Dear Residents of Denver (and all surrounding areas):

Please be on the lookout for a white female, 81, driving a blue Ford Expedition. She has been spotted driving 20 miles or more below the speed limit since her recent move into Colorado boundaries. She is frequently lost and easily confused. She often has her GPS unit set to the Afrikaan language unknowingly. If spotted, please do not attempt to apprehend. Stall her with questions about her grandchildren and call the  family immediately. She can be dangerous if provoked and will threaten to call your manager when cornered.

Thank you for your attention to this important public safety message.

When most people think of Oscar Mayer an image of the wienermobile or hot dogs come to mind. You might even start singing the “Oh I Wish I Was” jingle. To be honest a year ago when I went to Madison to meet the folks at OM I didn’t really get what I could do with this long term. But here I am a year and a half later in love with their brand. To their credit, this is social media with bloggers done well.

The Oscar Mayer brand is big on education and community programs. That is why I keep coming back and supporting them. Sure, I love hot dogs and football and deli slices and parties but the reason I continue to put my name out there for them is that they constantly are running programs that fit well with the type of blogger I want to be. Someone who has something fun to say and gives back at the same time.

This is the time of year that Lunchables runs their back to school promos and this year they have brought back the awesome Lunch Notes Promise that you all helped me with last year. But they also added  a new campaign called Created By You. They’re asking kids to submit their big idea for a movie, song or video game for a chance to work with a pro, like Kevin Jonas of the Jonas Brothers band, to bring it to life. Since we all know my little guy is hysterically creative this is a perfect fit  for him.

As part of the campaign I am hosting an awesome Created By You party for some of my local friends. If you live near me expect an invite soon. If your kiddo is creative, have them submit their ideas online and maybe they will get a cool chance to make it come true.

Here are all the details straight from Lunchables:

Q: What is the CBY contest?

A: We want to help kids realize their creative dreams! We’re asking kids to tell us their big idea for a movie, song or video game for a chance to work with a pro, like Kevin Jonas of the Jonas Brothers band, to bring it to life. The kids at your party can learn more and enter the Created by You contest by visiting Lunchables.com and clicking the “Created By You” icon.

Q: Who can enter?

A: The contest is open to residents of the 50 United States and D.C., 6 to 13 years of age as of August 2, 2010. To enter the Created by You contest, by visit Lunchables.com and click the “Created By You” icon.

Q: What are the prizes?

A: The three Grand Prizes winners (one per entry category) will win a Trip for up to three people to meet with  the professional mentor in their category. The  winners will also see their idea come to live as  either a Movie, Song or Video Game in 2011.  Full rules can be found at Lunchables.com

Q: What is the entry period?

A: Kids can enter beginning at 12:01 am ET on August 2, 2010 through 11:59 pm ET April 31, 2011.

Q: What is the website people can go to enter?

A: To enter the Created by You contest, by visit Lunchables.com and click the “Created By You” icon.

*Yes, this is the disclosure part: I have an ongoing blogger relationship with Oscar Mayer. I am compensated in a variety of ways for my involvement in their campaigns.

“If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together.. there is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. but the most important thing is, even if we’re apart.. i’ll always be with you.”

Winnie the Pooh quote with love from Me

Oh wow. Where to start? Two weeks ago I went to Phoenix and helped my mom move here to CO. It was a long, hard week on us all. My family has been in that house close to 70 years and every square inch of it shows it. From the spices from Grandma that were never thrown away~she died in 1976 (GROSS!) to the handprints in the cement of me as a kid and my boys too as things were added on. That house was full of ghosts. Both my great uncle and aunt died in the living room in the same spot years apart. They were peaceful and watchful ghosts and it was hard to send them on their way. But is was time. We spent time visiting all the graves, even driving down to Ajo, AZ where I had my car checked and identity questioned by border patrol because seriously what is a good reason to give a border patrol guard for visiting Ajo?

I passed a digital sign at one point from my moms to my in laws that showed the temperature as 122 degrees. I only pray that was wrong. It felt it.

We attended a retirement party for my mom. Yes, at 81 she finally retired. I hope I have that kind of stamina at her age. I don’t think I will though. I think that comes from a generation that fought so hard for everything. Lets face it, our generation is kinda wimpy. I am OK with that. Shoot, get me a rocking chair now!

