance to say hi in person!)

• Amber, Tweetgrid sounds better than what I used, I will have to check it out. Also the calendar is pretty cool, Thanks for sharing!

• I have won a lot of great prizes from twitter parties! The last thing I won was a Pandigital 5x7 scanner. I love it!

  First off, you need to have a quick computer/connection. I use tweet deck to keep track of everyone using the party's #hashtag. Then I open a window in my browser and pull up the host's twitter page. I just keep refreshing it to see their tweets/questions for the party. Tweet deck does not keep up as fast so that is why I don't use it to keep track of the host. I do though use tweet deck to post my answers. I always have the name of the host that I have to answer to and then the hashtag we are using ready in the box. Then I get my answer and write it in and tweet! Most parties now though don't do the first person to answer thing. Because of the fact that people have slow computers, or whatever. So they choose random winners. It's a lot more fair I think. =)

  • Wow, lucky you!

• I have won during twitter parties and I'll share my system with you. I use tweetgrid exclusively because I've found that other programs aren't as reliable. Just go to the tweetgrid homepage and click on "Party". Enter the #hashtag, then the host with the @ sign and your twitter handle. Once opened be sure to enter your handle and password and you're all set. The hashtag will automatically be in every tweet.

  You will be looking at 3 columns. The one on the left is the party and will be moving quite fast depending on which party you're at. The center is the host but I like to keep a seperate browser window open to the host(s) twitter profile and refresh often (just incase tweetgrid isn't updating fast enough. The 3rd column is your twitter id. You will see your posts plus any replies that you get during the party.

  Finally be sure to do these things to be entered for prizes:

  1. RSVP before the party (usually a Mr.Linky at the hosts site)
  2. Follow all of the co-hosts
  3. Retweet the party details on the day of the party and include the hashtag.
  4. Follow the party sponsor(s) and get familiar with their products and services. Some parties have speed questions and you'll give yourself an advantage if you already know the answers.
  5. Stay up to date on future twitter parties. @asthepotter has an ongoing twitter calendar on her site which she updates often here: http://tinyurl.com/2ccj9cw
  6. Have fun! You'll get the hang of it quicker than you think and will be winning prizes in no time :)

  • Wow, thanks for being so detailed!

• I actually just participated in my first one about a week ago. I didn't win anything, but I learned basically what you already know :) I couldn't believe how fast it went. I didn't think it took too long to load though, I used TweetChat.com it seemed to work well. I will say after that one, I am excited to find more, it doesn't take much to get me addicted :)

  • thanks, yeah there are so many twitter parties that I would love to participate in, but I haven't had luck with it yet. I will check out Tweetchat!