Sticker Hunting Tips

Here are a few sticker-hunting tips that may help you in your quest to earn more stickers on GetGlue!


1. Make sure your check-in is a valid check-in, even if it is a phrase sticker you're gunning for.
The minimum amount of time you have to have between check-ins in order for them to be valid is 15 minutes. Even if you have the proper phrase for a sticker it may not trigger if your check-in isn't a valid one.

2. Don't go rapid-fire on Fan stickers if you've never checked-in to an item before.
GetGlue recently implemented an anti-cheat process to keep people from doing a five-and-out on a topic if they've never touched the topic before. If your first check-in to a topic is on the same day stickers are released for that topic then you can't just rapid-fire your way to five checks to get the Fan sticker. Your first four check-ins can be rapid-fire, but you should leave a gap of several hours between your fourth and fifth check-ins. If you can stand the wait, leave it overnight.
If you've checked-in to an item at least once prior to the day of the sticker release then you should be able to rapid-fire your way through the rest of the check-ins to get to the Fan sticker. The same holds for the SuperFan stickers at this point; if you've got your Fan sticker, you can rapid-fire through check-ins 6 through 15 to get to the SuperFan.

3. Pay attention to GetGlue's Twitter feed and Blog (and especially the mobile apps!)
While GetGlue's blog is a great resource for learning about new stickers, it tends to lag behind the speed of the updates that are pushed out on Twitter and the mobile app. Keep an eye on your Twitter feeds for messages sent out by GG that aren't @ messages, and definitely pay attention to the mobile app for when new sticker placeholders show up!

4. Pay attention to the top sticker hunters
Just as many hands make for light work, many eyes may notice something that a single set of eyes can miss. It may help you to subscribe to the the feeds of some of the top sticker hunters on the site as they typically earn the stickers as soon as they are released. This may give you double or even triple the notices that a sticker has started to pop.

5. Keep an eye out for last-minute sticker releases, especially on known sticker-bearing topics.
This one ties in with number three and four, in that some sticker notices may not appear until mere hours before their check-in window opens. Quite often we won't see the notice go up for a sticker for TV shows (I'm looking at you, Jersey Shore) until the day the show airs, so keep a weather eye on shows that you know have had stickers in the past.

6. Remember to check-in religiously to shows that have season fan and season superfan stickers.
Paying attention to the sticker reminder calendar may help with this one. With the introduction of season fan stickers to the mix and no way of telling if your check-in is a proper live check-in (barring a sticker for that week's show), you're going to have to go on gut instinct, check-in at the proper time, and trust GetGlue's tracking to make sure it flags all the check-ins you've had for the season on that show.

7. Learn how to back-track a sticker
This used to be a lot easier than it is now. You used to be able to look at stickers that you hadn't earned on GetGlue's site and it would show you a list of people that had recently earned that sticker. From there you could click on the latest person to earn the sticker and then flip through their activity feed to see what they'd been doing, letting you learn from their actions. Now it requires a few extra steps. Since you can't just look at the sticker from your page you have to find someone who has already earned it; one of the top sticker-hunters would probably be a good place to start. From there, look at the sticker in their listing. It should give you the list of people that recently earned it. Find someone who just earned the sticker and click on their profile. From there you will need to subscribe to that user and then refresh their page to get it out of grid view. After that you can page through their activity stream and see what they did that may have triggered the sticker. It's a bit more work, but definitely a viable strategy to try and figure out the proper steps to get a sticker to pop.

8. Above all, be willing to do the work.
Sticker-hunting isn't something that you can do half-heartedly. You have to be willing to put in the effort and play the game. I'll try my best to give you many of the tools you'll need to do the job via the blog and the FAQ, but there will be times that I can't get the site updated on the day of the sticker's release or provide you with completely accurate information on the requirements for a sticker (be it due to glitches in GetGlue's system or whatever obfuscation they have in place to keep us from figuring out how to get a specific sticker to pop - I'm looking at Californication in regards to that). You'll have to be willing to to do the legwork yourself in situations like that. A little detective work goes a long way when trying to figure out the trigger phrase or steps needed to get a sticker to pop.

This post has been cross-posted to the forums, so feel free to head over there and discuss your own tips!