Carter had an awesome birthday party thrown by Grandma with his cousins. It was so so wonderful to spend time with our family.

Things are still buzzing with school starting and doctors appointments and the mountains and mountains of boxes from AZ. But we are good. I am exhausted, we all are, but happy and that is all that matters.

Miss everyone!
B

credit to Farmville Market

Dear Farmville,

I am angry with you. You knew I was weak with  the boredom of a kid on bed rest and my favorite laptop off getting fixed. Yet you didn’t care. You lured me in with your promise of a pixel perfect life. You offered me shiny apples and adorable little animals. As our relationship grew you gave me a house, a wedding gazebo and even a winery. Honestly, what was I supposed to do? What girl could walk away from such fine gifts? I have always been a sucker for flowers and here you were giving me bunches every hour.  I was flattered. I felt special. Then I found out you were giving lots of girls these special ‘mystery gifts’. And still I couldn’t leave you. Even when I knew that each time I leveled up it was just another notch on your proverbial belt. This relationship has to change. It isn’t healthy for either one of us. I know you promised at level 30 I could get the mansion but I just don’t feel right about this. I have children. Sure, they would rather me stay with you. They are more than happy that mom is preoccupied fertilizing her crops but how long can this really last? We both know it has to end sometime. The longer we drag it out the harder it will be on both of us. We can still be friends. I will always care for you. It just wasn’t meant to be.

Your Friend,

Barb

PS…just saw you are going to give me a shiny red pick up truck. I always was a sucker for trucks. Maybe we can work something out but you have to stop being so demanding, OK?

PSS… don’t ya hate it when a post won’t stop swirling around in your head at night? I’m still on vacation, I’m still on vacation, I’m still on vacation

Yeah, I wish that’s where I was. Maybe if our Make A Wish comes through in time for Halloween I will be trick or treating on the beach You all know I have a lot going on and now I have to send my computer in for 2 weeks of work. Yes, we have 7 PC’s in this house but I am taking it as a sign I need to spend some quality time with the family. We find out for sure Wed. if Carter will need surgery. My mom is moving (and we are all helping) and this is Cons last summer before highschool officially starts. So, I am going to enjoy the sun, love my family, tweet and FB a bit, harvest crops on Farmville and generally kick back with my wonderful hubby. Hope you all get a little bit of the same. I will still be around and will have to post some of the stuff we are doing for PR’s sake but wanted to let you know I am downshifting for a bit. Make sure you have your email in the little box on the left so you get an email when I do decide to post Love ya! B

I hope you all are having a wonderful summer. Here? Not so much! Between the oldest one taking Honors Bio in summer school and the younger one not being allowed to get out of bed, summer is just kinda sucky. I’m bored, Carts bored, Bob and Con are overloaded.

So we have been playing with our food. Yeah, you all know how this post is going to right?

I saw these adorable Toy Story alien cupcakes in Family Fun

From FamilyFun.com

and we tried to make them. Ours turned out like this:

Didn't have mentos. Makes a BIG difference!

Honestly, you all are probably pretty damn impressed I made something at least edible right? Just say yes.

and then a package arrived from Grandma today. It was a big package! Full of cookies….

It was full at one point today

and in it were these little cuties:

Which are Burger Bite Cookies and are too cool for school. But seriously??? How does she expect me to compete with that? It’s evil genius on her part.

*disclosure: we really do love Grandma! And everyone is happily noshing on the goodies.

Once upon a time I wrote an article on how to host a blog giveaway. But with all the blog changes I have going on I began doing some research on blog giveaways and realized it is just not something I am comfortable with anymore. Lots of blogs are writing about the subject and I have had a few very smart conversations with friends regarding this topic. Let’s begin with why I personally choose not to run blog giveaways going forward.

