Memed Again...

I got tapped again to post some narcissistic nuggets. Immediately, I thought, what the heck... how bad could it be to list the Seven Weird Things About Me? Well, according to the Wiki entry on Memes, a simple element of ideas could actually be quite detrimental to it's host. Should I risk losing any new readers by divulging my weirdness?

Screw it... here goes:

1) I chew ice. Lots and lots. All damn day. Yes, I do have dental issues, among my other "issues."

2) I hated Shirley Temple when I was a kid, not because she wasn't cute, sweet, and talented, but because I wanted to be the cute, sweet, and talented girl on TV.

3) I love Barry Manilow. I would love to see him in Vegas. That is all.

4) I used to be able to do the splits against a wall and back-walk-overs on a balance beam. Last time I tried to do either, my chiropractor charged me double.

5) I dyed my hair blonde for a year and a half because women at the park thought I was my daughter's Mexican nanny and kept asking how much I charge. Bitches.

6) My 13th birthday landed on a Friday the Thirteenth. I think it was also a full moon. It was a fun night, so from then on, Friday the 13ths are always celebrated with aplomb.

7) When I was a kid, I wanted to follow in my grandpa's shoes and become a radio DJ. I used to tape pretend radio shows with sound effects and everything. Unfortunately, I was never picked up for syndication.

So now I'm supposed to tag seven more people... but my last attempt bombed and I don't do well with failure. Besides, I'd rather have you leave your weirdness here. Weirdest comment wins a small prize!

Dig deep people! ;)

...

Oh, and here's part of the Wiki entry for Meme:

A meme (pronounced /miːm/) is unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices that transmit from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomenon. The term is derived from the Greek word mimema for mimic.

Meme-theorists contend that memes evolve by natural selection in a manner similar to that of biological evolution influencing an individual entity's reproductive success. Memes are ideas that are spread by the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Theorists point out that memes which replicate the most effectively spread best, and some memes may replicate effectively even when they are detrimental to the welfare of its host.

How Social Media Can Change Your Life

I have another guest post today. I wanted Nan (aka Rogue Puppet) to share her HP Giveaway experience. Early on in my contest, she tweeted me to let me know that she had already won another giveaway! I was so excited for her and thankful to have one less great post to consider… WHEW! She wanted to share how she came to win the fabulous prize at Chris Pirillo’s site and how you might benefit from her tactics, not just in winning contests, but in winning at networking.

When I first heard about the HP Magic contests, my mind went into overdrive. I had a list of people that I knew would be touched deeply by receiving a gift like this, and I started cruising through all the host blogs and looking at the requirements. I entered one that was a random drawing ( it went to a really nice lady in Colorado) and one that required me to make an interesting and insightful comment on the blog, along with my plan for sharing. My comment got an honorable mention, but as my daughter said "no laptop". Then i found Chris Pirillo's contest. The rules had been revealed recently: submit a blog post and the blog that got the most unique comments would win. This was a contest that I thought I might have a chance of winning. How many of the folks I knew online and offline could I convince to make a comment?

After writing an article and having it accepted and published, I started the campaign by sending an email to family and friends who were not on any other form of social media. I sent a bunch of emails explaining who I wanted the computers to do to and got a handful of comments. We were not in the lead, but we were running in about 6th place. I was willing to take this as encouragement and started plowing forward. I put the link to the post in my Facebook status and had my daughters send it to some of their friends. I tweeted the link, but did not want to flood my followers with non-valued added posts (OK, it could be argued that this happens even without contest links, but I like to think I amuse, even if I do not always inform). The comments on the post were slowly creeping up, but we remained a steady 5th or 6th place. The next day I did one or two tweets more, hoping to catch some folks I may have missed the first time. when I checked again after work, the tweeple had come through and we had climbed up to about 3rd place. I went to bed and hoped for more the of folks I had emailed to respond.

The next day was the final day of the contest and the difference between my post and the winning post was only about 40 comments. Surely I could find 40 people to respond to a request for a comment. I put in a tweet before headiing to work and then checked it off and on through the day. Our numbers clinbed but so did the leaders' and we remained in third place. By the afternoon I became more determined than ever. I suppose this is the point that other people would have given up- 8 hours to go and still behind-but I wanted this so much for the people on my list that I redoubled my efforts and dug in deep. I decided that perhaps the flow of tweets was so furious that many of my friends on twitter might not have seen my tweets at all. I thought about it long and hard, then decided to go the route of using DMs to send them the link and make a comment.

