The other day, on Facebook, someone was complaining that she was tired of people wishing each other Happy New Year. Since the year was all of 6 days old I thought that just maybe she was jumping the gun a bit. Heck, I’m still working on putting together my Goals and Objectives for 2013! I’ll be wishing people a happy new year well into the month and possibly a bit into next month!

I love the start of the year (clearly you’d guessed this by now). I love how it’s a fresh start full of possibilities. It’s a time to take stock, to make plans, and to think about how you want to shape the coming year.

Join us tomorrow, Thursday, January 10th at 10am PST/1pm EST for our next Twitter #SplashChat. We’ll discuss tips and tricks to getting the year started on the right foot so we can all make 2013 awesome, both on personal and professional levels!

What’s #SplashChat? It’s our monthly non-sponsored Twitter chat geared towards other social media professionals or anyone who wants to join a smart, informative, and fun group of people intent on growing and learning together! (You know, you!)

No need to RSVP, just come chat with us! “See” you there!

The party is over, but there’s stil an iPad Mini to win! Come enter!

We’re hosting another fun Virtual Piggy twitter party. This time it’s scavenger hunt style! We’ll ask questions and you’ll hunt down the answers to win!

Virtual Piggy is a service that allows kids to spend their money online in a safe and secure way. With a parent account parents have control over how much their kids can spend. Kids have their own account, and using it they will learn independence and be able to pay for their own toys, clothes, subscriptions, donations, and more.

They also have special deals just for members. MVP deals offer exclusive bargains for you and your children!

When and Where?

• Date: 12/13
• Time 9-10pm ET/6-7pm PT
• Hashtag: #VirtualPiggy

Prizes include:

• KNEX Firestorm Freefall Coaster (ARV $35)
• $25 Claire’s Gift Card (ARV $25)
• Blee Inara Gold Plated Tennis Bracelet (ARV $30)
• Virtual Piggy Exclusive Zing Revolution Exclusive One Direction skin (ARV varies)
• O’Neill Clothing (ARV up to $50)

You can also enter to win the Grand Prize, an iPad mini! Details on how to enter will be shared during the party. You won’t want to miss out!

To RSVP enter your twitter handle (example @Splash_Creative) and the URL of your twitter profile.

You can follow all the party hosts just by clicking below!

Follow @FollowPiggy

Follow @CentsibleLife

Follow @KikaRose

Follow @RobynsWorld

Follow @GraceDuffy

Follow @Splash_Creative

Tweet it out!

Tweet

Rules and legal stuff:
Must be 18 or over to win. Residents of US and Canada are eligible to win. Winners are picked at random from twitter users who tweet during the party AND who have RSVP’ed. For the full rules and guidelines see our Giveaway Rules page.

Good Luck!

Black Friday. Small Business Saturday. Cyber Monday. Giving Back Tuesday.

If you aren’t in a holiday buying frame of mind yet, you must be living somewhere very still, very quiet, and off the grid. (Take us there too, please and thank you!) For the rest of us, ’tis the season to wrack our brains with ”Who to shop for? What to buy? How much to spend? Where to go for the great deals?“

It can be maddening, especially if you’re doing more juggling than jing-jing-jingling all the way this December!

Just in the nick of time, eBay is here to help! Not only can you shop eBay for the most amazing deals online, it can also you find the perfect gift and keep track of your holiday shopping lists with their new Facebook gifting app - the Holiday Gift Shop

You can use this app to create gift lists for whomever you wish– a spouse, your co-workers, your book club. To add someone to your lists, just type in their name. Once their Facebook profile comes up, eBay experts will instantly make gift recommendations based on whatever your friends have posted on their profile. How cool is that!

Once you’ve found just the right gift, you can click to buy it without even having to leave the app or Facebook.

The Holiday Gift Shop app allows your kids to get in on the holiday fun too with an interactive “Kids Toy List” section. With adult supervision, of course, your kids can scroll around and click on the toys they want. Once their list is complete, they can send a very special and very urgent message the North Pole– an eBay direct line to Santa!

It’s so simple and easy to use. To review the app, I created lists for my Splash Creative Media colleagues…

What’s on it??? Well, they will just have to be good little social media experts and wait until Christmas to find out, because no one on your lists can see what you’ve created. These are lists a just between you, eBay… and well, the big guy with the all the reindeer. (wink)

The eBay Holiday Gift Shop app makes all of you holiday gifting super convenient. It ties right into the eBay site and the eBay mobile app so you can shop any where, any time! But don’t wait until the list minute to use it… No. No. NO.

From now until December 21, 2012, anyone who simply creates a gift list, for themselves or for a child, will be entered for a chance to win their “Wishlist Granted”. Each day, eBay will award one lucky winner one of their gift list items (valued up to $200) PLUS a $100 eBay Gift Card to do more shopping!

