More fabulous prizes to win at the CyberMummy party

I blogged yesterday about the prize draw at the party - already a couple of folks have described their intention to win all the booty! (Don't worry, we'll be spreading it around.)

Here are some more of the great things you could win:

• Wilkinson has donated a summer's supply of suncare products (if, like you, you slather this stuff on, you know how great this is): 2 squirty suncare lotions, 2 standard lotions, 2 squirty kids' lotions, 2 standard kids' suncare, and 4 aftersun products. Bring on the sun.
• Polaroid, perhaps also anticipating good British summer, have donated 3 pairs of sunglasses.
• Tesco has stepped up and offerred a goody bag of Tesco baby products, perfect for mums with babies.
• Babes with Babies has provided a set of its gorgeous luxury hand lotion and organic handwash.

Stay tuned to hear of more great prizes to be won on the day!

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We're having a prize draw at CyberMummy!

The question is not what you can do for CyberMummy of course - it's what CyberMummy can do for you. And in addition to all the cool things we've got planned during the day, there's one aspect of the end-of-conference party that we're very excited about.

One thing all of the CyberMummy sponsors have told us - from our Gold sponsors Glam Media, Leapfrog, MS&L and SuperSavvyMe to our coffee break sponsors to the folks manning the stands in CyberMummy Central (the main room at the conference) - is that they want the day to be stimulating and different.

To that end, we've added a prize draw at the end-of-day party, thanks to the stacks of goodies generously donated by sponsors. Fill in your feedback form that you'll get at registration and drop it in the bowl on your way to pick up your drink at the party, and you could win some fabulous prizes.

I'll be tantalising you with postings of the giveaway items over the next several days, so keep checking back. Here are just some of the great prizes you could win.

• A Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn Puppy






• A Fisher-Price Bounce N Spin Zebra (pictured, bottom)






• A pair of Kickers Lego Football World Cup Boots (pictured, top)






• A pair of Kickers for mum (pictured, middle)

Good luck!

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Speakers at CyberMummy: Gina Garrubbo

We told you that BlogHer, the influential women's blogging network in America, was coming to CyberMummy. Now we're proud to announce that Gina Garrubbo, the woman in charge of the business side of the organisation, will be speaking on the "Working With Brands" panel.

As Executive Vice President and member of BlogHer’s executive team, Garrubbo helps guide the company’s growth, and oversees BlogHer’s advertising sales and business development businesses. Garrubbo is leading the creation of dynamic and measurable ways for marketers to engage women in social media.

BlogHer is the leading hub for women bloggers with a network of 2,500 blogs and a reach of 21 million unique visitors per month. BlogHer works with Fortune 500 brands and their agencies to create authentic and relevant marketing programs in this medium.

Garrubbo was one of the builders of women.com, which launched all of Hearst magazines online. As an early board member of the Internet Advertising Bureau, she pioneered new ways for marketers to communicate with consumers via the Internet. Garrubbo has built advertising sales divisions for media companies, including Discovery Communications and Oxygen Media.
Garrubbo also co-founded Terralina (http://terralina.com/) natural skincare and ecommerce business, where she is an advisor, and sits on the Board of Directors. Garrubbo is also a member of TED and on the Board of Directors of Sweet Border Collie Rescue.

Garrubbo will have some great stories about brands working with bloggers, including some entertaining horror stories.

See you there!

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Win a ticket for CyberMummy

Arthritis Research UK are currently trying to raise awareness of Juvenile idiopathic arthritis. This is actually a group or illnesses which share similar symptoms.

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (or JIA) is arthritis with no known cause and, as with adult arthritis, it causes inflammation, pain and swelling in the joints.

It sadly affects 1 in 1000 children but most children will have no lasting affect from it and doesn’t necessarily mean that it will develop into adult arthritis.

To help raise awareness of this illness, Arthritis Research UK are offering the chance for one lucky blogger to attend the CyberMummy conference. All you have to do to enter, is become of a follower of @ArthritisRUK on Twitter and retweet the competition message-easy as that! Good luck.

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Guidelines for sponsored bloggers

We keep hearing about more bloggers being sponsored to come to CyberMummy - which really shows how companies are embracing mum bloggers and are interested in connecting with them in a meaningful.

