Social Media

I have become a social media/PR/marketing whore maven!

I'm updating social network postings for my high school reunion, for our Garaguation venture, for the Symphony, for the giant healthcare conglomerate a local healthcare corporation, and for me.  I'm stealing plagiarizing learning a lot from the advertising agency hired by the healthcare corporation I work part time for, and its not as difficult or as hectic as it sounds, if you're organized about it.  It does take a fair amount of time, but I've found that most of my time is spent coming up with the ideas - kind of like blog posting. The cool thing is that if you make a schedule, and assign two or three themes or ideas that you can rotate, a lot of the work is already done.  Then you use something like Hootsuite to schedule the postings to appear on specified dates and voila!

OK, maybe I glossed over some of the more tedious parts... like the parts between the schedule and voila. Like coming up with the rotating themes, and oh yeah, wording the actual posts.  Alright, I admit it, I'm mired in collecting the seemingly effortless, lighthearted, brand statements, asking the thought-provoking yet innocuous questions that will inspire responses, hunting down links to newsworthy relevant topics, figuring out who to "Follow" and "Like" for greatest impact!

Thank goodness I have this blog, where there is no pressure and I can relax... now, what to write about tomorrow?  Arrrgh!

I Coined A Word!

I'm told that I say clever things quite often.  Sometimes, I post those clever thoughts as my Facebook status. Even more rarely I write them down in a journal or in this blog.  Most of the time though, my cleverness evaporates into the ethos.  But once in a blue moon, the stars are aligned just right, and I happen to be in just the right group of people, and one of those people happens to know a reporter from the local paper....

Just Settin' The Stage

I need to post this now, because at some point in June I will be complaining about the horrible burden this crazy woman has inflicted upon us, and why-oh-why didn't I just say no in the first place.

Let me start a little closer to the beginning....

Downtown Dad and I bought the house we live in 5 years ago solely because it had a pool and a basement with a large projection screen TV, with room for 60 kids if properly crammed, into either space. We purchased it not for it's aesthetic, but for the main reason that we were "theatre parents" and these would be fabulous spaces for cast parties. The home's prior owners were heirs to a local nursery fortune, but sadly were also do-it-yourselfers who did not know the difference between Oak Veneer, and particleboard, or it's indoor vs outdoor uses.  Nor did they have a sense of style that had evolved much beyond the 1980's.

Last year, as I pulled into my driveway, I was met by an old hopping woman wearing cropped pants, garden gloves and green Crocs.  Let me repeat the important descriptor... Old Hopping Woman.  She was hell-bent on getting me to agree to being one of the homes on the Soroptimist International of Fargo Garden Tour.  I let her Superball bounce slow, and, while backing up toward my front door, explained to her that while this yard may have been Garden-Tour-worthy a few years ago, we had certainly not had time to tend it as it deserved and surely they wouldn't want to include us... surely they wouldn't, surely not....

Two weeks ago, the same Old Hopping Woman appeared at our front door.  Some ne'er do well had brazenly backed out of the tour and since we'd been on the Alternate List, well, surely we'd like to be included... surely we would, surely...

And, the rest is yet to be written history.