• A month ago a ran a giveaway here on the blog to win a field trip with my family. I got ONE entry! Big ego slap! But I puzzled and I puzzled til my puzzler hurt and then I finally asked some friends why they didn’t enter. The biggest two reasons were that my friends see me all the time anyway and they are totally over blog contests. Fair enough. I realized my readers (friends and family) don’t come here for a chance to win something. That made me happy.
• I started having conversations with smart friends in social media who brought up the fact that blog contests may not be exactly legal. I did some research (easy to read discussions here, here, here, here, here and here) and found there is a lot of gray in this area. I don’t monetize this blog and don’t really care (other than my ego) how many readers I have so why would I risk the thin ice here?
• Whispered conversations of how some blog contests are faked. It’s scary to announce a friend won your contest because you are afraid everyone is going to say “its obviously rigged” but then how can you ask your friends to enter? Weird double edged sword there. While 98% (randomly made up number) of all bloggers are completely honest and forthcoming, I don’t want to be lumped in with the few that aren’t because mostly all of my readers are personal friends. I can see the disclosure now: “Entries open to US Residents 18 and older and who don’t know my real hair color“….which is gray, so now you are all not eligible. Sorry!
• I started getting statements from PR firms to the effect: Please clearly state that this is not our contest. We are just providing you with a prize for your giveaway. Bells went off here.

So after my above reasons some of you may be wondering what laws I am worried about.  Let me try to break it down as best I can and try to help you avoid some of the pitfalls if you run giveaways.  It’s important to understand the terminology used in a lottery (all definitions below from this link. I bolded what is common in blog giveaways.

Prize: Anything of value the sponsor awards in a promotion. For example goods/services with a monetary value or items of intrinsic value.

Chance: A process beyond the participant’s direct control determines the outcome. A few examples of chance are a random sweepstakes drawing or an instant win/collect and win game; ultimately luck is the deciding factor.

Consideration: Anything that requires a participant to expend a monetary amount or significant effort to participate. For example the purchase of a product, multiple store or internet visits, correctly answering trivia questions, downloading a file, or attendance at sales presentations.

So the first thing here is to avoid running an illegal lottery you have to remove one of the above. The easiest is consideration. Don’t ask people to visit another website and return to yours to comment. Make it as easy as someone leaving you a comment with only the contact info necessary to award prize. Eliminate “extra entries”.

“Sweepstakes are regulated by both state and federal law. Sweepstakes (typically random drawings for prizes) possess two of the three characteristics of a lottery: chance and a prize. Therefore, to avoid classification as a lottery, a sweepstakes promotion must not involve consideration.”-Contests and Sweepstakes

Use the third party draw service from random.org This goes beyond the little screenshot image that some bloggers post and keeps a record for winners and losers for 5 years. It documents that every entry was actually given a fair shot and documents date/time.

You could, also, run a contest. Contests remove the element of chance.

“Contests take a number of different forms. Anything where you can display a skill or a special attribute, from cooking and essay contests to cutest kid and bikini contests, is fair game”-Contests & Sweepstakes

My advice here would be to use another judging agent (the contest sponsor or impartial third party) to pick the winner. That way your best friend can enter and if her kid really is deemed to be the cutest by the third party, great. Always include rules! and remember that while the rules in the US are confuzzling enough, I have heard adding Canada into the mix can be really rough.

I have run giveaways doing pretty much everything above. I am not an attorney (not even close) nor should any of this be taken as legal advice. It is just a compilation of reasons why I am no longer comfortable running giveaways. It’s confusing stuff and just not worth it to me considering all the work involved. Before you run your next giveway please follow the advice here from the FTC.

…each state has laws that may require promoters to make disclosures, seek licensing, or post a bond. Since state laws vary, check with the Attorney General’s Office in the state(s) in which you plan to advertise.

Thoughts???

I recently redid most of my media kits after attending the EVO Conference Before and After: Sales & Monetization. I learned a lot from listening to Stephanie Schwab discuss the elements that make a media kit successful so I would like to pass some of that advice on to you.

Here is a media kit that I created for the Spina Bifida Support Forum. I am showing it here as a slide show but you can see how it looks neatly packed into a .pdf as well. Also, the conversion online screwed up the font running the url at the bottom. That is not how it looks when it goes to potential sponsors. There are some other weird formatting things the slide show did so do look at the pdf to compare.

This is a small forum with the sole purpose of supporting those that live with the same conditions my son does. I used Microsoft Powerpoint 2010 to create the design of the slides then converted it into a .pdf using Adobe Acrobat Professional. If you don’t have similar programs available to you you can always use google docs for free.

Identification: Name and Logo. Include a clear description of what the doc is.

