Donna's Promo Talk - Promotional Marketing that Creates Excitement and Gets Results

Company Blog Serves as Great Marketing Tool

By Guest Blogger, Dave Thomas, Online Content Editor for business.com

A company’s blog will only go so far as the time and effort placed into it. For companies who take the time and effort to craft a winning blog, the rewards can be endless.

Not only does the company blog serve as a great marketing tool, but the company’s return on investment (ROI) will typically prosper from a well-designed blog.

On the other side of the coin, not putting enough time and effort into the blog increases the chances your business will miss out on obtaining new customers, something no smart business head is going to stand for. This also means that you have one less viable marketing tool with which to present your case with to potential clients.

See Where Your Blog Needs Some TLC

While some of these details may seem rather simplistic, they are well-worth reviewing as 2011 winds down and you think about the coming year and what it will mean to your business and its marketing efforts going forward in the New Year.

The company blog can and should play a key role in helping you to promote the business, with the blog serving as a form of public relations and marketing to the outside world.

If your company’s blog design needs some tinkering to better position itself in the New Year, keep these ideas in mind:

• The look and feel of it. The success of any company blog starts and finishes with its look. If your company has a blog that is not viewer-friendly, has numerous broken links, and is hard to search and navigate, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Plain and simple, the blog needs to have a call to action to customers to make them land on your page. Make sure your blog headers, fonts (see more below), links etc. are precise and lure the customer in ;
• Don’t let your content expire – Just as you would not want to eat something that expired, nor should you be providing readers with outdated content. When you first put your company’s blog together, one of the most important facets to consider was would you have enough time to blog regularly? If the answer was no, then you were already setting your company’s blog up for failure. It is important to have updated and relevant content that visitors will want to read and dissect. At the end of the day, you want them coming to your company’s blog as the relevant source of information, deals and more in that respective industry;
• Scratch their back and they will scratch your back – In the world of blogs, networking plays a key role, whether you’re a small company or a large one. For the smaller business owner, promoting other blogs on your site that are not in direct competition with you is a great way to network. In turn, many of those blogs will likely due the same for you, giving your company added exposure it did not previously enjoy;
• Drive the search to more visitors – Any successful company blog is going to be one that pulls in a lot of traffic via search engines, the largest being Google. In order for this to happen, review and make sure your company’s site is fully optimized for keywords that your customers and potential customers are likely to utilize. Be sure to target your keywords, including in your blog posts, so that readers find it easier to locate you. When writing blog copy, insert several keywords/links that are beneficial to you, flow well in the copy, and point to your company blog as being authoritative;
• Don’t go haywire with fonts, colors and more – While you want some attention to detail on your company blog, make sure it doesn’t use endless colors and fonts that come across as a mish-mash of styles. Consistency is important when wanting your blog to attract customers and retain them;
• Feed your blog – As most experts will tell you, RSS feeds are a great way for your company blog to gain a steady viewership, allowing you to not only discuss industry pertinent information, but also promote deals, specials, coupons etc. Make sure your RSS subscribe icon is in a noticeable area so it will draw viewer’s attention;
• Consistency is vital – Lastly, consistency with your company blog is paramount to its success. As mentioned earlier, stale content, constant changes, a site with multiple problems, etc. is just an open invitation to disaster. You may already have some customers in tow without your blog, but there are countless potential customers out there that you stand to possibly gain if your blog attracts them. Do your part to make sure the blog is inviting enough that it will lead them back for more.

With a blog that makes potential customers want to give you a look, you’ve already accomplished half the battle.

Now, however, keep them coming back for more.

Dave Thomas writes extensively for B2b lead generation online resource Resource Nation that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs. He is an expert writer on items like credit card processing companies and is based in San Diego, California.

Promo Talk's Top Stories of 2010: from social media, to check-in's to promotions

This is #108 and my last post of 2010 on Donna's Promo Talk, so I thought I'd take a look back down memory lane to see what I've written about over the past year. At the end of 2009 I wrote this post, Promo Talk's Top Stories of 2009, that highlighted what I felt were my top posts that help to define 2009. I picked one post a month that was either of a promotion that reflected the pop culture of that month or one that defined a major milestone or shift in social media. This year I thought I'd continue the tradition as well. Here are my top picks for 2010:

January - Haiti earthquake relief fund gets huge boost from texting donations and social media

This time of the year I normally write about promotions associated with the Super Bowl, one of the biggest if not biggest marketing event of the year. Being a huge football fan as I am, I did cover some of the promotions, but this post really stands out as I look back on the year. The 2010 recaps that I've read so far include the earthquake in Haiti as one of the year's top news stories. It would be interesting to learn now, almost a year after the date, how theses donations have been used to help the country.