Happy eBay Shopping!!!

Disclosure: eBay is a client of Splash Creative Media and I have been compensated for this post. Please refer to the eBay Holiday Gift Shop Sweepstakes Official Rules for more terms and conditions for the chance to win an item on your gift list + an eBay gift card. 

Virtual Piggy is a service that allows kids to spend their money online in a safe and secure way. With a parent account parents have control over how much their kids can spend. Kids have their own account, and using it they will learn independence and be able to pay for their own toys, clothes, subscriptions, donations, and more.

You can sign up for a Virtual Piggy account on their site and try it out. Help your child create a wishlist and they may be able to Win their Wishlist from Virtual Piggy! The Win Your Wishlist Contest is open from 11-14 to 12-7.

You can also get MVP deals from Virtual Piggy partners just in time for holiday shopping.

#VirtualPiggy Twitter Party

Join the Splash Creative Media team for a twitter party this Friday, November 16th from 1-2pm ET. We’ll be chatting about kids, money management, and giving away great prizes!

• Date: 11/16
• Time 1-2pm ET
• Hashtag: #VirtualPiggy
• Prizes: 5 $25 Visa gift cards, and 1 Grand Prize $100 Visa gift cards

RSVP to Win:

Selling on eBay is a great way to earn holiday cash and make room for the new this holiday season.

With eBay’s app it’s easier than ever to sell on eBay in time to earn you some extra holiday cash. It’s easy to sell on eBay with the eBay app. Here are some ways the app makes it easy to sell:

• With just a scan of a barcode the eBay app allows you to import images, product descriptions and more for your listing.
• Use your smartphone’s camera to take photos and upload them directly to eBay.
• Search closed listings to gauge pricing.
• Check keywords to find the best for your listing.

Join us for a Twitter Party with $500 in Prizes!

Date: November 15th

Time: 3-4pm ET/ 12pm-1pm PT

Prizes: We’re giving away $500 in eBay gift cards! 20 $25 eBay gift cards!

Where: The party is being hosted by Bumebox on ebay.com/sellonmobile You must tweet from this location to be entered to win a prize. (Please note, this link will not be live until the day of the party!)

RSVP Below with your Twitter URL to win!

We look forward to tweeting with you! In the meantime check out eBay’s updated app and learn more about selling on eBay. See you there!

We’re hosting our latest SplashChat on a timely topic-natural disasters and the use of social media to share information, personal stories, and help those in need.

In the last week we’ve followed along as friends share updates on evacuations, power outages, sent help in the form of donations, and rallied people to get donations to some of the hardest hit areas.

Join us tomorrow at 10am PT/1pm ET for a chat about how social media in the face of disaster. Just join in on twitter at #SplashChat!

Links to Read:

Philly-area bloggers help after Hurricane Sandy hits.

Small business and social media save a town.

Social media’s role in disaster relief.

Read through ‘SuperMayor’ Cory Booker’s tweets. His use of social media is the wave of the future in politics.

Kelly

In the time it took me to think up the title of this post I probably received 40 emails. Granted, quite a few of those were probably from Facebook informing me that someone left a comment on a post or another, but some were possibly important and in need of a response and some were probably in that dark zone of emails that could be answered or could be ignored.

In a world where we get over 300 emails in a day, where we get texts, phone calls, Skype messages, and who knows what other pings from the outside world, we’re constantly faced with the need to decide what to respond to and how, what to ignore and why.

Let’s spend a bit of time chatting about communication expectations: what requires a response, how to best respond to emails, how to use communication to our advantage.

Join the Splash Creative Media team on Twitter Thursday, October 11th (tomorrow!) at 10amPST-1pmEST for an hour long #SplashChat. We can’t wait to hear what you have to say!

How often, while you’re out and about shopping, do you pull out your smartphone? Do you tweet that you’re at Target? Do you Facebook a photo of that dress you’re not sure you like?

If you’re like me you do that, and more. My phone houses my shopping lists and my wish-lists. My phone allows me to text my friends for shopping advice. My phone even allows me to comparison shop or check reviews all without leaving the store aisle.

It’s safe to say that my smartphone has made me a smarter, more efficient shopper in every sense of the way.

Join the Splash Creative Media team, October 2nd at 12pmPST/3pmEST, on Twitter as we team up with the eBay Mobile team for a two hour Twitter party where we’ll chat about all the ways smartphones, and eBay, can help us shop smarter.

The party is being hosted by Bumebox on www.ebay.com/mobileshopping. You must tweet from this location to be entered to win a prize. (Please note, this link will not be live until the day of the party!)

We’ll be giving away 8 $25 eBay gift-cards during the party because everyone should be rewarded for all that out-and-about shopping exhaustion with a little from-the-couch shopping!

