From the category archives:

Social Media (Over)Usage

Oh, my dear blog. (Don’t worry, there’s a Zooper stroller giveaway here to make up for what happened.)

by selfmademom on February 24, 2012 · 26 comments

This time I have a good excuse for my absence: my blog’s been hacked.

So… after time, money and stress (read: no work email for a day, the horror!) my blog is now fixed. At least on the insides. (But that’s what counts, right?)

I’ve learned a lot through this terrible hacking process:

1) Update your blog to the latest software when it’s possible. Basically, I let it go. I think I was on WordPress version 1.0 or something. So, update your blog!

2) Get a good tech friend. Thankfully I have Cynthia and she lead me through a hosting service changeover plus scary emails from someplace called Liquid Web with words like “system restore” and “migration” and “nameservers.” I understood about half of what was sent. Again, thank g-d for Cynthia.

3) Remember to update your email server in the process so you don’t miss a day’s worth of work emails. See second sentence.

4) Laugh. Because, really, what is more funny than some nerd abroad bringing down your my silly little blog.

And so, we move on.

To what else would I do on my blog to celebrate the restoration of the order of Self-Made Mom? Giveaway a really cool stroller. Courtesy of my friends at Totsy.

See this? It’s a Zooper Twist Stroller in Canyon Red! Retails for $199! It looks worlds better than my Maclaren from 2006. Seriously, that thing is nasty. Luckily, if you’re in the market for a new portable stroller, you can score one at a great discount on Totsy’s special Zooper Sale.  Or, you can enter my giveaway! See the fun is back on this blog. To hell with hackers!

If you want to win it, you just need to follow these guidelines…

1) Leave me a comment letting me know which stroller you love the most! (I say black, baby).

2) Post a cool status update somewhere on one of your social networks letting your friends know about the amazing 40% off deal Totsy is having right now on Zoopers and that they could enter to win one here! Just let me know in the comments where your update is. If you’re not a member of Totsy yet – please feel free to use this invitation link.

Winners will be picked via random.org. And hurry, the sale and contest ends on Feb. 27!

Best of luck and happy strolling… I’ll be sure to give you the evil eye while trudging along with my nasty Maclaren.

Disclosure: I am a paid ambassador for Totsy. However, opinions of strollers are all my own.

 

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Facing Facebook

by selfmademom on February 10, 2012 · 0 comments

Yesterday, I gave a presentation with Hollie Schultz of Baby Gizmo and Cynthia Wheeler, designer extraordinaire of NW Designs It about how to use Facebook to help market your small business to a group of mom-owned businesses through the NPN Moms in Business Group, otherwise known as a group of awesome women.

Presenting to this group is like presenting to friends, and I’m so grateful at how comfortable they always make me. However, it was a productive conversation about the dos and don’ts of Facebook contests, how to design a killer page and some great tips from Hollie who has nearly 20,000 Facebook fans! Yes!

So I thought I should share some of what we discussed with y’all because I thought we captured some interesting and relevant information through the discussion:

  • When posting content on Facebook, be authentic and use your own voice
  • Separate your personal and professional Facebook pages
  • Engage with your readers and fans whenever possible. Give and get feedback.
  • Cross-link to all of your various social media outlets (I know this sounds simple, but easy to forget, I swear!)
  • If you’re going to run a Facebook contest, please follow the rules! They can be found here.
  • Watch your photos on Facebook – a maximum size for a photo is 180 x 540.
  • There are 250 characters in the “About” box, but only 78 show, so make those words pop!
  • There are a ton of apps to launch different pages in Facebook, but if you want to make a page and make it usable for linkage, use “static HTML for Facebook.”
  • Use a “reveal” page to engage potential customers and fans – give exclusives to fans who “like” through the reveal!
    Look at one of Cynthia’s awesome reveal pages… 
  • Again, sounds basic, but interact and respond to users on your Facebook page – make it personal! Try to answer questions where and when you can.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask your readers provocative questions and get their honest opinions to share important things

For more information or questions, please feel free to email me. Or, you can find the full presentation here on SlideShare.