February - The Olympics, Social Media and P&G's Thanks Moms program

February was mostly focused on the Winter Olympic Games that occurred in Vancouver, Canada. It seemed that the world got a lot smaller as athletes from around the world came to our continent to compete in these games. The past Summer Olympic Games that were held in Beijing has some restrictions on the media, and the previous winter games were held in Torino, Italy, when social media was really just emerging. Therefore, we experienced history in the making transforming over these two weeks as social media played a major role.

March - The BlogPaws or Bust Sweepstakes promotes event on Facebook, Twitter and online

This may not seem to be on the same scale as the devastation in Haiti or the Winter Olympic Games, but for those of us involved in launching BlogPaws, it was a huge milestone. Over 250 pet bloggers, online pet enthusiasts and pet brands got together in Columbus, Ohio for the very first event, BlogPaws 2010. It was so successful that a second event was quickly organized for September, BlogPaws 2010 West, taking place in Denver, CO. The 2011 event has just recently been announced which will be in Tyson Corners, VA on August 25-27.

April - Do we "Like" Facebook's new Social Graph and what does it really mean?

This month was life changing for me personally when I lost my mother to breast cancer. I took a brief break from the online world to be with my family and while I was offline Facebook came out with some major changes. When I got back to town I was scheduled to speak to a local women's group regarding social media marketing. I quickly updated my presentation to include Facebook's new "Like" and their social graph which basically moved Facebook beyond just Facebook into the greater world wide web.

May - Women say that online coupons and product reviews influence their purchasing decisions the most

There were many studies done this year on marketing to women, and this one from iVillage and SheSpeaks was one of the first. It highlighted that the interaction between women through online community websites, forums and message boards does have a "dramatic" influence on driving product preference, loyalty, and purchase. Other studies supported this data reinforcing the belief that women are influenced by other women and that word mouth marketing has been reborn through social media.

June - 2010 FIFA World Cup gets underway and marketers gain exposure from many video views

The world's most popular sporting event, the FIFA World Cup™ kicked off on June 11 in South Africa, the first time the 32 final teams competed on the African continent. The whole world, including the U.S., really got into the games this year. Various Twitter hashtags associated with the event were on the top trending list and Nike's "Write The Future" ad, which included some of the soccer stars, was on the top viral video list during this time.

July - The next phase of social games goes to the brands with the launch of poweRBrands

Most of us that have spent any time on Facebook this past year have probably been invited at some point by one of our friends to play a social game such as the hugely popular Mafia Wars or Farmville. Social gaming grew significantly over the year and is forecasted to become even more popular in 2011, especially with women online.

August - Ford Explorer's reveal on Facebook turns out to be highly effective

Ford revealed their new Explorer live on their Explorer Facebook page which was a bit controversial since most auto manufacturers launch their new vehicles at auto shows in Detroit and L.A., never on a social network. Reports revealed that thei Explorer's reveal was highly effective and even did better than Super Bowl ads for other automakers. This program gave a new twist on marketing on Facebook and started convincing more brands that it may be time to increase their social media budgets.

September - Life in a Day project showcases 80,000 videos on it's You Tube Channel from one day in July

Online video views continued to grow during the year with YouTube becoming the #2 site online for searches, just behind Google. People continued to upload their own generated videos to both YouTube and Facebook and many brands launched contests and campaigns inviting people to submit videos around a specific theme. This unique video promotion sponsored by Google highlighted what people did one day during the summer of 2010, Saturday, July 24.

October - Think PINK for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Every October I usually write about a "Pink" promotion and the brands that are supporting National Breast Cancer Awareness month. This year I found it hard to write about it with the loss of my mom to breast cancer. However, I realized it was important for me to continue to spread the word. I decided to highlight a program from  Pepsi-Co's Frito-Lay division which donated $1 million to Susan G. Komen for the Cure through their Sun Chips multigrain snacks, Rold Gold pretzels and the Baked! line of products.

