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2010 Year in Review: my blog posts from social media to check-in's to promotions

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

Since this is my 49th and last post of 2010 on the Lip-sticking blog I thought I'd take a look back down memory lane to see what I've written about over the year. At the end of 2009 I wrote this 2009 recap post that included 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 - Texting Donations and Social-Media help Haiti's relief

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 - Social media, moms and the Olympic Games

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 restirictions on the media, and the previous winter games were held inTorino, 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 - Check out the BlogPaws or Bust Sweepstakes

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 - What does Facebook's new Social Graph really mean and do we Like it?

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 - New study on marketing to women shows online product reviews and coupons highly influential

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 - Huggies MomInsipred Grant Program Taps into Moms' Entrepreneurial Spirit

Continuing on the theme of marketing to women, Huggies launched a program that embraced social-media while also tapping into the entrepreneurial spirit of today's moms. This was not your normal "submit a cute baby photo contest" by any means! Instead it was developed as a way to help women get their child-care business ideas off the ground.

July - Introducing poweRBrands, the next phase of social games. Do you play?

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 - Back-to-school shopping season is the "holiday season" for OfficeMax

The back-to-school shopping season is extrememely important for many retailers and, as noted here, even bigger than the holiday season for some. OfficeMax has been highly innovative with their Elf Yourself campaign that they've now implemented for the past five holiday seasons. However their back-to-school campaign this year made them one of the first retailers to launch a fully integrated marketing campaign that included social media as part of the mix, not just as a stand alone program.

September - YouTube's Life in a Day project showcases 80,000 videos 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 - Time again to 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 cancet. 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 SunChips multigrain snacks, Rold Gold pretzels and the Baked! line of products.

November - Social media played a prominent role 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 - Holiday promotions invite us to check-in this year

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!

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