Yay! I Won TWICE! From Smile and Say It and hearwatchsay!

[Sherry67]

Today I was very pleased to see that one of the panels I belong to -- Smile and Say It -- is giving me a $25 Amazon card for being one of their Members of the Week!

I mainly wanted to start this thread to kind of shine a light on some of the smaller panels like Smile and Say It, because I have had very good luck with them in just the last year. There is a handful of small panels -- and I think that most of them are owned by Ipsos -- which are set up to specifically discuss one particular subject and collect data for product development. They offer some surveys but they are not paid surveys. They mainly run forums and want people to discuss certain topics. I'm sure that some of the Survey Police members belong to these panels, but I don't see any discussion of them so some folks could be unaware.

In the case of Smile and Say It, their goal is to collect data and feedback on dental products. There is another small panel called hearwatchsay, which covers media like TV, movies, video games, etc. There used to be a mobile phone-specific panel called Insights4Mobile, but I think they've closed. I also belong to Kraft Tastemakers, which covers food and products in the Kraft family.

Normally, I never win anything. I'm not a terribly lucky person in general. In the last year I have won $25 from hearwatchsay for participating in some thread or survey about a new TV show. I also tested a product and won $25 from Kraft Tastemakers last year after participating in a panel discussion for them about that product (they chose 15 winners out of the 20 people they allowed into the panel chat). And today I won the $25 from Smile and Say It for participating in one of their forums. (I am currently unemployed so these wins are like gold!) Some of the surveys offer randomly selected winners, but I have never won from doing one of the surveys. I've only won from participating in discussion threads (they hand-pick those winners).

These sorts of smaller forums don't require you to hang out there all day long and comment on everything -- I am living proof of that. You don't need to devote a lot of time. But they appreciate good, well-thought out comments about whatever the thread topics are. You need only to offer a couple of reasonably coherent, intelligent posts to be noticed. They don't have huge panels of tons of people so it is easier to stand out. This past week I participated in a "Which non-oral care product has changed our life" thread, and I also chimed in on the discussion of which incentives I'd like to see offered. Prior to that, I had barely joined in on any threads! I didn't even participate to try to win anything. I don't think I realized that there was a Member of the Week prize! I just joined in because I had feedback to give and it paid off!

So I highly recommend joining hearwatchsay, Smile and Say It and Kraft Tastemakers if you don't already belong and if you get an invitation to join (that is, if the sites are not open to the general public to join). Again, so far they do not pay for their surveys but they mainly want the forum participation in the form of good, relevant commentary.

[canadamom]

Congrats! It is a good panel.

[SeriousSurveyer]

Congratulations, Sherry!

Is Smile and Say It invite only?

I was supposed to join Kraft Tastemakers but I canceled my membership because I didn't think I'd have the time and I'm not that interested in Kraft foods. I'd love to join another community but I don't think I have space. I've been bombarded with surveys and I'm already part of one marketing research community, plus this one.

At this point I'm only looking to join a panel/community that meets most of the following criteria: pays, pays fast and reliably, is interesting, and is not too time-consuming. I'm actually interested in oral care so I wouldn't mind Smile and Say It.

[Sherry67]

Thank you, canadamom and SeriousSurveyer!

You know, that's a good point. I don't think it ever dawned on me that any of the panels I mentioned could be invitation only! All this time, when I've been logging in -- and I have not spent a lot of time on Tastemakers, Smile and Say It or on hearwatchsay -- I assumed that the panels were open to everyone. I think I got hooked in to joining all of them a couple of years ago, when they first opened, and it must have been through surveys I did for Quick Rewards. So I just figured that anyone could join at any time.

I know that on Smile and Say It, one of the reasons why I recently decided to chime in and give feedback was because the moderator there asked the members to give input as to what kinds of changes we'd like to see on the site that would increase our participation. So I suspect that if SASI does have a full panel in terms of numbers alone, there are probably a lot of members who do not participate...in which case, I wonder why they don't 'pull a Pinceone' and start purging their system so they can make room for new people. I was so inactive on SASI, Tastemakers and on hearwatchway for long chunks of time (even after winning $25 each from the latter two sites) that I'm shocked they didn't boot me! But, I just kind of breeze in every so often with some well-placed, thoughtful commentary in threads that interest me and it seems to work.

As for Tastemakers, so far I have only tested one product for them -- Planter's Peanut Butter. That was last year. Then I agreed to be one of the 20 people participating in the live chat set up to discuss that product. They picked 15 out of those 20 people to win $25 Amazon cards so I figured I had a really good chance at winning, which I did. But I've never won from doing one of the actual surveys for Tastemakers, SASI or hearwatchsay. My wins at each of those places has been a direct result in giving feedback in threads.

