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

It's that time of year again to share with you info about the 2013 BlogPaws Conference along with the new 2013 BlogPaws or Bust promotion which this year is a photo caption contest.

Most of you are familiar with BlogPaws, but for those that are not, BlogPaws is an online community of pet lovers made up of pet bloggers and pet brands. BlogPaws was co-founded back in 2010 by Yvonne DiVita, our Lipsticking leader, and her partner, Tom Collins, and it has become the go-to resource for bloggers and brands to partner on projects and campaigns, to be educated on social media, and to attend face-to-face meetings. The first BlogPaws Conference was held in Columbus, OH, in April, 2010, and last year it moved out West to Salt Lake City in June.

This year's 2013 BlogPaws Conference will be held back in Tyson Corners, VA, on May 16 - 18. It was held here two years ago in August in which we unfortunately experienced Hurricane Irene. I was one of the lucky ones that was able to get on an earlier flight on Saturday because I was heading south to visit family in South Carolina instead of heading north in the direction of the hurricane. So I literally flew over the hurricane as it was coming up the coast.

I have been a speaker at each of the past BlogPaws conferences speaking mostly about running contests and sweepstakes. This year I didn't make the agenda, but I am attending and am the contest administrator which I have set up the contest on the BlogPaws Facebook Page and am again using the ShortStack Application.

This year the contest features this photo of the two dogs in a tug-of-war and invites participants to submit a caption to accompany the photo. All the submissions can be viewed and shared. The contest started accepting submissions this past on Sunday, March 10, and will run till the end of day on March 24. There are currently 120 submissions.

A panel of BlogPaws staff members and volunteers will judge all the submissions based on the following criteria: Creativity 50%, Originality 25%, and Relevancy 25%. The Grand Prize winner will receive a trip to Tysons Corner, VA, to attend BlogPaws 2013 which includes round trip air transportation, hotel accommodations at the Sheraton Premiere and of course admission to BlogPaws 2013. A Second Prize winner will receive hotel accommodations and admission to BlogPaws and a Third Prize winner receives the free admission.

Many of the captions are written in the voice of the pet, which are quite funny. We held a similar contest a couple of years ago where participants submitted their own photo along with a caption that was in the voice of the pet. Deb Barnes was the winner of that contest with this beautiful photo of her cats with the featured caption.

I am very much looking forward to going back to this year's conference and seeing some old friends, both two and four-legged! I'm planning to bring my daughter, Alex, with me this year who will be graduating from college the week before. She's applied to vet schools and still waiting for word.

There is still plenty of time to register for the Conference. You can find all the information here on the BlogPaws website. I'll be sure to give you an update on the contest results and announce the winner sometime in April.