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One year later

by selfmademom on January 22, 2012 · 0 comments

I can’t believe that it has been a year since Caitlin and I formalized our company, 2 Moms Media. From a vision to reality, this year has been chock full of all cliches of owning your own business, ups, downs, screw-ups, successes and everything in between (including a huge grocery store delivery launch last week.)

What started with the opening of a local play space turned into a national consumer product launch at 1500 Target stores nationwide and everything else in between. What I’m saying is, well, it’s been quite a year. It’s been a blast, a challenge and stressful along the way, but I can say I have enjoyed (almost) every minute of it and I couldn’t have done it without amazing support of my readers, my friends, and especially my family. Without the network, 2 Moms Media would just be another idea. So, thank you.

And, to kick off 2012, I’m going to be hosting a twitter party for Totsy on Friday, January 27 to chat about baby essentials. I’ll also be giving away $300 of my earned Totsy credits to one lucky twitter party participant during the chat, so I hope you’ll tune in… again, I can’t do it without you all!

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Social Media Stress-Out

by selfmademom on October 18, 2011 · 7 comments

A friend of mine today commented how another friend’s blog post about how she’s gone back to work and is super-happy and it’s all working out made her question her own work-life situation. We’ve all talked about the mom work-life balancing act, and that’s not what I want or care to discuss here today.

What occurred to me from that conversation was, yes, there’s always the debate about should I work, stay home, stay home part time and work, work full time and outsource my childcare, yadda yadda, but it occurred to me now more than ever that while the debate persists, social media and its constant updates and posts, and tweets and life journaling exacerbates it. It exacerbates everything. It’s making already stressful situations more stressful.

I’ve suffered from social media stress-out, too. Like the lurking on Facebook to see about the friends who are at an event that passed on. Or reading twitter party stream feeds going on at night that I’m not a part of. Come, on, you’ve been there too. It was bad enough when I didn’t get the coveted bat mitzvah invitations in the mail when I was 13. But now? I’ve come to learn of the hundreds dozens of events and happenings and things going on that I’m just not a part of.

However stressed I’ve been in the present or past, I’ve recently decided (read: last week last 6 months), that I’m not going to let social media get the best of me. I didn’t get invited back then, and I don’t need to be included in all conversations, events, parties, get-togethers [name your activity] now. That I need to tune out the noise and tune into what is good for me. Which includes mandatory social media breaks. I might sound crazy, but it’s been proven that social media can make working-at-home-part-time moms teens depressed. Now, I’m not worried that my overusage of Facebook is going to be that problematic, but yet I’ve got to put some boundaries out there. Hey, she did it too for a bit.

I see those moms online, all the time, with many, many more kids than me and I look at them in awe. I don’t know how they handle the kids, the laundry, the driving all while being witty and friendly and up-to-speed on everything. Me? I’m pretty lucky if I can get the dry cleaning once a week. The efficiency of other moms online stresses me out too.

In order to avoid this 21st century ailment, I basically shut off twitter on the weekends. I use twitter mainly for work anyway, and since I’m trying really really hard to avoid working on the weekends, that makes sense. I’ve also decided to just read my Facebook notifications and messages once a day. Sometimes twice if the carpool line is really long.

More importantly, I’m learning 20+ years after the bat mitzvah stage (finally, right?) to Let. It. Go. Meaning, if someone’s going to go to a cool event but I’ve got another commitment/ am actually hanging with the kiddos/ couldn’t get a sitter then so be it. I can’t, and won’t, be able to do everything. I used to have that in me, but not now. Not with bedtime and carpool, and school stuff and oh, yeah, a husband.

There are are so many good and fun things going on in my life, that it’s okay by me to disconnect and live in the offline. Just as long as my iPhone reconnects when I feel like plugging back in again. Like later tonight tomorrow.

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My food bubble

by selfmademom on May 12, 2011 · 6 comments

Hello, my name is Sara and I live in a food bubble.

I have access to and can afford pretty much any kind of food my family or I need. And if for some odd reason I cannot find what I need at the myriad of Whole Foods, Costcos, Jewels, Dominicks, Paulina Meat Market, Speedways, Specialty Grocers that surround me, I can typically pick up the phone and just order it.