Tastemakers -- most of the time -- runs threads and discussions about food in general (i.e., what you eat for breakfast, do you have any great summer recipes, etc.) and not just Kraft products. Their actual surveys are infrequent, and their product tests are even less frequent. I'm still hopeful that one of these days they will say, "Test the new DiGiorno pizza, or test the new Dreyer's Ice Cream!" (Hey, those are in the Kraft/Nestle Family!)

The SASI surveys (which are usually short and have very big lettering for anyone who hates tiny print!) come a little more often, and they almost always involve evaluating oral care products' packaging. There was a fun thread a while back about seasonal packaging and flavors for toothpaste - like Halloween-ish designs and flavors for one specific brand. I'll be very interested to see if that hits the shelves this Fall. Most people were not in favor of Halloween packaging and flavors for toothpaste, but I am a sucker for holidays so I was on board with it!

As for hearwatchsay, their actual surveys are not frequent either but they open threads to discuss certain things (i.e., which summer movies are you looking forward to, which summer TV shows are you looking forward to, etc.).

I'll ask Rachel -- the moderator at SASI -- if they have any openings for new members and if so, I will let you know, SeriousSurveyer!

[SeriousSurveyer]

Thank you.

[abby63]

Congrats on winning $25 Amazon card!

So none of these pay you for your opinion - just sweepstakes draws? As nice as that is I don't have a lot of time (I usually do surveys in the evening), so the paying surveys usually come first.

[Sherry67]

Congrats on winning $25 Amazon card!

So none of these pay you for your opinion - just sweepstakes draws? As nice as that is I don't have a lot of time (I usually do surveys in the evening), so the paying surveys usually come first.

Thank you!

These sites have occasional surveys, but not like the actual survey sites have. It's not an endless stream of surveys. These places are more for gathering feedback - via surveys or via forum discussions - on certain subtopics within the main topic of the site (in the case of SASI it is oral care products; in the case of Tastemakers it is food in general; in the case of hearwatchsay it is movies, TV shows and video games). They are not big, massive panels that offer elusive sweepstakes drawings to thousands and thousands of people, which most of us will never win. They do enter everyone's name into a $25 gift card random draw at the end of most surveys, but these sites are really about quality commentary. And they reward hand-picked people (Members of the Week or Member of the Month) for their contributions.

I totally know what you mean. I don't have a lot of time either (I job hunt, I moderate a whole other forum and I scramble to scrape up money through surveys and other means during the day), and I usually put the non-paying places at the bottom of the list. Often times I never get to them at all, or by the time I do the surveys/threads have been closed. If you saw how many forum posts I had on Tastemakers, Smile and Say It and hearwatchsay, you'd see that I am hardly ever on those sites. I literally had, I think, 3 or 5 posts at one point and I won the $25 Amazon.

So what these mini-panels want -- because they are small and, as Serious Surveyer pointed out, probably exclusive/invite only -- is quality and not necessarily quantity. They want just a couple of random, well-thought out, intelligent posts in whatever their thread of the week is. For a site like Tastemakers, there may be an occasional chance to test a product but it's not guaranteed.

I barely did much of anything other than post a couple of comments and I won. But it sounds like at least a couple of these places are invitation-only (if not all 3 of them), so unless you get an invitation I don't think you have to waste your time!

By the way, iCount - which I saw an Administrator post about yesterday - is a big waste of time. It's another panel devoted to a very specific topic -- namely, reality competition shows such as American Idol and X Factor, etc. (the questions are always about what we think of the judges and the overall production of the shows), and an occasional game show or YouTube video. At the end of every survey you're entered into one of those dreaded sweepstakes, but iCount is a much larger panel than the other three I mentioned so the chances of winning are slim. I've never won a thing through iCount, and they don't have any forums to post quality commentary in!

[Sherry67]

Update to my original post --

Now, not only have I recently won the $25 Amazon GC from Smile and Say It, but I just won a $50 Amazon GC from hearwatchsay!!!! I got the HWS notification this morning. Keep in mind, I won from HWS last year too ($25 on that occasion). These types of wins are hand-picked and not random, which is why it is important to post quality commentary. But this time the winnings are greater!

And what did I post about that won me the $50 on HWS? I posted my thoughts on how American Idol should be cancelled, and I posted my thoughts about seeing movies in theaters and how the experience could improve.

Serious Surveyer, the SASI moderator told me that she is working on some sort of "refer a friend" set-up (since it is invitation only), and when she does she will let me know so I can get you in there too!

[SeriousSurveyer]

Thanks again Sherry!