Tweet to Win

I've been a winning machine recently, and I'm not really sure how this happened. I have the worst luck in the world. Up until a few months ago, I could honestly say I had zero luck when it came to winning things. I remember at the Girl Scouts Father Daughter Dance when I was in 2nd grade my dad asked if I wanted a raffle ticket and I basically told him "What's the point?" That's basically been my mantra with raffles & drawings since then. So, imagine my surprise a few months ago when I won a writing contest. So what if it was 100 words or less? I still won! And then, shortly thereafter, I won tickets on Twitter for the Battle of the Burgers!

Just last week, I found out I had won a prize package from the Fox Theatre. Wanna know what I won? 2 tickets to see Messiah Rocks! at the Fox, 2 tickets to the Fernbank & iMAX, $75 in restaurant giftcards, and a night's stay at the Hyatt Place. All for following them on Twitter and letting my followers know that I follow them. My mom and her friend thoroughly enjoyed the show, and I'm really excited to use the giftcards, hotel stay, and Fernbank tickets. I LOVE the Fernbank, seriously!

And now, I've won tickets to go see RENT at FabreFaction. I'll be 100% honest and say I had never heard of Fabrefaction before White Provisions tweeted about it, but now I have the chance to check out a new place, see a show I love, and it's such a personal victory for me when I win something.

I can't WAIT to tell you guys all about RENT, either. I'm taking a girlfriend and maybe we'll even use one of thsoe giftcards beforehand...!

So, in case you are like 3 years tardy to the party, hop on over to Twitter, get yourself an account, and start your following. You'll never know what you could win until you do it! And PS - if you need some good people to follow, check out my list of people I'm following to get some ideas!

Tweet Tweet!

Are you a gym rat?

I'm not much of a complainer via the internet. I really save my complaints for my mom. She's a good listener, mainly because she has to even if she doesn't want to. It's in the job description for mom. But, I have a complaint. Not a huge one, but just a little something that's bothering me.

I love Twitter. I think it is a FANTASTIC tool for networking, customer service, advertising, and whatever else you want it to be. While I was perusing the LA Fitness website a few days ago to figure out how to make the most of my few remaining days as a member, I discovered that they, too, have a Twitter account. Imagine that! So I decided to follow LA Fitness.

Then I opened my Twitter feed this morning to see this:


I think this is terrible, no good, very bad advice. First of all, it makes it seem as though snacking is a bad thing. It's not. As with everything else, it's healthy in moderation. Now, I don't consider myself an expert, or even a healthy living blogger, or anything else that would make me at all qualified to speak about this subject, but I just have to tell you, coming from a place like LA Fitness, that is not what I was expecting to see in my Twitter feed. As someone who is currently trying to perfect my exercise routine and eating habits, that 140-word-tidbit wasn't motivating. It didn't inspire me to not eat snacks. It discouraged me - made me feel like if I have more than 3 bites of my snack then I'm not up to LA Fitness par. Maybe I'm overreacting to a stupid tweet, but it's really how I felt!

Because I firmly believe that if you are going to complain out loud, you should also offer solutions to the problem... LA Fitness, rather than calling me out for the things I do wrong, how about tweeting instructions for a quick workout or challenging followers to meet a milestone such as increasing their speed or adding another lap to their swim? Or offering information about what's going on at clubs across the country! Or maybe a tip about how to warm up or cool down, or where to get great running shoes... Anything other than making me feel bad about what I'm already doing, really! I get that it's a suggestion, and I do see where the tweet was coming from but... I still don't like it. And maybe it's just me, and I'll deal.

I guess all I am trying to say is that LA Fitness is not in my good graces as of lately. Between the rotten (although remedied) customer service I received and now their tweets about how to eat and calories... I'm just not impressed.