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My son doesn’t get as much talk in this blog as my daughter – as the second child, I guess that’s standard. Unlike my pregnancy with my daughter, which was high-risk and involved bed rest starting at 29 weeks, my pregnancy with my son went full term with no major issues (except of course for that awful itchy case of PUPPPS, which affected only me).
While my daughter was the first grandchild on both kids, my son wasn’t. I always thought of my daughter as the whole family’s baby, as we all so eagerly anticipated her. But, my son was all mine. And, the minute he was born, I loved him more than I ever thought possible.
He had eyes only for me. He was super-cuddly, and always wanted me to hold him. He was such a good baby, asking so little from everyone, but giving so much.
My baby boy turns 3 this week. He’s now much more independent, and is very attached to his daddy. But he’s still very cuddly and very sweet, and he’s still the love of my life.
Happy birthday baby boy!
Five to ten years ago, my husband and I went to a load of friends’ weddings. Recently, however, it’s tapered off to only about one per year, and it’s become a good way to see our friends that we don’t see all of the time.
Last weekend, we had a beautiful outdoor wedding to attend in Newport. I was excited to go, because I grew up in Rhode Island, and hadn’t spent a lot of time there recently. Because it had been a while since I’d been to a wedding, I treated myself to a manicure/pedicure, and went shopping for a new dress. I had no real options in my closet, since I’d lost weight last year, and the few options I picked up while outlet shopping were deemed “too casual” by my husband.
I found a beautiful dress on Nordstrom.com, and ordered a little more than a week before the wedding, choosing two-day shipping. It should have arrived with plenty of time, except Nordstrom waited four days to send the dress and then sent it regular ground shipping. It was scheduled to arrive the day we left.
Starting a square one again, I went to my local Nordstrom, and found a beautiful dress that actual fit really well, a challenge since I’m 4′11”. I bought it and was thrilled with my purchase, until my other dress arrived right before we left. I pulled it out of the box, and it was EVEN more perfect – it fit like a glove, was cut just right, and was comfortable. I made a last minute switch, and left for the wedding.
As we were at our hotel getting dressed, I was pulling the dress into position when I realized it was ripped right in the center, near the gathering of the material. Of course, no pins or sewing kits were to be found, so I had to head ot the wedding that way. Once at the restaurant, I asked at the front for a safety pin.
The server brought me four safety pins and a …. binder clip. She said, “I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie ‘The Wedding Planner’ with JoLo, but binder clips can really save a dress”. I’m still not sure how I could repair a dress with a tear at the abdomen with a binder clip.
So much for looking good – I had a few safety clips attached to the front of my “perfect” dress!
I never did find out the origins of that weird letter I got in the mail. And, when I was at the mall earlier in the week, I was thinking about it.
Our mall, now renamed “The Collection” for some inexplicable reason, is now the largest mall in New England. Around 5 years ago or so, the owner of the mall decided to expand it and rebrand it as an upscale mall. They even planned to build a whole set of attached condos, an idea that I thought was brilliant (as any shopaholic would) but most others just thought was odd.
The mall opened less than two years ago, and already there are stores that have moved out. Some restaurants and stores that were supposed to have opened late just never did. The mall has created a divide in the town – some, like me, love the idea of the tax revenues and the convenience, while others aren’t happy about the changes.
I suspect the “shoes & clothes” crisis may have more to do with the state of the economy then anything else, but to me, a mall filled with empty stores is just….sad.
Read the rest of my ROI on Social Media Outreach series
Sending Products for Bloggers to Review
Many companies decide to send products over to bloggers for review. This can be an extremely cost-effective way to increase sales, get your name out, and “dip your toe” in social media.
If you do send products for review to bloggers, there are some things to keep in mind:
- When sending emails to bloggers, make sure you don’t send a bulk email to a list you’ve gotten from another source. Know each and every blogger that you send your pitch to – read their blog, and make sure your product fits what they generally write about.
- Don’t ask for the product back. Yes, Lucky Magazine returns samples. But blogs are generally a single person operation with no mailroom, no stockroom, and no significant ad revenue. Keeping samples safe is difficult – I personally had my son vomit on a bag that the PR person wanted returned.
- Accept that you won’t hear back from some bloggers, and it may take a while to hear back from others. Many bloggers get hundreds of emails a day (really) and with a family as well as other obligations, it can take a while to catch up.
- Consider offering a coupon code or giveaway to readers of the blog, but handle all of the shipping of giveaway items yourself.
ROI Measurement
Expenses: costs are the samples, shipping, and any expenses associated with contacting the bloggers.
