March 15, 2013

Friday Musings - Working from home

spacer by Yvonne DiVita

I work from home. I've worked from home for more than 10 years. Granted, I work for myself... although these days there is a bigger presence in our lives - BlogPaws was aquired by Pet360 and I now work for them. But, they understand that, as the Co-Founder and major contributor to BlogPaws, I need to have a good working environment... which is here at home. Where I can give my dogs lots of attention, all day long. 

There's a bit of controversy going around the business world about the whole working from home idea. Back when the Internet began, we geeks were ecstatic that we now had a tool that would allow us to work from home and still be connected to the office. And yet, the numbers haven't changed all that much... people don't work from home as much as we thought they would. Flexible hours is not the norm, as we expected it would be. 

Continue reading "Friday Musings - Working from home" »

Posted by Yvonne on March 15, 2013 in Beyond Blogging, Big Ideas, Business, Current Affairs, NOT Female Friendly, Posts by Yvonne DiVita | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Reblog (0) | | Digg This | Save to del.icio.us | |

March 13, 2013

BlogPaws 2013 Photo Caption Contest is currently running on Facebook

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.

spacer 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.

spacer 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.

spacer 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.

spacer 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.

spacer 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.

Posted by Donna DeClemente on March 13, 2013 in Posts by Donna DeClemente, Promotions, Social Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: BlogPaws, BlogPaws 2013, blogs, conferences, contests, Facebook Contests pet-bloggers, Facebook promotions, photo caption contests, Photo-Contest, social media, user-generated contests

Reblog (0) | | Digg This | Save to del.icio.us | |

March 08, 2013

Friday Musings - International Women's Day

by Yvonne DiVita on Behalf of International Women's Day 2013

spacer

Heifer International, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending world hunger and poverty, shares ways readers can “take action” during International Women’s Day (that would be today folks) via the Heifer International’s IWD page. 

In Heifer projects around the world, women are the backbone of agriculture and the key driver of food production. One way Heifer is helping to end poverty is by providing women in impoverished communities with the assistance, tools and training to enhance food production and build sustainable assets and income.

Continue reading "Friday Musings - International Women's Day" »

Posted by Yvonne on March 08, 2013 in Beyond Blogging, Big Ideas, Business, Current Affairs, Female-Friendly, Posts by Yvonne DiVita | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Reblog (0) | | Digg This | Save to del.icio.us | |

March 06, 2013

Walmart’s #WinItWednesday Green Contest takes place today on Twitter

By Guest Blogger Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

Last month Walmart kicked off a new "Green" promotional marketing campaign with its first #WinItWednesday contest on Twitter. The contest gives entrants the chance to share their unique eco-friendly ideas and to win Walmart Gift Cards. The contest takes place on the first Wednesday of each month, so today is round two for the month of March.

spacer

Today @WalmartGreen will ask Twitter users to respond to a specific #WinItWednesday sustainability inspired challenge question. Three winners will be selected by judges representing Wal-Mart Stores, and the Mother Nature Network for each month's challenge question. Participants must follow and reply to @WalmartGreen and include the hashtag #WinItWednesday in their tweet. Each of the three winners will receive a $100 Walmart gift card and a chance to have their Submission featured on Mother Nature Network’s The Leaderboard and The Green Room, Walmart's sustainability blog, within that month.

For the first contest entrants were invited to share their idea for an eco-friendly gift for their Valentine (in 140 characters or less !). This first contest resulted in a 5.4% spike for @WalmartGreen in their number of Twitter followers in only 6 hours. This equaled 1.5 new followers every minute. The contest was also mentioned by John McCain and Planet Green on Twitter! Here's an overview of last month's winners which includes Terri Pointon who's idea is turning old wool and cashmere sweaters into new items.

Walmart's “The Leaderboard” was launched earlier this year through a new partnership formed with the Mother Nature Network with the purpose of creating a special editorial channel on the site for readers to explore the people, businesses and organizations leading in sustainability.

spacer “Thanks to the ingenuity, passion and innovative thinking of so many people, we’ve seen an increase in sustainable technologies, processes and options in the past decade,” said Andrea Thomas, senior vice president of sustainability at Walmart. “These new ideas have helped companies, like Walmart, make significant progress toward our sustainability goals. Walmart has a responsibility to use its size and scale to influence positive change, and we believe ‘The Leaderboard’ will be a place to showcase cutting edge ideas and spark further adoption.”

Today's challenge question is scheduled to be posted at 11am ET, so check it out and share a tweet @WalMart Green with one of your eco-friendly ideas.

Posted by Donna DeClemente on March 06, 2013 in Female-Friendly, Posts by Donna DeClemente, Promotions, Social Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: #WinItWednesday Contest, Green Promotions, Mother Nature Network, Sustainability, The Leaderboard, Twitter Contests, Twitter Promotions, Walmart's #WinItWednesday Contest, Walmart's Green Room, WalmartGreen

Reblog (0) | | Digg This | Save to del.icio.us | |

March 05, 2013

Applying For Jobs Isn’t Enough

Guest post by Hannah Morgan

spacer When you submit your resume to an online job posting, how many other people do you suppose are doing that exact same thing? Hundreds? Thousands? The odds of your application rising to the top of the pile are as good as your odds of winning the lottery. The good news is, you can do something to increase the chances of your application getting the attention you want.

2 Steps Is What It Takes

Most job applicants won’t take the time to do this, and that’s the very reason you should! The first step is easy and familiar. You find a job online and modify your resume to showcase your most important and relevant qualifications and include a cover letter that explains why you want to work at that company (this requires you’ve done research and know more than the company’s name).

Continue reading "Applying For Jobs Isn’t Enough" »

Posted by Yvonne on March 05, 2013 in Business, Guest Posts, Interviews, Social Media | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Reblog (0) | | Digg This | Save to del.icio.us | |

February 27, 2013

Celebrating six years of blogging with one of my favorite brands, Dove

By Guest Blogger Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

spacer Six years ago today, February 27, 2007, I wrote my first blog post on my blog, Donna's Promo Talk. Today I'm celebrating my blog's birthday and the fact that I'm a six year-old blogger. Thanks again to my good friend and founder of this blog, Yvonne DiVita, along with her business partner and now husband, Tom Collins, for helping me get started. Lipsticking was launched a couple of years before my blog, so we're both considered old timers now in this business.

spacer I have developed a few traditions in my blog postings over the years and one is in celebration of my blog's birthday. For this I write about the same brand that I devoted my first blog post about which is Dove. I love the brand and use their products and have been following their Real Beauty Campaign over the years which I continue to support.

So as I did last year, I sat at my computer this morning, opened up Facebook and hopped over to the Dove Facebook page. Last year I did the same thing and to my surprise I found that Dove had just converted to the new Facebook Timeline. Dove was one of the first brands that Facebook partnered with to roll out their new Timeline for business pages which is now a year old.

spacer Dove's current promotional campaign is called the Dove Truth Files where they invite fans to "Reveal the Truth and Reap the Awards". Part of the campaign includes this Instant Win Game they are running on a Facebook app. The game is giving away over 20,000 prizes instantly such as Amazon gift cards and music downloads, plus everyone receives a Dove $2.00 coupon.

Participants "Play Detective and Put Your Bar or Body Wash to the Test." To start you need to pick the body wash or bar that you currently have in your shower from a choice of 13 different products.According to which brand you chose, you are then served a custom video that describes the "truth" of what is wrong with the brand you chose. I chose Nivea and the woman in the video demonstrated how Nivea is harsher than Dove. spacer You can then proceed to see if

gipoco.com is neither affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its contents. This is a safe-cache copy of the original web site.