Since these keep springing up, it seems like a good time to remind everyone of our guidelines for being a sponsored blogger. Remember - the company is sponsoring you, not the CyberMummy conference itself, and this impacts how you can represent your sponsor on the day. (For example, you're welcome to bring along samples for fellow delegates who ask for them, but you can't simply hand them out.)

Check out our guidelines on the FAQ. And if you have any questions, email info@cybermummy.com or Susanna, Sian or Jennifer and we'll answer them.

See you at CyberMummy!

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Proudly display your Twibbon!

If you're on Twitter and coming to CyberMummy, you need to get your Twibbon. I'd always seen these little icons at the bottom of Twitter pictures and assumed they were difficult to put on or required some kind of Photoshop finesse. Wrong.

Just go to this link on Twibbon, put in your Twitter info and it will paste one over the top of your Twitter avatar (that's picture, to you and me). Simples.

http://twibbon.com/join/CyberMummy-2010

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Be a live-blogger for CyberMummy!

CyberMummy is getting closer and we need some folks to officially live-blog from the sessions. You would be writing about the session as it happens, providing a real-time record. We're looking for volunteers for these sessions:

Live blogger 1: Content session
Live blogger 2: Influence and Stats session
Live blogger 3: Working with Sponsors session
Live blogger 4: Libel & Design CyberLabs
Live blogger 5: SEO & Book-to-Blog CyberLabs

You publish the post onto your own blog then we'll link to it from the official CyberMummy blog.

Interested? Email Susanna at AModernMother (at) gmail (dot) com.

Not sure what live blogging really involves and how to do it? Check out the guide below, graciously submitted by Jessica Rosenberg, an expert live-blogger who has done it for BlogHer, among others.

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A live-blogging guide by a real live blogger

The first event I live-blogged was a football game. American football. I grew up in France, know nothing about football, and was woefully unprepared for what was going on. I sat there, Idiot’s Guide to Football in hand, and tried to follow along, blogging my thoughts on the game every few moments.

I can guarantee that my thoughts had precious little to do with the actual tactics or fine points of the game. They might have had a lot to do with surprising properties of certain uniforms.

While I didn’t learn much about the game, I did pick up some live-blogging tips that served me well when I had my first official live-blogger gig at BlogHer in 2008. I took notes, you know, in case the uniforms had the unexpected effect of causing me to be so distracted that I forgot.

1. Name your post and type a short paragraph explaining that you’re live-blogging, what you’re live-blogging, and that you’ll come back after the fact to clean up your spelling, grammar, and cohesion.

2. #1 can be done ahead of time and saved as a draft. In case of live-blogging for conferences, I’ve often found it helpful to paste the blurb about the session and to hyperlink the names/sites of the speakers ahead of time. Saves precious time later.)

3. Select all. COPY. Save. Publish.

4. Open a blank Word (or equivalent) document and “paste” what you have “copied.” (Save this document to your desktop. This will allow your computer to auto-save.)

5. Go back to your web browser, click “Edit blog post” and add the next paragraph.

6. Repeat #3.

7. Repeat #4, #5, and #6 until session or event is over.

8. It’s probably a good idea to decide ahead of time if you’re going to post every X minutes or when you feel there’s a clean break in the action.

9. Trust me when I say you should NEVER forget to “select all and copy” before you hit either save or publish. Ask me how I know this. Or rather don’t. I don’t think I can relive it.

10. When the session or event is over, take a minute to go back into your post to clean up grammar, spelling, and typos. Read over what you’ve written to see if you can make sense of what you wrote. Edit for clarity and flow. Once you’re happy with the way the post reads, delete the apologetic intro paragraph and save the post one final time.

Despite the stress of sometimes playing “Where’d the wifi network go?” live-blogging is a really fun way to share a conference or event with your readers. It’s fun to let them see what’s going on through your eyes and in your words. You know, as long as you remember to copy what you write before you post.

Jessica Rosenberg is an aspiring novelist and freelance who blogs almost daily at It's My Life... and posts frequent(ish) reviews at The Lemonade Stand. Join her Facebook fan page to follow her journey to becoming a published author! You can also follow her mad tweets at http://www.twitter.com/kikarose.

(Image: Gregory Szarkiewicz / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

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