Benefits: it may be a little difficult to track the exact sales from the blogs, unless you offer a coupon code. However, the benefits can be great. Not only will you get mentions of your product online, you may also get some search engine optimization benefits as well.
See parts 1 and parts 2 first.
Goal 1: Learning More About Social Media (continued)
If your company is seeking to learn more about social media, and isn’t sure exactly how to proceed. There are several options. These options range for the incredibly inexpensive to the expensive, and the benefits can vary as well.
Option 2: Planning a Mom Blogger Event
Another option is to plan a mom blogger event at your corporate headquarters. While this can be a large expense, the benefits are enormous – learning about social media, increasing brand exposure, increasing sales, and decreasing the costs of traditional media.
When you plan a blogger outreach event, you should invite a wide variety of mom bloggers. Choose a social media consultant or PR firm that specializes in blogger outreach to make sure your event runs seamlessly.
ROI Measurement
Expense: the expense can be large, but the benefit is also large. Depending on the amount of bloggers you will invite, you’ll need to pay for airfare, hotels, ground transportation, meals, and conference facilities.
Benefit: When you have a social media blogger event, you will learn quite a bit about social media, especially if you have a small, intimate event. Watch the tools the bloggers use, from Whirrl to Twitter to Twitpic and Facebook. Select a Twitter hashtag that your bloggers can use during the event, and invite your senior management to watch the trending topics.
Having a social media blogger outreach event is also likely to increase mentions of your company online. Most bloggers chat about the event before, during, and after. You’ll also develop personal relationships which are really difficult to forge online.
See part one of my Return on Investment (ROI) of Social Media Outreach series.
Goal 1: Learning More About Social Media
If your company is seeking to learn more about social media, and isn’t sure exactly how to proceed. There are several options. These options range for the incredibly inexpensive to the expensive, and the benefits can vary as well.
Option 1: Sponsoring a Mom Blogger to a Conference
One option to learning more about social media is to sponsor a mom blogger to a social media conference. When you choose to sponsor a mom blogger, carefully review both the blogger and the conference. Ask the mom you sponsor to report back on you with key takeaways of the conference, and ask the mom to consider how your company fits in with the topics discussed. If you choose a mom with social media experience, you may even ask for her to help recommend next steps in social media for your company.
ROI Measurement
The expense here is whatever you spend for the conference. Keep in mind that while some moms accept multiple sponsors to pay for their whole trip, you may choose to sponsor the whole trip so that your sponsored mom can focus on your agenda.
The benefit may be hard to measure, but consider how much research your company would have to do on your own to obtain some of this knowledge. While your company can certainly consider sending a delegate to the conference instead of sponsoring a mom, there are other benefits to sponsoring a mom. For instance, you’ll probably also get some amount of advertising, as your sponsored mom will talk to others (most likely in a positive light) about the sponsorship, both on and offline. Consider sending the mom to the conference with cards with coupon codes, or some other handout, that can help spread your brand. You could also track sales using the coupon code (but don’t use this as the only benefit).
Part 3 tomorrow will focus on having a blogger outreach event
Back in my former career, I spent quite a bit of time creating ROI (Return on Investment) models. While some ROI modeling can be relatively straightforward, measuring the benefit of marketing can be extremely difficult, because the impact is often hard to measure. There isn’t always a direct linkage from a social media marketing campaign to a sale. This series of posts will review social media goals, as well as methods to measure each of these goals. While each of these methods can be used for all types of social media, I’m really focused on the mom blogger segment.
Before beginning your social media campaign, you need to know what your goals are. Your end goals should dictate which type of campaign you decide on, as well as how you measure the impact of that campaign. Don’t wait until your campaign gets started to decide on measurement – that should be built right in to the total social media campaign and budget.
Here are a few of the end goals you may choose to set:
Learning More About Social Media
Increased Brand Exposure through Social Media
Increase in Sales
Decrease in Traditional Media Budget
See part 1 tomorrow…
Yesterday, as I opened my mail, I noticed an unusual letter. Unusual, in that it was handwritten, postmarked locally, and had a local but unfamiliar return address. I was pretty intrigued (I lead a glamorous life, don’t I?), so I opened it right away. And, 24 hours later, I’m still quite confused. Here’s the text of the letter – any help in solving this mystery?
9-Mar-09 25-April-09 20-May-09 3-Jun-09
Dear Mr & Mrs. Kowske, Burke, Novo, Holls, Grundig,
How are you? And your family?
Just a note, to tell you, our son Dan, turns 401, this year. If you’d like to send him a card or something, his address is:
(redacted)
He & his wife Mary tell us the “grandkids” are doing well.
