The good news is that it’s only two months or so since we last did a newsletter update. Hooray! This means we’re well on course to beating 2022’s appalling record of forgetting to keep in touch with you. Double Hooray! Anyway we continue to be busy working on various Loquax things that you can and cannot (yet) see. In recent weeks we’ve given some of our graphics an update plus transitioned another gambling section over to its own home at Loquax Bingo. To be honest we had thought the poker section was already over there but for some reason it hadn’t. If you’re new round these parts then you might be thinking why did Loquax ever have a poker section? Well originally it was home to a game called Hocus Poker. It was a fun little game, with a witch theme, that Kirsty wrote to enter a competition in a computer magazine. And she won it! So Hocus Poker ended up on Loquax and from there we ended up working with a few poker companies because they discovered we could rank better than them in Google. Sadly as a java based game Hocus Poker is no longer supported and so it’s no longer available.
Tiktok Competitions
One thing that is available is a new type of competitions category which is specifically for competitions and prize draws that can be entered via Tiktok. This section replaces Pinterest (remember them!) because there weren’t many to any listings. When we added the Tiktok option there were quite a few listings (around a dozen) but that mau be due to it being close to Valentine’s Day. At time of writing there are just a couple but they do include a We Buy Any Car competition to win a new car and a Broadway Travel competition that’s offering a holiday to Norway. The problem with Tiktok as a platform is that it’s really difficult to find prize draws. This is because there’s no way of organising posts in chronological order. Tiktok want you to see the most popular clips rather than what’s new. We’ve read that it’s possible to order things in Hootsuite but haven’t investigated further. If you’re able to help post Tiktok prize draws then we could do with your help otherwise the listings will most likely be limited to those who offer Tiktok as an entry option alongside other social media platforms. By the way if you’re not keen on seeing Tiktok giveaways on your listings then our listings option will allow you to filter them out.
Pay To Enter Instant Win Prize Draws
Many people thought that pay to enter competitions like Elite Competitions, McKinney, Bounty and Jammy would be a fad, but it seems that they’re definitely going from strength to strength. Some have even managed to giveaway houses as prizes whilst regularly dishing out other exciting goodies such as cars and holidays. A latest development within the sector is instant win prizes. The pay to enter prize draw runs as normal so that means there’s a prize (for example £10,000) and the competition site has a bunch of prizes to sell at say £3 a piece but there’s a maximum entry level. After the closing date the draw is done and someone wins the prize. However to make these prize draws more interesting an instant win element has been introduced on some sites. You purchase your ticket as usual but if that ticket matches one of the instant win ticket numbers shown on the page then you win – instantly! One site we’ve seen this on had a top instant win prize of £5000 plus a whole bunch of smaller prizes. Of course we understand a lot of you much prefer free prize draws and the good news is that quite a few “raffle sites” do run free to enter draws. Thanks to our users some of these are listed under the Raffle Competitions section. It’s worth a look too as prizes have ranged from site credits through to cars (albeit a second hand one).
The Winners Post
One thing we’ve never really done over the last 25 years is make a song and a dance over the wins you guys get by using Loquax to find prize draws and competitions. In hindsight it is perhaps something we should have done. Pick up a copy of Compers News for example and the front page is all about ‘The Latest Wins’. Look on Loquax and you’ll find our winners section is kind of squirrelled away low down on the forums. We do also have our Top Winners section but again that’s not totally obvious. We’re going to change that shortly and make the winners area a little more obvious. However these kind of things are only as good as the input so if you have won recently whilst using Loquax then do share with us and others. Firstly it makes us – and indeed others who contribute to the listings – very happy to know that people do win from the posts. Secondly it also inspires others to keep on comping and share in the success of others. There have been some decent recent wins reported too: a £1000 Holiday Voucher, a bundle of gadgets and cash from ITV, radio competition wins and loads of smaller goodies like books etc. And yes we do love hearing about all the prizes you win not just the biggies.
Thank You
Finally just a few thank yous. Firstly if you’ve taken the time to read the above thank you very much. Secondly thanks to everyone who left a comment regarding 25 Years of Loquax. We deliberately kept it low key as these aren’t the easiest times for anyone, including ourselves, but it was heart warming to read your best wishes etc. especially when some of the comments came from users who have been here almost from the start. It did seem strange that other corners of the competition community didn’t even acknowledge that we’ve been around 25 years but there we go. Hopefully we’re a little magnanimous towards them when they reach such a milestone. But all that is of little relevance compared to the thanks we have to offer everyone who contributes with posts and competitions. Without your help there is no Loquax at all – well not in it’s current iteration – and it’s been great to see the numbers of people posting steadily increasing. This is important because the site then doesn’t have to depend on one or two people to do all the work. There’s always room for more posters though as in the words of a big supermarket every little helps.