DMs have to be typed in one at a time, but after just a couple I started getting responses from friends who said they were on their way to check out the article. Chris' blog has moderated comments, so there was a delay between the comments being made and appearing, but I had no reason not to believe that these folks would be telling me they were commenting if they weren't. Encouraged, I started sendiing some more DMs. At the same time, i was monitoring DMa coming back from people and sending them thank you DMs back. I made sure i achnowledged every favor of a comment that came in. It was not long before I learned that there is a 250 DM per day limit on Twiter. Ouch. I was still getting DMs in from people, so I started @replying them instead of DM. I have to admit, I was waiting for my follower count to drop significantly as I flooded my twitterstream with contest mentiions. I did not want to alienate my friends, but had to hope that this one time event would be balanced by months of non-commercial tweets. ( luckily, they were all amazingly tolerant and the losses did not come).I tried to make it fun by setting a comment goal and counting down with every response I made. I tried not to obsess with the contest, but could not help but notice that the moderation had stalled and counts were not being updated (turned out that Chris had food poisoning and was suffering through it that night). I knew I was getting comments, but had no idea how many new comments the others were getting. Finally, 10pm CST rolled around and the contest was officially closed. It looked like comments were going to take a while to get moderated, so I finally gave up and went to bed.

The next morning, I was amazed to see that our count had gone from 45 to 96 in the last 8 hours. I held my breathe, and paged through the rest of the entries (170 in all) and was saddened to see that even though we had had an amazing response from a lot of good people, there were two other entries that appeared to have gotten more posts than us. I took a deep breathe, shook it off and went in search of another contest. That is how I began my adventure here at Sugar's contest. I dug in and took every free moment between meetings and projects that day to dig in and start exploring and building a network amongst the entrants here. I made friends with someone who I continue to Twitter with, and found a potential partner for a community project on another blog. We exchanged emails and have started fleshing out an idea (based off of the article I wrote for Chris' contest) that I think will be a cool community project. I found someone else who had been a contestant in Chris' contest as well-but I discovered him over here. We have hooked up as friends on the geeks.com comunity and I look forward to more conversations. All this, before 6pm. I became so excited about all the potential in this contest. It became obvious to me that anyone who was trying hard to win was going to win an incredible network of people, even if they did not win the computers. After settling my daughter in to bed, I got back on the computer and checked my email before divng back into the networking challenge. and found a couple of odd emails from Chris, asking about a few of the people who had left comments on my post. Could this mean that they had not found a winner yet after all? The questions he was asking looked like he was checking the IP addresses of the entries. Sure enough, his amazing team spent hours and hours peeling through proxies and getting to the sources of the entries. Remember, the contest was looking at unique entries.

There was another email exchange and then the phone call. Turns out that after they eliminated the duplicates in the other entries, I had the most comments after all. I DM'd Sugar on Twitter and let her know I had won another contest and was no longer eligible for hers- but asked for permission to continue networking, because there are so many interesting people here. She was gracious enough to allow me to continue to "audit the contest" and before it is over, I hope to visit and get to know each and every one of you. I struggled in writing this post to keep from shifting to the third person "we". I finally gave up. It is not because I am thinking in some distant formal structure, but becuase I honestly saw the contest on Chris' site as a team effort. If not for the people who Dugg the article, Stumbled it, passed it on to their friends, shared it on other forums and mailing lists, and found 10 minutes in their day to help someone out I would never be sitting here in possession of tracking numbers watching an amazing stack of boxes make their way toward me. To each of you, I wish the best of luck. Most of all, I hope you connect, respond and hold onto the contacts and friends you make on this web of blogs- you never know when in the future you can help each other out.

-- Don't lose sight of the fun in life: http://roguepuppet.blogspot.com

Seven

My littlest girl is seven today.

Her favorite color is Turquoise. She loves carrots… just like she did when she was a baby. Her favorite thing to do is ride bikes with her friends (and sometimes, her mom).

