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Disney Social Media Moms Celebration “On The Road” – Part 3

June 23, 2014

As I continue my series from the Disney Social Media Mom Celebration, part 3 talks about the guest speakers and what I learned from their presentations. I am so pleased with the speakers that presented at the event. Going into the event, I had seen the biographies from the speakers, but really wasn’t quite sure what they were going to talk about that would be relevant to me and my life and my blogging. I also watched the seminar from Chicago via momTV, which I thought was brilliant.

The guest speakers and topics in Philadelphia were:
Victoria Lim, @victorialim, Managing Editor, Walt Disney World Public Relations
Creating Visual Content with Ease

Lessons Learned, Experiences Shared – The Life of Mom Business Owners
Amy Bradley, @toydozer, Toydozer
Kristi Gorinas, Dad Pack
Jen Groover, @jengroover, Butler Bag

You Can Be Do and Have It All How?
Debi Silber, @TheMojoCoach, Author and Founder of The Mojo Coach

This blog post is going to focus on what I learned from Victoria. Her presentation was my favorite presentation, and the one I took the most out of in an educational sense. She had excellent tips and tricks about the tools of the trade used for blogging and spreading the word via social media. She shared with us some free apps she recommends to create videos of our photographs and videos clips, technical gadgets and suggestions for maximizing your mobile tools.

Some of her simplest but most common sense tips are:

Horizontal not vertical. I used this approach when taking photos and videos of my daughter’s All Star Pee Wee National baseball game this weekend!
Clean your lens. How many times have you noticed pictures taken that were cloudy and fuzzy. Yes, your phone lens can certainly get dirty.
Be mindful of ambient noise when doing interview or videos.
Keep your phone in airplane mode when doing an interview or recording a video. This will prevent your phone from making obnoxious noises while recording and will also prevent the chance of you losing your video capture because a phone call comes through.
Use hot spots.
Get a tripod – gorilla pod is a great little portable tripod
Photo lens kids – you can purchase little clip on lenses from www.livingsocial.com or anywhere for around $20.
irig Microphone
rode smartlav lavalier

Victoria also gave us recommended apps to download:

iPad apps:

imovie
majisto (you cannot edit the video with this too)
videolicious (works with mostly still photos)
cutecut
iwatermark (to watermark your photographs)

Part 4 of my series will focus on the emotional/personal growth I took out of the guest speakers. I loved the variety of speakers at this event from the technical education to help you with your blogging and social media, and then there was the emotional and personal topics to help you with your life in juggling motherhood, work, home and family. Again, it was a fantastic event that I walked away with a nice set of tools (and goodies!).

Disney Social Media Moms Celebration “On The Road” – Part 2

June 22, 2014

As Part 2 to the Disney Social Medial Moms Celebration “On The Road”, I wanted to share with you some of the fun stuff and the videos that were shown during Gary Buchanan and Jenn Fickley-Baker’s presentations. Gary shared with us the contest information for becoming the 8th miner and all of the fun associated with the opening of the Seven Dwarf’s Mine train on May 28th.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GM6ExLRxRA&w=560&h=315]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFBeZqZcU_c&w=560&h=315]

Jenn Fickley-Baker, Walt Disney World Social Media Manager shared with us a video gathering up all of the Disney Characters in one location for one photograph. It is the behind the scenes footage of the “Ultimate Tweet” that launched the Rock Your Disney Side campaign.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phTadjDBpjk&w=560&h=315]

We were also given swag bags when we picked up our name badges. Here are the awesome goodies that were inside our bags. Also placed on our tables were Vinylmation characters! We were treated to nice treats, sweets and surprises during this awesome conference! Stay tuned for Part 3 of the Conference with information from the other guest speakers! If you haven’t seen Part 1, read it now!

Disney Social Media Moms Celebration “On The Road” – Part 1

June 20, 2014

Yesterday I willingly woke up at 3:00 a.m. to take a shower and get ready to attend the Disney Social Media Mom’s Celebration “On The Road” at the Crown Plaza Valley Forge in King of Prussia, PA. Kimberly Markey picked me up at 4:00 a.m. sharp (I must say a positive trait of hers is being punctual! I wish I could say I was good at that). I digress… So we hit the road at 4:00 a.m. and head down to Philly. I was warned by Kim the night before, “don’t talk to me unless I talk to you first!” (sounds like my mom in the morning. We are not morning people). However, it was a great ride to the conference despite the early morning hour, the unexpected rain, and the challenge of driving in the dark with Kim’s wipers smearing all over the windshield! We pulled over in Fairfield to clean off the windshield and continued on our journey. I always enjoy travelling with her, we never run out of things to talk about.

We arrived at the conference at 7:15 right on schedule! We checked in at the registration desk and it was so cool to meet people and when I told them which blog I write for they actually recognized my name! To me that was a big deal.