RSVP below to be entered to win the $100 eBay gift-card being given out at the end of the party.

We look forward to tweeting with you! In the meantime, check out all of the amazing free apps that eBay has created to make all of your shopping experiences extra easy and extra fun. I guarantee that you’ll be downloading at least one if not more before the party starts!

Depending on where you live, how long you’ve been blogging, and what PR lists you happen to be on, you’ve probably been invited to a blogger event.

When I first started getting invited to these events, back in the dark ages of blogging, I did my best to attend as many as I possibly could. First of all, most of them were held relatively close to where I lived, and second of all, I had little kids and would have given my soul for a night or afternoon away.

Since those days I’ve become a little more circumspect about what I’ll attend.

This past week, after careful consideration, I attended a lunch event in the city. Since the city is an hour away and the event was taking place on a minimum day at school, the whole thing took some careful planning. I warned the organizers that I would be late, and, Kindergartner in tow, headed North.

Between the drive, the parking lot that was full when we arrived, my shoe that got stuck in a street grate, and the simple fact that the event was taking place in the way back of the city block entirely housed at the address I was given, we arrived almost 30 minutes late.

Only to find that the presentation was almost over.

Even if I hadn’t been late I would have still been annoyed. I mean, really, if you’re going to do a presentation of your web based company, it would probably be good form to use a projector and to have your event set up so that attendees can really play with the program.

Which leads me to this: A few tips for running great, memorable, and fun events.

1)      Know your objectives ahead of time.

Why are you hosting this event? What are you hoping to get out of the people you’ve invited? Are you demonstrating a new product? Trying to build relationships? Hoping people will blog about your company or product?

Knowing the answers to these questions ahead of time will allow you to plan a memorable event that will be worth everyone’s time and money.

2)      Start your event before your event.

Communication about your company and product can start long before your guests arrive. If your product is something attendees can experience before arriving, give them a chance to do so. If guests arrive having already invested some time and energy in your product your event will be exponentially more dynamic and worthwhile to all.

3)     Give your attendees plenty of notice.

No one likes getting an invitation the night before an event. First of all, it makes it hard to plan to attend, but mostly, no one wants to ever be made to feel like they are on the Z list of attendees.

4)      Give your attendees the tools they need to arrive on time.

Will there be parking? Should they  expect traffic? Do they need to walk three blocks before arriving at their destination? Odds are that the attendees don’t know the area well. Give them the tools they need to arrive on time. By the same token, if someone tells you they’re going to be late, be fair and let them know if it’s still worth their while to attend.

5)      Give your attendees the tools they need to make your event a success.

Bloggers blog, they also tweet, facebook, instagram, and pin. You WANT them to do this. This is you getting your bang for your buck during your event. So make sure that there’s sufficient wifi available, that you select an event hashtag, that everyone knows they key twitter handles you’d like promoted, and that everyone knows your company or product’s facebook page or other social media avenues.

Want to win mega points with your attendees? Make it easy for them to upload their photos to an already created event album.

6)      Make your take-aways and expectations clear to all

Bloggers get invited to a lot of events. Not everything they learn will end up being a good fit for their blogs. Simply assuming that a blogger will blog about your event or your product just because you fed them lunch is a rookie mistake. If you want to ensure bloggers blog about your event make sure that expectation is made clear up front or make sure you give them something compelling enough to write about.

By the same token, make sure your message is clear. All too often event hosts skirt the main reason they’ve invited bloggers out and pretended the whole event really is to just to show them some love. Bloggers are professionals. They would rather be given concrete talking points to share with their communities. They would rather have a great working relationship with you where all expectations are clear.

7)      Follow-up.

Just like the event didn’t start just when your guests arrived, it doesn’t end when they walk away. Sharing photos, learnings, and your message again gives your attendees another opportunity to talk about you to their followers and it gives you the opportunity to deepen the relationship you founded at your event.

#SplashChat Time!

It goes without saying that these are just some ways to create a successful event where everyone has a good time and all parties come out ahead. Join us on Twitter this Thursday, September 13th at 10amPST/1pm EST for a #SplashChat where we’ll discuss the great blogger events we’ve attended and see what made them memorable. Come tell us what you think is missing or not!

Deep sigh. You’re home. The swag has been handed out to the kids. The business cards have been dumped on your desk. And one day soon you’re actually going to unpack.

But really, what’s next?

It’s one thing to go to a blog conference, but what do you with everything you learned while you were away?

Join us Thursday at 10amPST/1pmEST for the next #SplashChat when we’ll discuss how to make the best of your after-conference time. We’ll cover everything from recovering from the post-conference blahs to how to make sure the entire thing wasn’t a wasted opportunity.

See you then!