I’m sure you’ve noticed the “clothes & shoes crisis” in our town. Have you (& family) & neighbors tried to shop at the (redacted) mall?
There’s a food court (Master Wok, Salad Creations, McDonalds, Soaku Sushi).
You can buy purses wallets, coin purses, luggage, handbags, belts, keychains, travel cases at “Louis Vuitton” “Aldo Accessories” “Claire’s” “Johnson & Murphy” “Stuart Weitzman” “Brighton Collectibles” “Laura Ashley”, “Lids” advertises “hats for sale” but there are complaints, the store only puts baseball caps in front, and you have to ask for winter hats, scarfs, earmuffs, etc.
Love,
(redacted).
Huh?? Is this a scam letter? Someone who is losing their mind? Someone who is angry they can’t buy a winter hat at Lids? I am confused.
Here’s what’s been going on with me so far this month:
- If you are my friend on Facebook, then you already know what a decacle my once-professional career is. This here blog is way too public for me to pour my heart out, but I promise to share some of this story soon. The freelance role I’d alluded to earlier is going fabulously! I’m so pleased to be writing about a topic I love (personal finance). The only negative is that it’s temporary.
- Two vacations in one month? Yup, that was our May. I’m writing about how we went on our second vacation without blowing our budget in my Traveling Finance Mom column on TravelingMom.com this Sunday. I’ll post the link here.
- Remember the bad mood I was in? Well, it got better because I decided to book a last minute trip down to WDW with some of my Moms Panel BFFs!
- On a more responsible note, I’m pleased to say that my son is learning how to hold hands in a parking lot. Two weeks ago, he didn’t get a donut during our after-gymnastics donut trip because he ran in the parking lot. This week, he held my hand tightly and said he knew he had to hold my hand to get his donut.
- I updated my professional site www.jodigrundig.com - any comments? I’d love to know what you think!
I’m in one of those moods today – you know, when you know in your mind that you are lucky in life and have nothing serious to complain about, yet still am in a bad mood and not happy. That’s me today.
I mentioned in my previous post that my son is being difficult. He’s adorable and wonderful but taking care of him is draining. He’s constantly pushing the limits – for instance, he’ll ask for milk, then throws it back at me when I give it to him, because he wanted juice. How did I not know he wanted juice? Except if I give him juice, he wants water.
Also, we came back from our Memorial Day weekend to a broken stove – two out of four burners don’t work – the big burners of course. And the dishwasher doesn’t drain anymore, we have a workaround but it’s really annoying. I’m just not ready to have to go out and buy new ones.
One of my jobs isn’t working out also – don’t want to go into details here but I’m really upset over it. Finding a perfect balance isn’t easy, that’s for sure.
Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
My son is the most perfect, beautiful little boy I could ever imagine. He’s funny, smart, and up until recently, a complete pleasure to be around. So, what’s happened lately? I can only assume that the terrible twos have arrived, and they are here 100%.
I’ve dealt with the terrible 2s before, when my daughter went through them. But this time is different. I can’t figure out how to discipline him. He’s misbehaving, but it’s with a smile on his face, like he thinks his behavior is funny. He apologizes, hugs and kisses shortly afterward. But he runs away from me in parking lots, and often refuses to hold my hand in public. So, there’s a threat to his well being, and I have to figure out how to stop him. Time outs don’t work, because he refuses to stay in a time out.
Any advice? I want my baby boy to be safe!
Almost a year ago, I finished packing up a few things, walked out of my cubicle, said goodbye to the few people who were in the corridor, took the elevator down to the lobby, walked out of the skycraper in the financial district of Boston, and left my career behind. This was after ten years of working there, and after giving one year in notice. As I walked through those revolving doors, a weight was off my shoulders. No longer would my husband and I struggle over who would stay home with a sick child, who would rush home to do pickup, and who would skip work when the bad New England weather caused daycare to close.
A few weeks later, a new weight was there – a smaller one, but a weight nonetheless. This weight was concern over our family finances, and concern over whether I’d be employable when I was ready to reenter the workforce. I had a great opportunity – for a very part-time job, in my field, that wasn’t incredibly lucrative, but would keep my resume fresh.
For someone used to working full time, part time is actually really hard. It’s tough to go in and out of the work mentality. I think I’ve worked out a good system, setting specific hours that I work. But, I still have to be mindful of myself, or I end up working more than I should. The company I am working for actually needs more than I’m able to give, and I really had to think about it – but I decided to leave. After all, I had to remember what it felt like to have the weight completely gone.
Now, I have an amazing freelance writing opportunity, and some chances to work with some wonderful companies. I look forward to this new chapter.