Swag bags at registration

The celebration started at 8:30 and we had breakfast provided to us.

We began with an ice-breaking activity of pin trading. We were all given a pin and had to go around for 2 minutes and trade our pins with other mom bloggers. That was a great activity!

My before pin

My pin after trading

Gary Buchanan started us off with news from Disney and the recent contests going on like www.Bethe8thminer.com To enter visit the website and complete a challenge for each dwarf.

Each week, one aspiring miner will win $500 and a Seven Dwarfs Mine Train trading pin. Our grand prize 8th Miner winner will win a 7-night vacation for four to Walt Disney World® Resort, where you’ll meet the crew and ride the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train!

How can you not try to win $500! The challenges are fun and simple, go check them out and post your entry to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #8thMinerContest.

Next up was Jenn Fickley-Baker, @DisneyParksJenn, Walt Disney World Social Media Manager, who talked about the Behind the Scenes of running the Disney Parks Blog. One of the tips she recommended to keep your readers interested is to write a series. She also shared with us the behind the scenes elements of working in the social media segment of Disney with their editorial calendar and the tools that they use to manage their blog.

After Jenn we had a representative from HP speak about the Solution Side of Motherhood and the products that HP has to offer busy moms to help them when in a pinch for gift ideas by using such tools as AirPrint and Instant Ink. They discussed the easy touch screen printers that your children can use to print out coloring pages and tools that moms can use to easily send an item from their phone to the printer (via an email address assigned to the printer). I don’t have a color printer at home, but this sure made me think about what I may invest in if we do decide to get one.

After the HP presentation we had a break. I will continue my next blog post with what I learned from the speakers after the break! In the meantime here are some photos from prior to the speakers and some activities and goodies we were given during the morning.

Gary Buchanan

Prizes that were given away throughout the morning

Disney social media moms on the road.

May 8, 2014

I just learned this week that I was selected to attend the Disney social media mind celebration on the road in Philadelphia on June 19th. I am so excited!

I have been putting a lot of time and effort into my one word resolution this year to GROW. I have been growing my running skills by obtaining 2 PRs recently. I have also been focusing on growing my blog. So this event will hopefully help give me some more tools to learn about social media and how it pertains to Disney.

I researched into past year’s Disney Social Media Moms On the Road celebrations and saw that they have a guest speaker, so I am looking forward to hearing what will be presented this year and who will be presenting it. It also looks like a great place to network with other bloggers.

So I hope to GROW some more next month. Stay tuned for my recap!

My #DisneySide Part @Home Celebration was a hit!

February 27, 2014

I had my #DisneySide party on Monday, February 17 and it was SO much fun! Friends arrived late in the afternoon and we served chips and salsa, veggies and dip, popcorn and pretzels with pumpkin dip. My daughter and my friend’s daughter immediately became friends and shared their dress up costumes. My daughter let her friend borrow her Elsa dress and Maddie’s face lit up! My daughter put on Maddie’s Cinderella wedding dress and also fell in love! They played dress up and did each other’s nails and makeup in my daughter’s room while all of the boys did boy things in the playroom downstairs.

The adults enjoyed finger foods and then it was time to serve the main meal of the night which was a waffle bar. The kids decorated their waffles with fruit, whip cream sprinkles, syrup or whipped cream. I think the Mickey waffles were a huge hit! I also made a salad for the adults to have with dinner.

Then it was time to kick the sugared up kids outside for a awhile for some sled riding which they also loved. What do you do after kids come in from the cold? Serve them ice cream of course! We did our ice cream/candy bar where everyone made up their own ice cream concoctions. I also served the Dole Whip recipe which was a delicious addition to bringing a piece of Disney to the party!

After dessert we all got together to make our Saving for Disney banks where the kids decorated glass jars with stickers. Despite having bingo and trivia games to play, everyone was having such a great time talking about their past and upcoming trips and all things Disney. The kids enjoyed their activities and playing.

I would love to host another #DisneySide party in the summer and let the kids enjoy swimming.

They had a blast! And I think the adults had as much fun as the kids did, too!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EluGWXct4rg&w=560&h=315]

I received free products in order to host the Disney Side @Home Celebration. The opinions expressed here are my own.

My #DisneySide Party Planning Is Coming Together

February 14, 2014

I have been busy! Busy with work, busy with the snow, busy preparing for the Glass Slipper Challenge and busy preparing for my #DisneySide @Home Celebration But it’s all good busy. It’s been a creative busy. I have been working on my costumes for the races, decorations for the party, recipes and crafts.

I started to decorate the candy bowls, goodie bags, made some chocolate lollipops and rice krispy treats. I have games prepared and invitations have been sent. So I am looking forward to setting up everything on party day! Stay tuned to see what happens on the night of the party!