The Six Degrees of Media Relations

A powerful woman who runs her own business is an inspiration. Heather Armstrong has taken Dooce.com and become one of the most popular and revolutionary bloggers in today's world wide web. She has made a living off of being herself and writing about her life. While it would be fantastic to say she has done it single-handedly, it is clear that even the best of entrepreneurs need the help of various media to get their company, its message and overall source of revenue off the ground.

Sonja Jefferson and Sharon Tanton wrote Valuable Content Marketing discussing ideas on how the content from a company, given to the public, initializes conversations, interest and public opinion. It is mentioned in the chapter What is Valuable Content and Why It Wins You Business that what is said and done will resonate deep with consumers. 

For Dooce, her voice is her content. Her blog posts are the bread and butter of her life. Her media relations strategies are different than that of a Fortune 500 corporation or even a traditional company. Media is how she relates to people. In partnership with many of her advertisers that help keep her site financially stable, Armstrong often writes posts on her own family and personal life relating them back to a promotion with said company. She has been the catalyst for many advertisers in giveaways and promotional tools. It has been a win-win for these companies, Dooce.com and the readers all relishing in the talent of her written voice and compelling nature. She has taken to promoting her site through other forms of social media and through television interviews as well. She keeps not only Dooce.com relevant, but keeps Heather Armstrong relevant as a blogger, entrepreneur, woman, mother and overall person.

Dooce.com’s brand speaks to its overall purpose. Heather Armstrong, a simple woman who moved to California in her early adulthood, started a blog to keep her family up to date on the happenings in her life. In the YouTube video above, she states that the name of the blog came about by accident as a typo every time she went to type the word “dude” to her friends through Instant Messenger. She made the mistake of speaking negatively about her company and coworkers on this site and got fired for this very blog. She never dreamed her site would morph into what it has become. Her brand started as a mistake and is a mix of many things and she keeps it that way to further the symbolism of her constantly changing life, most of which usually comes about by accident or chance. 

In a reading by Frank Rose, he suggests the true power of Milgram's theory of six degrees of separation. With the complete connection of links, friends, followers and subscribers online, the separation can often time seem even less than that. At about the 2:50 mark in the video, Heather discusses the power of her site to influence other companies and their treatment of its customers. In an attempt to get her washing machine fixed, she was having little-to-no luck finding a way to get it fixed in a timely manner. After much understandable frustration, she warns the customer service representative of the number of Twitter followers she has and her willingness to speak out against their company. With her six figure number of Twitter followers as well as blog readers, she found the upper-hand against corporate jargon and policies and showed the world that social media and its connection to others on the web makes a difference. (WARNING: The blog entry hyperlinked above is **long** and sprinkled with colorful language - but a very worthy read)

Heather Armstrong partners with advertisers, writes books, publishes her photographs online and even sells photos of her dog in a yearly calendar. She also sits on the Board of many women-centric organizations and keeps herself and blog alive through keeping the Dooce name in people’s minds. She has done a successful job of this as last year she was ranked #26 on the Forbes Most Influential Women in Media list. With a blog as diverse as hers, the target audience is a wide range of readers – both male and female, mother and the childless, emotional sufferers and those who look for a good laugh. She finds new and interesting ways to maintain the readers she has and hopes to bring in new readers. Since the YouTube video was posted last year, her number of Twitter followers has expanded even more.

In the future, it would behoove Heather to chronicle her efforts and stories focusing on her philanthropic efforts. Right now, Heather is in Haiti with the Every Woman Counts organization, of which Heather is a Board Member. Founded by former Calvin Klein model, Christy Turlington Burns, the organization works to end preventable deaths from pregnancy and childbirth. Armstrong has mentioned it on her blog a few times but has never really taken the opportunity to use the power of her blog to help the mission of this organization. Especially with the addition of the Dooce Community open discussion forum, so many other readers can add their two cents and social media power to make this organization even bigger and more successful than it is now. While it is great to enjoy the humor and emotion behind the life of the Armstrong family, there is a missed opportunity to show how much stronger women (and mankind as a whole) can truly be when they rally together to help one another. This can only increase success for the Dooce brand as well.

It is important to see entrepreneurs thrive. All companies started from the bottom before they can become a full success. Heather Armstrong and Dooce.com have seen many ups and downs but have never shied away from making them public. The future is bright for this blog so long as their media relations continue to grow.

The Story IS the Brand

Frank Rose wrote a book called The Art of Immersion discussing storytelling and difference in the medium used to get the story across. He wrote in Chapter Three of the book, “Some people have stories that are too big for the Internet to handle.” Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com uses her site to disprove Rose. If I could put words in anyone’s mouth, I would say that Armstrong would tell Rose that the Internet can watch out, because her story is grand and she’s coming to tell it.