The only food desert I have to worry about is when my corner Starbucks runs out of cinnamon scones.

I live in a food bubble.

The reason I’m talking about my food bubble is that recently, I was asked by The Center for Food Integrity to sit on a panel of mom bloggers and speak to an audience of agriculture and food manufacturers. Alongside me were my friends Vanessa, Emily and Michelle. We spoke and answered questions about how, as moms, we use technology, how we choose our food and how we track food issues. For a great wrap-up of the event and questions asked/ discussed, please refer to Vanessa and Emily’s respective posts.

Of all the many opportunities I’ve had as a blogger, this experience rates as one of the most interesting. It’s not often that I’m asked as a blogger to talk about my use of technology or what I think current trends are AND about how I feel about food. Because even though I don’t cook often, I do pay attention to what we eat or don’t eat. Swedish fish aside. We all have our vices.

But see, that’s the point. My vice is Swedish Fish. That’s a luxury to pretty much half the world who starve every day. Even in our own country. Did you know that the hunger level in the United States is at its highest in 15 years?

Swedish fish vs. Starving. Food bubble vs. Food desert.

I sort of wanted to crawl in a hole when one of the audience members, a really nice Midwestern farmer had a question just for me. It must have been sometime after I made the point that the Whole Foods “fishmonger” is my go-to resource for what fish is safe to purchase. Oy. (I was told that Seafood Watch, my what-seafood-is-ok-to-eat Bible is “fringe.” More on safe seafood in another post.)

In any case, he asked me point blank what I would think about his lifestyle of food choices. How where he lives only two cars pass by his house a day and one of them is his wife and one is the mailman. I’m not kidding.

I don’t judge others. I know I’m lucky. I live in a food bubble.

After more rousing discussion and myriad offers for Emily and I to visit pork farms (gotta love the visual of the Jewish girls and hogs), many of the audience members came up to us panelists to thank us for our time and opinions. I now have the contact information for a Fish Ph.d. from Greg at the Indiana Farm Bureau who I can ask all my questions about why I can’t eat tuna every damn day. I met a lovely dairy farmer Shelly, who wants to do an kid exchange – she WANTS her kids to see city food life. I think my son would just about pass out at the opportunity to get on a real tractor. I also met Leah Beyer. Just about the coolest woman married to a farmer that I’ve ever met. Ok, I have no one else to compare her too, but I wish we could have snuck away after the panel to walk the broad paths of the McDonald’s Campus where the panel was held and chit chat about working mom B.S. This woman rocks!

I now have a new appreciation for the food manufacturers who are using technology to make food manufacturing more efficient with technology. Food and tech always have a negative connotation, but not when you think about the fact that this technology helps to FEED THE WORLD.

And suddenly, I was out of my food bubble and into reality. Yes, I’m still going to watch what we eat. But I’m not going to be as cynical about it. I may never purchase a box of chicken nuggets again, but I’m also not going to cry if we don’t drink organic milk all the time. I’m just going to be thankful that we have that choice.

While I’m talking about choices, please use your ability to choose the Make Miracles Grow Foundation project the winner of the Edy’s Communities Take Root program. My friend Emily is in charge of the project on the south side to help eradicate just one of the many Chicagoland food deserts. So help her out.

It feels good to get out of that bubble.

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Wrap-up report from Mom 2.0

by selfmademom on April 16, 2011 · 4 comments

I haven’t been to a blogging conference, or any “conference” for that matter for 2 years, which is  like 17.5 in blog years. Basically, it’s been a long time since I showed my face to anything blog.

But I picked the Mom 2.0 conference as one I wanted to attend for several reasons: 1) it’s smaller than some of the other ones out there, it had a great roster of speakers I could learn from with my new business venture, and well, it was a heck of a good reason to get out of my house to hang with Steph and other amazing friends.

Have I even mentioned that I’ve been hanging with Stephanie all weekend yet? I love that girl so much. She breathes a breath of tremendous positive energy wherever she goes, is such a fabulous person to talk to and be with and all around made my weekend that much more special and fun.

