Where have I been? Busy as a beaver trying to finalize a video for the greenmoms of the Green Moms Carnival fame along with doing my taxes and running from green show to show. Why am I creating a video? Here is where it all began. Grab a cup of organic joe and gather around.
It all began when Rapunzel let down her freshly-washed-with-organic-shampoo hair …Oh, I guess that one has been told before. Sorry. Try this one. Perhaps, it all began when a wolf tried to blow my green house down…Er, that has been done too but not the green house part.. Okay. Okay. Enough with the drama. Here is the skinny.
The green moms of the Green Carnival recently won the Shorty Award for best short green content on Twitter! How do I explain Twitter? Imagine a chat room where you can “IM” people in only 140 characters that are following you to tell them what you are doing, great articles you found, ask question, promote your product, or whatever your heart desires. But not just one person, but thousands. Time is money and Twitter gets the message out to thousands for only 140 characters. I would say this is time management at its best.
In my case, I use Twitter to feed my blog content into my account so I can gain more followers for the site. In addition, I look for new green products from those who follow me. Many times, I just ask a question, and someone usually answers. I am part of the green thumb tweeples and green tweeples. It can be very addicting. Believe it or not, I CAN type a message in 140 characters, but it is really hard. Some would say I am pretty verbose. I have no idea where that idea came from? Back to this whole Shorty Award thing…
(I am in purple, Lynn is in white, and Maryanne is in black pictured with our award.)
There are several green moms in the group and I know them virtually or by having spoken to a few of them on the phone. Both Lynn Miller, our fearless leader from Washington DC, who put all of us Earth mothers together to create the Green Moms Carnival and Maryanne (MC) Conklin of California, who put all of our blog feeds on @GreenMoms, which is our Twitter feed, came to my neck of the woods to receive our Shorty Award. I have always been so impressed by these two marketing mavens, but just getting to spend some time talking to them and of course, picking their brains was a real treat. They were inspiring, knowledgeable, and a wealth of information.
After listening to Lynn and Maryanne converse about their trade, it made me realize that I should have taken marketing so much more seriously in business school. I always found the “numbers” so much more interesting. A note to all those B- schoolers.
After the three of us spent time together at Lynn’ s hotel room, we headed to the dinner where many of the award recipients gathered to chat and meet each other. There were several categories for content including politics, brand, financial, etc. (See the list who won.) I found the other winners fascinating. Pictured above is Martha Van Inwegen, creator of Action Wipes. Her slogan is “Your face is not a baby’s butt. Don’t wipe it like one.” I can definitely see how she won for Brand. Woman has moxie.
Above is Wendy and Adam (sans Lola, their dog) of PawLuxury, an online eco-friendly dog company who won in the business category. Voters thought they were bark-tastic! They have almost 14,000 followers on Twitter. They know how to work social media. Who can resist man’s best friend?
After dinner, we headed across the street to the award ceremony. Honestly, I did not take the whole Shorty Awards seriously since the ceremony was in Brooklyn for goodness sakes. I am quite a Manhattan NYC snob. (Sorry to everyone who lives in Brooklyn for my pretentiousness. Maybe the Brooklyn-Manhattan thing is so yesterday. I have been in the burbs so long. Maya culpa.) I also thought how important could this award ceremony be? What press was going to be there? (Just in case, I wore a sexy dress with an underwire bra to hold up my seldom seen, sagging cleavage from nursing too many children. Well, what was left of my cleavage.)
When I entered the club and saw all of these people waiting to get in, I realized that I was wrong. The club was full of people and Twitter comments were being streamed live on large screen at the front of the room. Not one, but literally hundreds of them! What have we all become? Stuck to our blackberries and computers? See for yourself on the video here.
People were tweeting on their phones right outside the night club complaining that the producers did not take into account that there would be more people who wanted to attend than there was room in the night club. Everyone wanted a piece of the Shorty Awards. Not only was it young, hip, and the Big Apple, the awards featured Shaquille O’neal in a short video and had CNN’s Rick Sanchez and MC Hammer as the MCs. (Yes, of the “don’t touch this!” fame.) Was I taking a reality check or what? Twitter is hot and the boy toy of social media. Everyone wants a piece of Twitter uhm’s. (You know..a*s)
You are probably saying to yourself, what is social media? It is the new marketing frontier. So, if you have a business, climb aboard the social media train or be left behind in a cloud of dust. It is all about expanding your marketing plan to include the internet, which is the virtual playground of your customers. Not sure what all this means? Some of our green moms are quite savvy green marketing and social media mavens such as Sommer Poquette, Lynn Miller, and Maryanne Conklin, just to name a few. Trust me. Anyone of these capable gals can help your business grow since not only do they have their finger on the pulse of green marketing, they are equally social media savvy as well.
We received our 30 seconds of fame as Lynn gave our acceptance speech. The highlight of the night was meeting MC Hammer and taking a picture with him. (See picture above) I am still stuck in the 80’s. Both Lynn and Maryanne shared a cab with him back to the hotel! I, on the other hand, was literally running for the train back to New Jersey with my tennis shoes and purple cocktail dress. What a sight.
What does this all have to do with the video? I had prepared a 4 minute video of all of the “moms” who could not be at the awards with us. Without them, this award would not be possible. Unfortunately, I was told that it was too long and I could not show it at the awards. However, I added more content, fixed it up again, and it is ready to show as soon as I receive the green mom seal of approval. Believe me, when I tell you that each woman featured on the video is just as impressive as the next one, I am not making this up. President Obama should consider us as ad hoc committee for advice. So, stay tuned for my now 5 minute video.
By the way, before I forget, this month’s Carnival topic is Spring cleaning hosted on Tiny Choices. Join us to submit a post or just read up on our own spring cleaning styles. Due date March 8. Darn, another thing to add to my growing list of “to-dos.” Hope to see you over at the green moms carnival!
Got any news to share? Think of Green Talk as G-eople. So, dish. If I can tell you about my sagging cleavage, you can tell me your news…
Lynn from Organicmania.com says
Anna, you are so sweet! I laughed out loud reading this post and also so appreciated the memories, your kind words, and your tremendous support and help with the Green Moms Carnival and the Shorty Awards and of course that awesome video which we can’t wait to unveil!
You did leave out the fact that YOU were the one who held court with MC and his manager/handler/assistant. YOU knew all the songs, all the stories, etc. It was quite funny. I know you gave credit to your teenagers, but really, you were the cool mama jamma.
Can’t wait till our next get together and thanks again for everything! My business should go up in spades due to this nice testimonial!
Green Talk says
Lynn, you are blowing my cover! My day, super mom by night, a clubber. If only my feet could talk. Anna