 

She loves to laugh and dance and make up songs. She loves her brother and screams with joy when her big sisters visit. She is her aspiring photographer mother’s favorite model, and her Daddy’s little girl.

Every day, when I delicately comb through her beautiful curls, I’m humbled by God’s kindness in bringing her to me to care for. The ten years before I knew her were not easy. I never thought I would have the chance to be a mom to another baby. She is, in a way, a miracle. And I am always very aware of that.

Happy birthday, Banana. I love you.

How Many Times Can I Say "Amazing" in Five Minutes?

I can't help it!

It has been amazing, so you'll have to forgive me for saying it too much... which, apparently I do. I hope you can see the huge TouchSmart screen (that will be one of yours) behind me when it lights up... I shout out the names, so no worries... you will definitely know if you won. And I don't know how to use my editing software, so this is pretty amateur looking... whatever.

Make sure to come back here Friday. I will be highlighting some of your stories and some of the great seeds that have been planted. A suggestion was made that I thought was a great idea. No matter who wins, having one day of the week or a separate forum dedicated to all of our endeavors continuing the raising of awareness for groups large and small. I always dreamed of that... can't wait to make it happen!

So, here goes:


Untitled from Sugar Jones on Vimeo.
Congratulations!!

Marketing on the Cheap for the Mompreneur

Since so many of you landing here to enter the HP Magic Giveaway are also Mompreneurs, I asked my Twitter friend, Wendy Piersall, aka eMom to share some ideas on marketing on a budget. Although this article is written with Moms in mind, these tips are invaluable to all entrepreneurs looking to keep costs low while building their dream.

Thanks Wendy!

 

Ways Mompreneurs Can Market on the Cheap

Most moms who start businesses do so with a budget of next to nothing. While there's nothing wrong with this (it's actually how I started Sparkplugging), I've learned that it isn't always the best foundation for a big, booming business. If you have visions of being acquired by some big company someday, I'd make the recommendation that you find a way to give yourself a healthy budget so that you can give your company what it needs to grow. But honestly, most moms aren't even interested in that route - they just want a business that fits in with their busy child-centered lifestyle. If that's you, then everything you do is all about spending as little as possible and making as much as possible as a work at home mom.

Free Marketing and Advertising Opportunities

If your business is local, run, don't walk (or, erm, 'type') and get to Google Local and Local.Yahoo.com. Both of them offer free business listings for small businesses. Craigslist, the clearinghouse of the internet, is actually a good place for freelancers and consultants to get the word out about their services. You can post both a classified ad and your resume. If you have a website, check out AdGridwork, an advertising platform that automates the exchange of links between web businesses.

Cheap Online Advertising & Office Supplies

Cheap ads are great - and there's plenty to be found for mom businesses. Be sure to do a little research to make sure that your ad will be seen by people likely to become your customers or clients. A few places that offer good advertising for reasonable rates are DiaperSwappers, MomPack, and AdvertisingMoms. The last one also has good advice on advertising in general for mom businesses. Also, before you buy anything for your home office, do a hunt for coupons first. A Full Cup has a whole section of their forum dedicated to coupons and deals from office supply stores.

Think Creatively & Be Passionate to be Successful

If I had to distill my best business advice into two thoughts it would be these:

1. After nearly a decade of being a mompreneur, I've found that one of the most important things you can do for the health of your income is to diversify how you earn your money. There might be a learning curve as you branch out, but too many times I've had all of my eggs in one basket and ended up getting burned. If you are a crafter, sell your leftover craft supplies on eBay. If you are a freelancer, write an eBook. If you are a blogger, learn affiliate marketing. Whatever you do, don't rely on one source of income.
2. Take care of yourself. Life balance can get a little whacky when there is no separation between work and home. The true key to being successful as a Mompreneur is to be focused and do what you love. You can't do either if you aren't taking care of #1. :)

Wendy Piersall is a well known work at home mom and entrepreneur, founding the Sparkplugging Blog Network in 2006. Today she's also heading up marketing for Escalate Media and their new site TotallyHer, The Magazine and Community for Smart & Savvy Women.

 

 

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