Tweet the Convention Contest

See the list of current contestants here

The Challenge

Use Twitter to share your convention experience with the world, and in the process try to win some nifty prizes. Tell us your thoughts, post your pictures, and interact with other Sigma Tau Deltans while helping to make this convention the best one yet!

Two Ways to Win!

1- Most Prolific. 
Nothing complicated or fancy, the person with the most qualifying tweets wins. Simple as that.

2- Most Popular. The contestants will choose the person who was the most helpful, informative, and entertaining for the most popular prize. If you think someone’s tweet was a good contribution to the contest, retweet it to your friends. The contestant whose original posts were retweeted most often wins.

Who?

Anyone! While we expect that most of the people participating will be going to the convention, those who are stuck at home can still play along by interacting with the other contestants and retweeting your favorite tweets.

What?
Tweet anything related to the convention. Tell us how excited you are to be going. Post a picture of your chapter looking sleepy at the airport. Share instructions on your killer packing technique that let you fit everything you need into one carry-on. Once here, let people know what events you are attending, and when they are over let people know what you thought. Share a video of your chapter's 2nd place Dry T-shirt skit and let the world know you were robbed! Start a poll for the best place to eat lunch. Announce that anyone who comes by your t-shirt table with the code word gets 20% off. Re-tell the funny joke you overheard in the hall. Invite people to join you for dinner. Ask if anyone knows the name of the guy who went last at open mic night. As you are packing up and heading home, reflect on your experiences and give us your suggestions for how things could be better. You can even tweet links to content on other sites, like your personal blog, chapter website, or favorite book forum, so long as it has something to do with convention (video of one of our featured speakers at another event is good, video of you at your cousin's bachelor party a year ago is not). Remember, replies to other people's tweets count too, so make sure you read what other people have to say and give them feedback. And please, if something was really interesting or funny, retweet it!

When?
The contest starts Monday, February 27 at 8 a.m. EST, and ends Monday, March 5 at 8 p.m. EST. Remember: This means the contest starts before convention begins! This doesn't mean you can't start tweeting before the start of the contest. In fact, we hope you do start early so we can spread the word and get everyone excited about convention. But only posts made during the contest window will be considered for prizes.


Why?

Well, aside from the fun and excitement of interacting with other convention goers and never missing out on an impromptu pizza party, we are offering fabulous prizes! 

For the Most Prolific competition, first place will receive a $35 Amazon.com gift certificate. Second place receive a Cafe du Monde coffee mug.

First place for the Most Popular competition will receive a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate. Second place will receive a Cafe du Monde coffee mug.


How?

To enter the contest, send an email with your name, chapter, email address, and twitter username to lbrandeberry@niu.edu.


Follow @EnglishCon on twitter to get news about convention and the twitter contest. Check out the list of contestants and begin following other convention attendees. Make friends, make plans, have fun.


During the contest period, include the keyword @EnglishCon in any tweet to enter it into the contest.


One more thing! Please do not use the initialism "STD" to refer to our illustrious organization. If "Sigma Tau Delta" takes up too many of your 140 characters, we would prefer you use "SigmaTD".


Winners will be announced after the contest ends (it may take us a few days to tabulate the scores, so please be patient). Winners will be contacted by email. Prizes will be mailed to the winner sometime in March.


The Fine Print:
You knew is was coming sooner or later! Don't worry, we're not trying to trick you; this is basically the part where we say that cheaters never prosper.


Tweets that won't count toward prize eligibility:


-Unrelated tweets. Your tweet must have something to do with convention to be counted.
-Duplicates. If you tweet the exact same link 4 times in one day we will note your enthusiasm, but you will only get credit for it the first time.


This contest is meant to be fun for everyone and we expect participants to reflect Sigma Tau Delta's high standards for decorum. The following types of tweets could get you disqualified from the contest. We will try to give you a warning first, but truly egregious violations will result in immediate disqualification. Posts that will get you in trouble:


-Any tweets or links to content containing inappropriate language, inappropriate material, insults, or other behavior unbecoming of a Sigma Tau Delta member. This will include, but not be limited to profanity, nudity, name calling, hate speech, or harassment.

-Any tweets or links to content that describe inappropriate behavior, even if the post doesn't include graphic descriptions or pictures. We are not here to play nanny, we expect you to use your judgement on this. If you take a picture of your chapter at dinner, the adults don't need to hide their wine glasses. But if you get drunk and decide to do something stupid, please don't share it with the rest of us. If you wouldn't want the Dean of your college hearing about it, we don't want to hear about it either.
-Any tweets or links to content that depict or describe activity or behavior that is illegal or against hotel rules. Not only will this sort of tweet disqualify you, we will be obligated to report it to your chapter sponsor and possibly the police or hotel management. 

-Unauthorized pictures or video. Everyone who attends convention has consented to be photographed or recorded while at the event, and it is usually not a problem to snap a picture or record a speech. However, our 4 featured speakers are all under contract, and they usually do not give us permission to take video of them. Any unauthorized video of our featured speakers will be immediately removed from any sites that we control and may result in further disciplinary action. Also, because having flashes going off in the face is disconcerting to people presenting their papers, please be polite and ask before taking photos during a session.
-Spam. The rules of the contest are not strict, and your tweets don't have to be particularly long or deep to count, but obviously trying to game the system by posting dozens of slight variations on the same message or commenting on every tweet with "Yeah!" or "You're so right!" will result in disciplinary action. We will try to warn you if we see this kind of behavior and give you a chance to change and/or appeal, but any activity that appears to be from a script, bot, hacker, or other malicious person or tool will be banned automatically. If the contest gets taken over by hackers we will end it and nobody will win, so please don't ruin it for everybody! If you do notice suspicious activity, please report it right away.
-Plagiarism or cheating. If we catch you trying to pass off someone else's material as your own, claiming ownership of an account that isn't yours, or in any way trying to cheat, you will be immediately disqualified from the contest and could face further disciplinary action.