I also came across an excerpt in Rohit Bhargava’s Personality Not Included that discussed how brands could use specific characteristics to make themselves a success. Any brand, that does their work right, pulls a magic trick before a consumer’s eyes enticing people without them ever realizing the tremendous amount of work that goes into making everything look seamless and easy. The most successful of these brands, have the right people who have innate characteristics to make this happen too. Armstrong is just that person for Dooce.com.

Bhargava mentions an interesting concept that is key to a successful brand. The UAT Filter has three features that work together to make a brand stand above its competition -Uniqueness, Authenticity and Talkability. Uniqueness, as we know, is what sets us apart from others. Dooce.com is not just any blog. While many think that their blog is the most interesting place on the web, they take to the Internet to talk about the food they eat, the manicure they got and funny animals they watch on YouTube. Dooce takes her everyday life and attempts to make it fascinating (Personally, she can talk about a sandwich, mix it with her quippy sarcasm and anecdotes about her previously Mormon life, and somehow make a picture of a sandwich the most delicious thing I have ever consumed without ever actually tasting anything). Armstrong has a personality that she brings alive online which is why she is leaps and bounds above so many other bloggers in terms of success and business. She started her blog during a time when this was a relatively new way to communicate. She also started the blog as a way for her family to keep in touch with her and the events of her life. She did not initially start the blog with the intention of it being her full-time job, but because of the way her life unfolded, everything fell into place in a very unique way. She positioned herself because of the twists and turns of her life and found international friendships with readers from all over the globe. Armstrong wants her readers to see her life from the outside in. It keeps her blog entries and overall site the authentic location it has become.

She is a woman all her own and stays authentic to her original message. She never shies away from being herself and remaining an open book about her life and business as a full-time blogger. Readers come to her site to be entertained and get a feel for a woman and family they would otherwise never have known. She creates a credible brand for her life by writing about relatable content. Many mom-readers understand the hardships of raising energetic daughters with opposite personalities. Many former Mormons understand her life raised in a religious setting; and many find humor in her feelings toward her upbringing today. A lot of readers love to hear about the people in her life as well. Her assistant, her kids, niece and nephew, and the friends who share in the process that make Dooce.com happen help all readers see beyond the humor and the emotions behind her blog posts and create an environment that promotes a relationship of connection, friendship and conversation.

dooce.com

One of the top things about Dooce.com that is different from all other blogs is the Dooce Community. The message board is one of the most interesting places on the Internet. No question is ever off-limits and no answer is ever too ridiculous. Many who post on the site have commented on how they ever came across the site in the first place. Before Search Engine Optimization was the monster it has become, finding Dooce.com came from others talking about it. Blogs would link to Dooce; articles would discuss Dooce; Heather was seen in video forums like Momversation or working with TV channels like HGTV. She took her brand and site and made it more than just prose. She made Dooce a roundtable conversation.

Knowing how to use the UAT filter without any cognizant knowledge of it, Dooce has become more than just what it once was. Dooce could take a hard look at itself and make an onliness statement along the lines of Dooce.com is the only site that brings a myriad of everyday experiences and mixes it with open conversation, fun products to buy and the ability to maintain a sense of humor in all situations.

On top of the site content, one of the most fun aesthetic parts of Dooce is her recently updated website look. Instead of entering Dooce.com and seeing mostly text (as you would in most any blog), she condensed her blogs into large-scale thumbnails including pictures and captions to entice readers to read more or allow them to skip over the entry and skim through material they may find more scintillating. She also changes the site’s look monthly with new webpage banners. Every month, she creates a new look at the top of her site to signify a new part of the year. She keeps an archive on her site of past months to see all the fun designs throughout the year. In each banner she includes the Dooce logo which is a funky font with each letter a different size and the logo is large and all over the place. This is very symbolic of Heather Armstrong. She is always open about her life, but never attempts to suggest that she herself has it all together. She seems to credit her success in admitting to being imperfect. She unifies the good and the bad by aligning herself with her writing and showing us her brand is as human as she is as well as her readers. On top of the UAT filter, there are other personality traits that make for a successful brand including soul people and passion. Dooce is most definitely not lacking in any of these areas.

dooce.com/category/mastheads

Heather Armstrong and Dooce.com are sometimes mutually exclusive and often times one in the same. This really encapsulates the site a reader enters upon coming across the blog. You would be leaving a lot on the table by not checking out her site. Her story is her life and it is one to worth getting to know.

Blogging About a Blogger

Heather B. Armstrong, listed by Forbes as one of the Most Influential Women in Media , took her Dooce.com blog from an everyday way to keep up with family and friends to a multi-million dollar conversation with readers from all over the world. She shares everyday experiences, stories and sarcasm and gets paid tens of thousands of dollars each month to do so. She is a complete inspiration as she gets paid to be herself – a complete and total dream job. She is like Kim Kardashian, but with a Miley Cyrus haircut.

