The BritMums Blog

Win two tickets to see The Help

Fancy a night out at the flicks for free? We have 10 pairs of tickets to see The Help at a special screening to under 50 people at the Covent Garden Hotel on 7 October. 

You and a friend can enjoy drinks and nibbles before settling into the plush leather seats and enjoying the story set at the heart of the 1960s civil rights movement in America. 

BritMum to judge mum of the year competition

Tara Cain, member of BritMums and respected mummy blogger, will join leading lights from the worlds of entertainment, sport and business to help choose winners in the Mum of the Year Awards 2012.

A former newspaper features editor, Tara quit after realising she spent “far too much time travelling up motorways and in power suits and not enough time with my babies.” 

Do you have a winning blog?

The Cosmo Blog Awards 2011 have opened for nominations, and some of the categories are so far up BritMums’ street we wanted to let you all know. 

The 2010 Awards received over 15,000 blog nominations, and this year’s competition is expected to be even bigger. If you want to get your words of wisdom in front of the judges, you have until 31 August to apply. 

You can enter your own blog or nominate a blog you love to read. Categories include new and established beauty and fashion blogs, lifestyle, health, diet and fitness. 

To see the full list of categories and get your nomination in, visit the Awards page on the Cosmo website.

 

LolliBop Festival Giveaway

We've got 4 sets of VIP family tickets for the LolliBop festival to giveaway! (thanks to the Fruit Shoot My-5 team).

Lollibop runs August 5-7 August in Regents Park and  is a great day out for families with under 10s. This 3-day event is the UK’s only festival where all the entertainment is for children. Tickets are limited to 2,500 families per day.

All you need to to is leave a comment below before  with the answer this question: 

Which age group is this festival aimed at? (if you need some help, the answer is in bold above).

This competition is now closed.

Guest post: Facebook's updated competition rules

Facebook recently updated their competition rules when it comes to "liking" a page. If you run comps on your blog and promote them on facebook, you probably have heard the rumblings. Jax (aka Making it up) recently took a look at the new rules, and this is her take:

 We're all into using social media to promote our blogs - tweeting posts on twitter, sharing thethrough facebook. Many of us have run competitions on blogs, and some on Facebook, and there's been plenty of furore on blogs about facebook voting competitions in the past. On Twitter a few weeks ago I saw a link shared by one of the compers (friendly name for people who enter competitions as a hobby) I follow, saying that Facebook has updated its promotion guidelines - you can read them here.

It kicks of with some stuff about legal obligations (important to be aware of but not my main focus at the moment) and then we get to the bits that I think are most likely to affect bloggers running Facebook pages to promote their blogs. 

3. You must not use Facebook features or functionality as a promotion’s registration or entry mechanism.  For example, the act of liking a Page or checking in to a Place cannot automatically register or enter a promotion participant. 

Join our #savvyfetes Twitter party on 11 May!

Bring out the bunting and ice the fairy cakes; tis the season for school fetes. Fetes are important not only for the fun they provide but for the essential funds they raise for the schools themselves. But what makes a good fete? What's the best way to organise a tombola? How do you get people involved?

Online blogger competitions: 5 best practices from the experts

Ever wonder how the experts run online competitions? Iain Haywood, founder of Competition Hunter, has years of experience running them for major brands and small businesses alike. In this post he shares his top tips for executing successful blogger competitions.

Most of you as bloggers will be familiar with online competitions as a useful tool in the promotional arsenal.  Everyone likes to win things, right?  But I often hear from bloggers that they don’t take full advantage of the opportunities a competition can provide, or can sometimes miss the mark entirely.  Here are some quick tips to help maximise the potential of your online competition.

How to get 1,000 comments on your next blog post

I thought that would get your attention. The actual title for this post is "Your guide to running successful blog competitions" :D

Sooner or later your going to be asked to run a competition on your blog. This happened to me a couple years back, when Halfords wanted to give away some kit. I've learnt a lot since then and think I've finally got the hang of it. My current competition is going so well it has more than 1,000 comments.  I've put together a guide below for running competitions below. Enjoy, and if you have any questions please leave a comment.