November - Social media and politics - how big of a role did it play in this year's election?

As we're now all aware, this year's election resulted in some major changes in our political landscape. Social media did play a much more prominent role than in 2008. From Facebook, to Twitter, to Foursquare and many, many email blasts, no matter what political party you are affiliated with, I think that we were all glad when it was finally over.

December - Check-in promotions lead the way this holiday season

This holiday season topped off a year that many retailers tried out the latest marketing craze which was giving people special offering through "check-ins". By including location-based services (LBS) into their holiday marketing program, they were able to lure shoppers in their stores. We'll see where this goes in 2011.

Hope you enjoyed the recap. I wish you a very Happy New Year and here's to a wonderful and prosperous 2011. Thanks again for reading!

I'm blogging at BlogPaws and going to the 2011 event in Tysons Corner, VA, Aug. 25-27

I'm excited to announce that I will now be a regular guest blogger on BlogPaws and I am also part of the 2011 planning and marketing committee. We recently announced the date and location of the 2011 event which will be held in Tysons Corners, VA, just outside D.C. on Aug. 25-27. This is going to be great.

Since BlogPaws is comprised of a community of pet bloggers, my posts there will be mainly focused on tips and guidance for bloggers, many who have their own online businesses as well. I would like to share my recent post with you even though I have covered most of this information here on Donna's Promo Talk already...just in case you've missed any of it. Here's the link:

Facebook updates its promotional guidelines to run sweepstakes and contest promotions

Thanks!

Social Media Marketing Insights from the Kodak Team

Social media marketing was the topic this morning at a breakfast event I attended hosted by our local Rochester Chapter of the American Marketing Association (RAMA). The room was pretty full and the attendees were very eager to hear this morning's four guest panelists, all members of the Kodak online marketing team. What was unique about this event is that while each of our Kodak representatives are frequent speakers at conferences and workshops,  it was the very first time all four of them had been on stage together. So it was a treat for the Rochester audience.

Tom Hoehn, Director Interactive Marketing and Convergence Media, started off the discussion saying that marketing via social media helps Kodak drive value for its customers. It has given them new platforms to amplify their messages and go where the customers are, instead of waiting for them to come to Kodak. He shared what Kodak calls it's "Rip Curl" strategy, using the energy of the social media swirl. In other words, staying proactive by creating lots of great content while also being reactive through constant listening, monitoring and feedback.

This lead right to Beth LaPierre, Kodak's Chief Listening Officer and newest member of the team, who shared with us her dashboard that she using to help monitor the conversations. She takes some of the customer insights and channels them to the right person within Kodak so that they can respond properly. Customer comments are utilized in the development of new products and upgrades to existing products. Her job is also to report the ROI that their social media programs are creating. They've developed the Social Intelligence Life Cycle which ties the conversations from the various platforms back to store visits and eventually sales.

 My friend and fellow blogger, Jenny Cisney, Kodak's Chief Blogger and Social Media Manager. spoke next. Jenny has been blogging for almost 10 years, which takes us back to the beginning of what we now refer to as social media. Jenny reviewed with us the five basic steps to social media marketing.

1. Have a plan. Develop your strategy, set your goals, define your auidence and stick to a schedule.

2. Create great content. Jenny started on Kodak's blog, A Thousand Words, in which they now have employees and guest bloggers contributing on a daily basis.

3. Be transparent. This is advice I repeat constantly. When on a social media platform, clearly communicate who you are and be real. If you're representing a company, state it. Abide by the company's social media policy (yes, all businesses should now have one) as well as the FTC's endorsement guidelines. And don't edit out negative comments. Instead address them head on and use the opportunity to make it positive.

4. Use your best assets which are your employees and fans. Invite them to be guest bloggers. Bring along some customers to an industry event so they can share the experience with their community.

5. Work with your PR group and marketing teams. Social media helps you amplify what you are doing with traditional media, so plug it in and integrate it.

Kodak recently launched a major new advertising campaign called "So Kodak" which is targeted at a new audience for them; younger, socially connected customers. The theme came about by listening in which they heard this group using the words "So Kodak" to define their look or their moment, in a rap-talking style. So Kodak brought on board recording artists Rihanna, Drake, Trey Songz and Pitbull as spokespersons. These celebrities are helping to spread the word for Kodak through their communities and the campaign provides Kodak with great content to share through it's own.

