While eating my popcorn today Emily, our always exuberant hound dog, sat at my feet and gave me her best sad-eyed stare, surely hoping for a stray kernel or two to find its way onto the rug, and, subsequently, into her mouth.
"Popcorn is not good for dogs," I whispered. She turned her head this way, then that way, tried to convince me I was wrong by blinking those big grown eyes at me, and offering a cold nose at my knee. To no avail. I was not sharing my popcorn with her.
There were sounds in the background, murmurings and such, that reached my ears as muffled silence. (Can you muffle silence? One wonders...)
I miss my Smart Woman Online and Smart Man Online interviews. I did them regularly back in the early days of blogging. I reached out to some amazing social media professionals, some awesome authors, and just generally found interesting people doing fab things online that were worth an interview. I should revise that...
Thinking about that led me to this interview, today. Upfront, I'm the publisher of this book. I love promoting my authors. But, in the end, the reality is that the book is worth reading by everyone in business today - because we're all marketers and we all bring a share of our hearts and our minds, to our work. The book is Share of Mind, Share of Heart: Marketing Tools of Engagement for Nonprofits by Sybil Stershic
Enjoy!
Yvonne: Why are you focused
on nonprofits – isn’t all marketing the same?
We are currently in Week 4 of the RevZilla's $20K Bike Giveaway. RevZilla is an online retailer that specializes in motorcycle parts, accessories and gear including helmets, apparel, tires and more. They have quite a loyal customer base and over 84K fans on their Facebook page along with now a weekly video show that they broadcast on their SpreeCast channel.
To celebrate this Holiday season they wanted to really engage with their customers and give them chances to win many prizes. The grand prize is a Bike that will be awarded to one lucky winner just in time for Christmas. They initially contacted me back in October and we started working through the details in order to make this happen. What they wanted to do was give away weekly prizes leading up to the grand prize of the bike. The weekly prizes would be determined by the spin of a wheel that would be broadcast live each Friday afternoon during the promotional period.
We all know that no one gets more
than 24 hours in a day. How you spend those 24 hours, and the
number of hours
you work, will determine how successful and accomplished you feel when you walk
out of the office at the end of the day. If you find yourself faced with a
never-ending to-do list and deal with interruptions all day long whether it’s
from colleagues walking into your office, social media updates, phone calls or
emails, sometimes it seems impossible to get to your tasks.
There are days when time may seem
endless, but it’s not. Time is a limited quantity and how you spend it will
shape your productivity and satisfaction in both work and life. What steps can
you take to use your time to its best advantage?
The holiday season is always a time of personal reflection for me,
especially now that I’m a parent. I get excited about taking part in the
activities that I have always loved, and introducing my little ones to them for
the first time. Nostalgia seems to come in one non-ending wave, starting as
soon as I pack away the Halloween costumes and extends well into January. I
count my blessings, hug my kids a little tighter and set goals for the new
year.
The holiday season is also a good time for business owners to take some
time to reflect. Looking back on the successes, and misses, of the year is a
necessary practice, even in the chaos that is often the most wonderful time of
the year. Revisiting non-glamorous things like growth goals, revenue
projections, organizing
your finances, and budget-cutting measures may not be the stuff that
visions of sugarplums are made of, but they get your business better prepared
for the challenges of the upcoming year.
Here's a cute Thanksgiving promotion that I thought I'd share that helps out a good cause while also involving one of the newer social media platforms, Pinterst. Campbell Soup is encouraging cooks to include its classic green bean casserole recipe, made with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup, on their menu for Thanksgiving.
Through Nov. 30, Campbell will donate $1 (up to $10,000) to Feeding America for each image of the casserole a user pins or repins to their Pinterest board. All the images are then also repinned to the “Most Colossal Casserole Pinterest board” appearing on Campbell’s Kitchen Pinterest page.
There green bean casserole recipe was created in 1955 in Campbell’s Kitchen by home economist Dorcas Reilly who also featured French’s French Fried Onions. It became popular after appearing in an Associated Press Thanksgiving piece that same year.
According to Campbell, more than 30 million households will include the side dish in their holiday meals this year. We included the recipe last year in our menu. This year we're going with a classic Green Beans Amandine recipe courtesy of Wegmans. How about you?
I love Thanksgiving. It has always been a big family event, with upwards of 50-60 people in attendance, a bunch of them children. Now that we've moved to CO, it's smaller. We celebrate with good friends and family at the house of my daughter's Mother and Father-in-law. The day has been sunny, warm, and cheery these last three years of being here. Just another reason we fell in love with CO.
Now that the political scene is over (well, it's supposed to be over - yet, so many of us are stretching the anger and sense of unfairness out - and I don't blame folks for their disappointment, but I do think it's time to move on), it's time to start looking at the holidays. Thanksgiving is just the beginning.
Today I am in Chicago for the start of Day 2 of the Annual PMA Marketing Law Conference. We're at the Sheraton Hotel which is right on the river. I even have a partial view of the lake from my room which is quite nice.
I have been attending the PMA conferences as their guest now since 2007. I first started my own blog, Donna's Promo Talk, at that time and have been blogging about the PMA since then.
This event, however, is the first one I have attended without my laptop. I decided to go light and just took my iPad along with my iPhone. Before I left I started a post on my computer and uploaded the PMA event image to it. Last night in my hotel room I opened the draft that I saved in Typepad and started writing a post about Day 1 of the conference. To my surprise when I went to save it, it wouldn't save.
So I have since then learned that Typepad has an app for iPad that I have now downloaded and am using as I write this post. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles as the computer version does, but it works. I haven't figured out if there is a way to include links. So for now this post doesn't have any.
In discussions with other attendees here at the conference, the overall agreement has been that we all need to continually try out these newer technologies just to keep up and stay relevant. It's an exciting time to be in this business, but it also results in many challenges.
Scott Monty, Head of Social Media for the Ford Motor Company, was our luncheon keynote speaker yesterday. As he noted, 90% of social media is all about just showing up. My iPad allowed me to show up here today on Lipsticking. Thanks for allowing me to share.
I keep looking for ways to find good in everyone. I have a fundamental belief that we are good people, we Americans. I have a fundamental belief that we are committed to our passions about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
All of that has been tested these last few months.
Have you felt it? Have you felt the weight of the anger and hatred being passed around social media, person to person, page to page, with insults, rude comments and outright outrageous 'facts' being shared as if the world is one way or another? As if, it's my way, not your way. Or, your way, not my way.
In today’s ever-connected world, there are times when you simply need to step away and plan for quiet time. How can you turn off distractions? Step away from the office? Maybe even take time away from the family for a few hours? Can you turn off the television, radio, not play any audio books for a few hours? If possible, you need to do so. Your mind needs down time in order to function at its optimal levels.
If you find you have your best ideas when you’re doing a mindless task such as cooking dinner, showering, or even sitting in a traffic jam, it’s because your mind has had the opportunity to tune out.
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