Ok, now that I’ve gushed about her, back to the conference. I’m always skeptical of conferences (who me?) because they tend to be too clique-y or too drunk-y or too loud or too overbearing. Mom 2.0 has a great vibe about it – it is metaphorically like the city of New Orleans itself – warm, breezy, happy… and slow. Mom 2.0 was great, not perfect.

Upfront, my only beef was that the actual sessions I attended weren’t quite beefy enough. It’s my fault that I didn’t attend every session listed on the schedule (uh, beignets with friends sort of got in the way.) But for the sessions I attended I was hoping for a little less girl talk and a little more girl advice. I think we’re moving beyond the point in the blog world where we are just about swapping private jokes and old blog posts – the stories are great, don’t get me wrong – but for me, personally, 5 years into the blog and 4 months into being back to work, I need to get a little more out of my conference ticket. I want to learn from the big gun bloggers about not only what makes them tick, but how they turn the ticking into a business. About how they learned to write or what they think makes for great blog writing. About how to find those out of the box opportunities. And, FWIW, I know that blogging is all laid back and such, but power point slides and presentations and note taking wouldn’t be a bad thing, necessarily…

… moving on… What I really enjoyed most, and what I typically do best is talking to people – all the random and funny ladies (and dads) I got to connect with and listen to. I may not be an extroverted blogger, but I’m an extroverted person and I truly enjoy meeting all the smart and unique kinds of people that a conference like this attracts. I also loved meeting someone like Ilana – a newish blogger who’s amazing and talented and already has like 52 zillion readers and is just looking for some more connections and information – she’s got that new blogger energy that I love but left me some years ago. Which is all good but it just makes me feel a little old and tired.

So I will wrap this up now with the following take it or leave it advice that I am going to remind myself the next time I go to another blog conference (which will probably not be until next year’s Mom 2.0):

1) You get what you put in – just like blogging, I think conferences are what you make of them. If you sit in your room, you’re not going to meet anyone. It’s ok to shake a hand and say hi to a stranger. I did it at least 42 times this weekend. And made a totally new BFF who’s totally opposite of me but we had one of those one-of-a-kind bonding moments that make leaving your family totally worthwhile. I love her!

2) Set your own goals and stick with them. You don’t have to be the most popular, or the most attractive or the best writer or the funniest or the best dressed or the most avant-garde or the [insert superlative here] anything. You just have to be you. If people don’t like it, well then, f’ em.

3) Don’t get too drunk. Just gonna leave it at that.

4) Don’t pack too much. Or else, you will end up like Janice. Which I mean lovingly. Sort-of. Wow that girl talks fast!!

5) Bring comfy shoes and practical ones at that. I almost ruined my gorgeous Stuart Weitzman heels on the cobblestone streets of NoLa.

I think I’ve run out of advice.

See you all next year wherever it may be, I hope!

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Wherein I discuss my mom 2.0 sponsorship by Microsoft Windows Phone – yay!

April 14, 2011

As I mentioned before, I rarely get asked to do stuff through my blog, and when I do, it usually is to review paper clips, or something really exciting like that. But because I’m having a week of awesome (except for the start of today, which was decidedly NOT awesome, therefore I’m not writing about [...]

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I’m a Totsy Mom!

March 1, 2011

As if I haven’t committed myself to enough already (new business, new Chicago Parent blog ((details forthcoming)), I was asked this past Fall to be a “Totsy Mom.” If you don’t know, Totsy is one of the hottest deal sites on the web for clothing, products, goods for moms and kids. They have daily sales, [...]

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There’s no WordPress plugin for Public Relations

February 22, 2011

Let’s face it; it’s pretty darn easy to set up a blog. It may not be easy to maintain a blog successfully — it’s being reported that blogs may even be in decline to other social networking sites because people get fed up with keeping them up — but, it’s easy to get a blog [...]

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sNoWcial Media

February 3, 2011

Did you hear? We got dumped on this week in Chicago. Massive amounts of snow that encased our homes, our streets, but not our Starbucks. That was one of two places open on Roscoe yesterday. This is what my street looked like as soon as the wailing winds died down and the sun came out [...]

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