 Brian Nizinsky, Manager of Online Marketing in Kodak's Graphic Communications group spoke next about B2B marketing via social media. He first shared a funny cartoon that helped to communicate that social media is definitely not just a strategy for B2C businesses. Wish I had a copy of it to show you, but basically it's what many B2B professionals not too familiar with social media say when they first speak about it.

Kodak's main B2B platforms include a blog, GrowYourBiz.com, a YouTube channel, Kodak B2B and Twitter @Kodakidigprint. Brian told us a story that happened last year when an ex-Kodak employee started spreading rumors online that Kodak was getting out of the printer business claiming they were shutting down the plant and laying off all the employees working on the Kodak Prinergy Workflow System. If you Google "Is Prinergy Dead" you will find some of these postings. So Kodak engaged in the conversation to stop the rumors from spreading further.

To sum up the morning Tom took the mike back and left us with these social media marketing words of wisdom:  Listen - Engage - Be Real - Measure - Iterate.

Thanks to the Kodak team and RAMA for a great event.

Social Media Marketing Training for Women Only

Over on the Lip-sticking Blog we have been promoting "Real Women Do Social Media" with an ad on the blog's side bar. This is for a social media marketing training program specifically for women entrepreneurs and business owners designed and taught by one of my Lip-sticking co-bloggers, Lena West!

Lena's been a guest blogger on the Lip-sticking blog way longer than I have. In reviewing her list of blog posts I believe she's been writing on that blog for the past four years! I just checked my history, and I started guest blogging there about 2.5 years now. Anyhow, I've gotten to know Lena from reading her posts and in various communications we've had over the phone, emails, tweets, etc. However we never had the opportunity to meet until finally last month when we were both scheduled to speak at BlogPaws West in Denver.

It really is great when you finally meet someone in person that you've known online for sometime. There is still nothing that matches this personal connection. Lena and I did have the chance to speak about many things including how we might collaborate more in the future. I really wanted to find out more about Lena's "Real Women Do Social Media" program which is about to start a new 7-week course on October 20. So here's what I learned from Lena:

Donna: Lena, can you share with us some overall insights on the program, how many women you have had in the past courses and the types and size of their businesses?

Lena: We've had two full cycles of the Real Women Do Social Media (RWDSM) training initiative thus far. The classes are kept to manageable numbers so that everyone gets attention. We have had a few men participate, but mostly women, of course. The types and sizes of business vary - we have lots of owners of micro businesses and then again, we have women who own businesses that have many full-time employees. Everyone is welcome in the program, provided that you are an entrepreneur/business owner (or want to be one) and you want to learn a step-by-step social media marketing system that will generate client leads and increased visibility in their market and with the media. If you're someone who's looking for content on "how to use Twitter", this isn't the course for you. If you're looking for "how to leverage Twitter", sign up!"

Donna: How is registration going for this next course which begins on October 20? Since you have had a waiting list, is the course now full or do you have any open spots to fill?

Lena: While I'm not at liberty to reveal serious numbers, let's just say that the number of people on the waiting list far out numbers the number of available spots in the course. And, the fact is, that people wait around because they think the course won't fill up and every cycle at least 10-15 miss out because they're in "wait and see" mode. This course is a course for people who take action - not people who "wait and see".

Donna: You do go into more detail on this issue on your website, but besides that you're a woman teaching social media to women, what is different here than if you were teaching a mixed class of business people?

Lena: Oh, gosh...there's SUCH a huge difference in teaching social media marketing systems to women business owners. We approach things differently, we work best with, prefer and get the best results from systems and we want to learn from others about how they did it.

Also, we provide an online community so the women can collaborate, mix it up and do business with one another. This is essential.

And, then there's the element of having been there and done that. It took me YEARS to perfect the social media marketing system I teach during the course - and these women learn it, soup-to-nuts in 7 short weeks. Women like learning the shortcuts and avoiding the sandtraps.

Donna: With so many new social media tools being launched every day and many businesses still learning what is working and what isn't, how do you keep the course fresh and relevant?

