What Has Social Media Done for You Lately? #FTW

You might've asked yourself this question in the past few weeks, but I sure haven't.

As the holiday season approaches it's easy for us to swing one of two ways - either we give, give, give in an epic display of good karma, or we anxiously await the orgy of greed that is Christmas gift opening (or, the eight crazy nights you get for Hanukkah, my Jewish readers).

Both ends of the spectrum are greatly enhanced by social media, and a quick rundown of what social media has done for me lately will show that it truly is a place for giving as well as receiving.

Twitter:
Repeal of Prohibition = free Bison Blonde - so it's not "lately" in the true sense of the word, but approximately 18 months ago, for the celebration of the Repeal of Prohibition, Buffalo Water paraded a keg of Bison Blonde to Just Arts and tapped it for all eager celebration participants. My friends and I became those celebration participants when we heard about the free beer via Twitter. Oh, the lovely Twitter with it's free beer promoting ways.

Free lunch at Eatery on Farwell - Last week I entered a retweet contest to win free lunch at Eatery on Farwell. I didn't win, but I sure did appreciate their booze porn. This week they DM-ed me that their winner was unable to accept the prize. I now do so in his or her stead. See, Miss America's First Runner Up? Sometiems it does happen.


Facebook:
Free lunch at Transfer Pizzeria - I'm pretty great at winning any contest that requires a "first person to respond" challenge (as opposed to a "we'll pick a name out of a hat"...I never win those). That's how I got free lunch at Transfer Pizzeria yesterday. To be fair, I first heard about the contest at the Spreenkler meetup, which I heard about through Twitter, but the contest took place on Facebook so it's a Facebook win.

Free tickets to Waiting for Superman via OnMilwaukee - I was sad to have missed this film at the Milwaukee Film Festival, and so I jumped at the chance to win two free passes to a screening via a "be the first to comment" Facebook challenge. Challenge accepted. Tickets won.

Email...?
Free tickets to Burlesque via Wisconsin Gazette - Again, this should be prefaced that I clicked a link to the Wisconsin Gazette via Twitter and that's how I originally landed upon this contest. However, it took place via, yes really, email. So I won free tickets to see Burlesque (and I really want to see it, it's Cher and Christina Aguilera for goodness' sake), but I was emailed the free pass yesterday afternoon. At 3:59 PM. The show was at 7 PM. I didn't have email access after 3:30 PM. Social media giveaway #Fail.

Check back for a recap of "What Has Social Media Done for You Lately?" Causes and Benefits style, to learn more about the "Giving" side of the social media spectrum.