This Monday evening, 7/19/21 at 8PM I’ll be going live on @SewGeekMama’s Instagram page to chat about all things cosplay with Jenna Esposito! You can read more about Jenna in her Geek of the Week feature here on the blog: Geek of the Week: Jenna Esposito Cosplay – Geek Mamas

The first Cosplay Chat Live was last Monday with cosplayer Victoria Avalor. We had such a great time we talked for almost an hour! But because were we so chatty I wasn’t very good at seeing and responding to comments along the way, so this time my goal is to do better with that. They disappear kind of quickly with the two person split screen. I’m still pretty new to the live video thing so I just need a bit of practice to figure it all out.

Instagram Badges and the Focus on Live Video

The reason behind this new focus on Instagram Live is because of their new Badges program. You get bonuses for reaching certain milestones and to get the next bonus, I have to go live for at least 15 minutes once a week for the next month. So I’ll be making Cosplay Chat Live a regular Monday night thing, at least for a bit.

And what’s a Badge, you might be wondering? It’s a neat little heart you get next to your name when you send a tip during the live stream. You can tip more than once and the badge changes to a heart with a +, and there’s more things it does but I’ve only seen the hearts so far.

So what exactly about two people chatting would make people want to send $ during a live stream? At least, two fully clothed non-cam girl type people? LOL …Well I had no idea so I came up with an idea for a raffle. Every tip is an entry, and the prize is a signed copy of my kids book, “I’m Going to My First Comic Convention!”

Enter to Win by Getting an Instagram Live Badge

This is the first time I’m trying this, and Jenna is actually in the book, so I figured this would be a good start! So all you have to do to enter is to purchase a badge for at least $1 during our Instagram Live chat on Monday night, 7/19/21 at 8PM EST. Afterwards, the very fair way I pick a winner is to let my 6-year-old son scroll through the names and pick one. He doesn’t know anybody and can’t read the names anyway! I’ll send a private message and do a public shout out in the Insta stories with the winning name.

10/25/21 UPDATE: I haven’t done a Cosplay Chat live thing in a bit! Instagram stopped doing the bonuses and I didn’t really like the whole “badges” thing. So I’m back to just randomly popping on IG Live when I feel like it. Going live is not my favorite thing. I like to be able to look it over and edit if needed. Half the time I don’t even post the recording if I do IG Live. But if I do, you can find it under the IG TV tab.