Lena: I'll answer that question with one word: me. I keep the course fresh and relevant by being me. I teach my social media marketing system all around the world. I write for outlets like American Express OPEN Forum, I'm an expert blogger for FastCompany, I'm a blogger and columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine...so I see it all when I'm out there speaking and writing. I bring my daily client experiences (confidentially, of course) into the class and I make it relevant to them right then, in that moment. Then, of course, every other week, we have a guest speaker - a Real Woman who's out there creating social media success. She shares how she's doing it, what she's learning and how they can do it, too!

Thanks Lena for sharing with us. She was on her way today to speak at the Healthy Media Images for Youth Industry Summit in Washington, DC. This lady never rests!

So please visit the Real Women Do Social Media website if you're interested in learning more and to find out if you can still get a spot. I'm sure Lena will be continuing the program in 2011, so you can always get on her waiting list. I hope to be invited as a guest speaker at one of her future classes.

Oh and BTW - while I'm promoting the women of Lip-sticking, let's not forget that Yvonne DiVita, founder and leader of the Lip-sticking blog and my friend and mentor, was just named by Fortune as one of the 24 Most Powerful & Influential Women. Plus the Lip-sticking blog made another list as The Top 10 Blogs by Women that Might Change Your Life. Way to go ladies!

Does Duracell's myGrid really make charging simpler?

Product reviews by bloggers have been getting more and more popular and brands continue to reach out to them to help spread the word. Just last month I attended the second BlogPaws event where over 250 pet bloggers and pet brands convened for a two-day event. I'm not a pet blogger, but I do own pets and they are loving some of the free samples and toys I brought home from that event.

Now I mostly review promotional marketing campaigns here on Donna's Promo Talk, but I do occasionally get asked to review a product. This one I thought would be on interest to my readers, so I agreed.

It is a new product from Duracell called myGrid^TM, "Charging Made Simpler". It basically is a charger mat for mobile devices. They have a kit for cell phones, Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry, and a kit specifically for iPhones. I told the person at Duracell's PR agency that contacted me that I have the HTC Droid Incredible and my husband has an iTouch, so they sent me the myGrid starter kit for phones and a iPod Touch Power Sleeve.

They weren't sure if it would work with my Droid, but it did. Since these phones are now the fastest growing smart phones in the market I think Duracell should know what Droid models it can and cannot work with. In fact they may have to change their packaging since it doesn't list HTC. The kit comes with one power clip which I put on the back on my phone and then on to the pad and the charging began.

Since they also sent me the power sleeve for the iTouch we tried that next. First, we had to take off the protective sleeve my husband currently has on his phone to put the Power Sleeve on, which they look very similar. We placed this on the pad and they both were charging up. However, if we wanted to charge another phone we would need to purchase additional power clips or power sleeves.

So all in all it worked fine and it was a very simple process and easy to follow directions. However, I really don't get the overall benefit. Normally I just plug my phone into my computer and it charges. It also syncs with my calendar and contacts when I do that. My husband does the same with his iTouch. Plugs it into his computer and it allows him to sync with his iTunes account. So why do we need a myGrid?

Well Duracell's value proposition is that it eliminates cord clutter, but I still have to put the pad somewhere and the pad has a cord that needs to be plugged it. So it really doesn't work for us. I guess it may be a good fit for an office where people can come in and leave their phones to charge, however, they would be out of reach of their phone for a little while. Or perhaps a family that has several kids with phones, one place in the house to charge them all.

I am curious as to what Duracell's product research team identified as the ideal target market for this. Sounds like it may have been an engineer's idea looking for a market. I don't know, maybe it's me. Let me know where you think this product has a good fit? Perhaps we can help Duracell out here a bit. And yes, I do get to keep the product even though I'm probably  not going to use it. So that's my full disclosure. Now if you have a good use for it let me know and I'll be glad to send it to you.

BTW - Duracell batteries has a current back-to-school promotion that includes special value packs, one with a free Tide to Go Mini pen and another with a free glue stick. I just had to get something promotional in this post! Thanks Duracell.

SEO Tips for driving site traffic I picked up from Stephan & Chloe Spencer

I attended the Driving Traffic through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) break-out sessions while at BlogPaws West in Denver. The session was so good that I chose it not once, but twice. They were highly interactive sessions that included audience participation, so after experiencing the first session on Friday I just had to come back for more the next day.