Contents: What will people find in this document? I choose to add many photos throughout this kit as a way to further brand the site. I wanted to make the kit compelling and interesting. Since the site is a community, pictures of our members make sense here. Pictures are worth a thousand words. Communicate what your site is about through well places photos.

About Your Site: Trick here is to clearly communicate who you are and what your site is about clearly and conscisely. This is not the place to post your whole bio.

Site Statistics: There are many places that you can garner your stats from and all will be very different. Some tools to use to check your stats are Google Analytics, Lijit, Compete, or Quantcast. These all require that you either register an account and insert some code on your site or submit the url for tracking. Take the time to make sure you are understanding your blog statistics. I use a program called Jing to grab screenshots. There is a free and paid version. I use the paid but the free should be just fine for grabbing quick stat screenshots. Make sure you clearly identify where your stats are coming from and when.

Demographics: Since this is an international community and I am not just necessarily looking for US sponsors, I choose to include the top ten countries the readers are from. If you drill down farther in this area in your google analytics you can information on states or areas that may be important in going after local sponsors.

Site Reach: Where are you in social media? This site doesn’t use twitter but I included facebook. I pulled my inbound links (which are really high) from webmaster central. You use Search Status firefox add-on for the google page rank and alexa ranking.

Site Usage: I choose to highlight my US demographics here because Quantcast does an awesome job of making me a nice, neat little picture of who our US readers are.

Advertising Opportunities: Banner Ads: To grab the screenshot of the entire page I used SnagIt. There is a free 30 day trial. I added the arrows and text in powerpoint. Some things to think about here are if you are comfortable using a banner rotation program or if you want just one static ad. $5 per 1,000 impressions or page views (cpm) seems to be fairly standard in ad pricing. So using that as a guide I may want to aim for making $450/month off my top banner. With this being the first time venturing into private ad sales on this site I went for 5 $75 slots. That will most certainly change over time.

Advertising Opportunities: Sponsored Posts: If you are going to run sponsored posts you need to clearly define your boundaries. How many links can it have? Are you writing it or the sponsor? How will you clearly make sure to disclose it? In my example this is a forum post so the rules are a little different but you get the idea.

Advertising Opportunities: Sponsored Travel: This is where you can describe any upcoming conferences you want to attend or  travel opportunities you might be interested in. Explain what you would be willing to do in exchange for travel and why a company should invest in you

Contact Information: I use a UPS mail box for anything related to my blog. UPS boxes are great because many companies won’t ship to PO Boxes so using UPS gives you a physical address. They have permission to sign for all my packages avoiding me having to wait around and they send me a text when something is delivered. The phone listed is my cell. I would not be comfortable listing my house.

Some additional things not included in this kit that you might want to add:

Reviews/Giveaways: Do you do them? What are your guidelines? Will you return products? Mail to winners? What is your average turn around time? What types of items work best for your readers? Do you charge a fee? Show an example of a successful giveaway you have done.

Press/Media: Where has your site been featured? Give excerpts if you can. Have a campaign that performed really well? Include a testimonial from the brand. Pictures are great here.

Editorial Calendar: What are you writing about this year? Stephanie has a great roundup of posts about editorial calendars on her site.

That ought to give you enough to work on for the next two weeks. In the next PR Monday post I will be talking about now that you have this awesome media kit, what the heck do you do with it.

One more thing: I have opened up my Blog Frog community to share pr opportunities and advice so make sure you join me over there!

Have any advice that I didn’t think of? Programs you use? Something you just want to tell me? I love comments and questions so leave ‘em!

Lots of times people approach me and say “I don’t know how you do it” and my answer is always “I don’t know how I don’t”. Having trials and tribulations is a part of life.

Recently my friend Lisa suggested a new author to me, Echo Bodine. I am really enjoying her words of wisdom and thought I would share a piece of her book, Echoes of the Soul: Moving Beyond the Light, that really resonated with me last night.

Here’s an important thing to realize: We are not meant to float through life as victims of our circumstances. We have a great deal to do with our lives and how they turn out, how we turn out. We can make the most of life, and even enjoy it, or we can fight it and focus on how awful it is. There are choices to be made every day as to how we are going to perceive and live our lives. We are not here by accident, and there are no coincidences.

So, how do I choose to perceive my life? Well, I know there is a reason my family has the trials we have and I just continue to trust and have faith….

What about you?