Mary Archer of Strategic Rankings started off both sessions with her quick SEO Myths Debunked presentation that she has shared with us on her blog. Many of us guessed that most of these statements were indeed true. Download the presentation and you'll see what Mary's dogs, Sadie Lu and Sally Mae, taught us!

Next the real fun began with Stephan Spencer, co-author of The Art of SEO, along with his daughter Chloe Spencer, the newest guest blogger to join the Lip-sticking blog, took the controls and asked for a volunteer to review their website. They pulled up the pet-care related site from our first victim and started to tell us what could be done to improve it's search rankings. Here are some of my key take-aways from the sessions:

First off most people don't use the proper keywords in their title tag. This is what shows up at the very top of your browser when you visit a site as well as on the search engine results page. If you look at the top of your browser now you'll see the words "Donna's Promo Talk - Promotional Marketing that Creates Excitement and Gets Results " Before the conference it just read "Donna's Promo Talk". I just changed this to add my tag line to the name of the blog so I hopefully will now start to see more traffic from people searching for "Promotional Marketing".

Most of the examples of sites from those in the audience showed that they are just using the name of their blog, company or organization. For the majority of sites, unless you have a very popular brand name, this is not the most effective title since people are not searching for your brand. Stephan brought up the Lip-Sticking blog in the first session and suggested adding the tagline there as well so it would read "Lip-Sticking: Marketing to Women Online". I have to speak to Yvonne, the founder of the Lip-sticking blog, about this recommendation.

Both Donna's Promo Talk the the Lip-Sticking blog and are built on the Typepad platform which doesn't give you the option to change your title tag. It just defaults to the name of your blog, which is why I added words to my blog name. WordPress however has a plug-in that can do this that Stephan actually created called SEO Title Tag. This allows you not only to change the title tag of yoursite, but also any individual pages and posts.

Typepad gives you the option for posts to have the name of your blog before or after the title of the post. I just changed mine to have the blog name after the post title. Again, as Stephan had pointed out, more people will be searching for content from keywords in your post rather then from the name of your blog.

This brings up a great tip we all learned regarding content which is that you should always be using relevant keywords in all your blog post titles. They recommended a few keyword research tools that you can use. The one I use that is free is Google Adwords Keyword Tool. One thing that Stephan pointed out about this tool that I haven't been doing is after you type in your keywords and hit search, scroll down and change the default from "broad match" to "exact match". Since the tool is primarily for pay-per-click (PPC) ads, not SEO, broad match doesn't give you accurate traffic volume results. For example, many more searches will include the word "shoes" but a much smaller amount will include the keyword "horse shoes".

Links to your site is another pillar of SEO that was discussed. The more links you have from quality, relevant sites, the higher Google will rank you. To see who is linking to your site you can use Yahoo's Site Explorer. In order to use this free tool you must be logged-in to your Yahoo account. You can change the results to not include links from your own domain so it will give you a more accurate number of in-bound links. My results included many links from Lip-sticking to my blog since I'm a weekly guest blogger there, however I did find many other blogs and sites that are linking to me that I wasn't aware of. You can export this list to an Excel document as well.

Both Stephan and Chloe (who BTW is still a teenager) did a great job presenting at these sessions. Take a quick read over at Chloe's last post, Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling at 16 Years-Old on the Lip-sticking blog to learn more about her. I met Stephan at BlogPaws in Columbus back in April when he presented there as well as several years ago when he came to Rochester to speak at a luncheon sponsored by our local AMA. So it was wonderful to finally meet Chloe.

These were some of the basics that were covered at BlogPaws and I'm now planning to read more of Stephan's book so I can become somewhat of a SEO expert. Everyone walked away from these two sessions with a few things that they can easily do to help increase their site's search rankings. I hope you also received a few new tips from reading this post. Please feel free to add more!

 

BlogHer '10 Conference in New York City gets underway with a new twist: BlogHer@Home

I mentioned in my last post that BlogHer 2010 was getting underway today in New York City and continues through tomorrow. It's the annual conference put on by the ladies of BlogHer for women who blog. I attended my first BlogHer conference back in 2007 in Chicago, the year I started this blog. Unfortunately I haven't been back to one since.

Last year I sat home and wrote this post about it, Brands and Bloggers Converge at BlogHer '09 in Chicago, and I was so excited when they announced they'd be in New York City this year and promised myself that I'd be there. But here I am sitting at home again blogging about it on my computer. I'm sure you don't want to hear all my excuses, but family has been the priority this summer.

However, there is a special treat this year for all us women bloggers who are not at the conference....BlogHer@Home. The blogsite is being hosted by two women bloggers, Lu @masmom and Jen @thepsychobabble with the help of Jenn @princessjenn and Nic @mybottlesup. Now I don't know any of these women, but after this weekend I believe I'll know much more about them.

They have quite the party planned along with a bunch of promotional give-aways for us as well. First you can follow the Twitter party on TweetGrid or just with the hashtag #bhah. Then tonight at 9pm EST they will host a live chat (the password bhah will get you in). Saturday evening at 5pm EST they're doing a live blogHop! Now I've never done a BlogHop, but we're all invited to link our blog here and be part of the fun.

Sunday at 5pm EST is the big final giveaway which we haven't been told what it is yet, with the winners announced on the site. You can view all the prizes here on their Giveaways page. Now they are not as impressive as what's being given away at the conference, but there is an opportunity to get one of the official BlogHer '10 swag bags. I may try for that one once I finish this post along with a glass of wine. It is the weekend.

BTW - they announced BlogHer '11 will be in San Diego on August 5-6. Now I'm sitting here saying to myself that I have a long-standing client in San Diego that I really need to meet with. So I'm promising myself that I will be there. We'll see!

Birthday wishes and shout-outs to some great women online

We have a couple of birthdays to celebrate today. One is Yvonne DiVita, the founder and leader of the Lip-sticking blog, which I am a guest blogger and wrote this post originally on that blog. Happy Birthday Yvonne. It is also President Obama's birthday. So happy birthday to you too Mr. President.

Yvonne's been absent from the blog over the past week because she's on vacation visiting relatives and friends back in New York state. She wasn't able to tell anyone she was coming because she was a surprise guest at  her daughter's baby shower over the weekend. So now you know.

Yvonne will also be traveling from here in Western New York to New York City to attend BlogHer '10 which is taking place on Friday and Saturday this week. Yvonne has been a frequent speaker at this event over the years and first introduced me to BlogHer back in 2007, the year I started blogging. I'm disappointed that I won't be there, but I originally had planned a vacation for this week so I didn't get my tickets and the event is now sold out! So I will be looking forward to reading about the event from other women bloggers that will be attending.

I wanted to call your attention to this new badge that was added to the right column of the Lipsticking Blog that states that we won an award as One of the Top Women in Business Blogs for 2010. We are again honored to be included on a list with some other great women business bloggers.

This award came from an organization called Awarding the Web that was started a few years ago by two student bloggers, Emma Lee and Dennis Anderson, at the University of Washington in Seattle. You can see a list of all 35 blog winners here and I encourage you click on their links to check out their blogs. It's quite an impressive list. Winners were chosen through a scoring system led by internet nominations, which came from our reader base! So a big thanks to our Lip-sticking blog readers!

The Pet Blogger's Woodstock - BlogPaws 2010 Recap

Yvonne DiVita wrote a post yesterday on the Lip-sticking Blog about BlogPaws 2010 "A community of storytellers get together" that was a great way to sum up the event. All I keep telling people is that it was amazing and that I had a blast. No I just have to take a moment here to share some of my own thoughts and reflections on the weekend.

I had the honor of being part of the VIP committee, as well as a speaker, that helped to pull this first-time event together for pet bloggers and pet-lovers. Those of us on the committee got together over another conference call last night where we each took turns giving our assessment of the event while it was still fresh in our minds.

I was one of the last ones to speak so I listened on as everyone stated what a highly-organized event it was, not only for a first-time conference, but it was one of the best conferences some had ever attended. Some shared suggestions on little details that could be improved upon, such as the panel sessions went too long and there wasn't enough time for Q&A's. Well I'm sure many of us have had that experience before.

I was trying to think of something to say that hadn't been said yet. So when it got to my five-minute turn to speak I started out stay that I thought BlogPaws had a great mix of inspirational, keynote speakers, combined with the nuts & bolts of the panel sessions on top of all the great networking and socializing time. But what was really unique, was the people. Everyone was really having a great time, soaking up all the information and trying to meet as many people as possible.