Heather Armstrong, Dooce.com

I was first introduced to Dooce.com through a chain of other bloggers. Finding a blog worth reading is not always an easy task. This particular blogger had started her own family and, as a journalist by trade, curious about boundaries on the Internet. Knowing that her children would soon be a great focus in her own life, she found inspiration and comfort knowing that others felt the same challenge knowing when posts turn to exploitation. She credited Dooce.com with the words of wisdom she had been looking for. After clicking the link to the “blurbodoocery” (as it is sometimes referred), the love for Heather Armstrong’s prose was instantaneous.

After reading her mini biography in the “About” section of Dooce as well as one of her first books, It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita. Her book focused on her post-partum depression and time getting psychiatric help. Armstrong credits the support of readers from her blog as a tipping point to seek recovery. Heather’s mission is to live by the idea of sharing your life candidly and remaining open and honest about who she has become.

 

Starting as a web designer, she made the blessed mistake of blogging her negative opinions about her coworkers and boss. Once they saw these posts, she was immediately fired. Armstrong never let this bring her down. She took her blogging to the next level and soon was selling enough advertising on her site that her husband was able to quit his day job and do the technical maintenance on her site.  Through the years, the mission of Dooce.com evolved into itself. Heather Armstrong made a career (and more-than-comfortable salary) simply by being herself and never being ashamed of that. On top of her blog posts, her site includes regularly posted pictures, a social forum and an online store. She also includes an additional page on her site highlighting the hate mail she finds most hilarious. Armstrong has made it a mission to share the positives, the struggles, the heartbreak and the laughter in hopes of bringing comfort to readers going through similar times.

Outside of her books, television appearances and social media shares, Dooce.com has opened itself up to the most social of services on the site to date.  Around 2009, the Dooce site branched to the Dooce Community, a forum for all readers to ask questions, give answers and rally around online friendships. In her mission to continue being an outlet for many, Armstrong opened her site to messages for all.

With over one million followers on Twitter and almost 250,000 unique visitors to her site each month, Dooce.com is one of the most successful blog sites perceived by many as a fun, entertaining way to interact with others and intimately get to know an otherwise complete stranger, the one Ms. Heather Armstrong.

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Me

CATCH A GLIMPSE INTO THE WORLD OF ERIN circa 2008!!

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you. (or because I came across your name first.)

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1) People laugh at me when I'm trying to be funny. However, people laugh harder when I'm being totally serious and not trying to be funny at all. 

2) I used to be able to do nothing with my day and be totally content. Now, if I waste a day it drives me up a wall.

3) I hate you when you misuse your/you're and their/there/they're. I also hate you more when I correct you and you tell me you don't care.

4) I've never fully understood "I forgive but don't forget". Just forgive and get over it.

5) I don't miss high school. I think it was an awesome time but I am so glad to be past it.

6) I am a terrible person to cuddle with. I need my space to move around.

7) I'm really self-conscious about my feet and I REALLY don't like it when people use that against me.

8) I really hate when people give me the play-by-play of their lives about the dumbest crap they can think of. But when I want to hear about every detail of their day is when they decide to be vague. PICK YOUR STORIES BETTER.

9) I was really scared I was going to hate the University of Hartford as much as I disliked Cabrini College. As miserable as I was at that school, my year spent there has helped me appreciate everything Hartford has been to me so far.

10) I yell a lot at people while I'm driving. It helps me cope with the fact that I have to share the roads with idiots who don't know how to drive.

11) I have really thin hair. I'm not a fan.

12) I love getting random e-mails, wall posts, comments, etc. from people I haven't heard from in awhile. I don't find it sketchy or weird at all. In fact I embrace and encourage it.

13) I enjoy going to the mall by myself. I don't have to consult anyone on what I want to get and I don't have to ask if it's ok to stop in a store "just for a minute". I find it really enjoyable actually.

14) I love the fact that most of my friends and I are "on the same wavelength". We can have conversations without actually having them. It's even better when we confuse people around us.

15) I have a shoe box full of old stuff that I like to look through from time to time.

16) I don't like to talk about doing things if we don't actually have any plans of doing it. That's not fun/funny to me.

17) I enjoy having inside jokes with people. For a split second, you realize there's a small bond between you and that person (those people) that no one will ever fully understand and that makes me feel closer to those people.

18) I really hate that people always think I'm judging them. I may be shocked by your behavior but it's more than likely I'll get over it in a few minutes. I am NOT judging you so stop accusing me of it.

19) A lot of the time, it's really obvious what's about to happen next when you're watching TV or a movie. You know it, I know it. But if you still want to keep your head to be nicely attached to your neck, DO NOT SAY WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN ON SCREEN OUT LOUD. I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate that. BIGGEST pet peeve. ugh, I can't stand that.

20) I enjoy quotes by both famous people and my friends. There's almost always something memorable and worthy of repeating.

21) I really just make a lot of stuff up as I go along. 

22) Subway can eat my shorts. But honestly, it's like my second home. I have spent a lot of time there (too much really), but I have learned a lot about myself and other people because of that place.

23) I've recently come to find that even the most intimidating of people aren't that much different from me. It gives me a glimmer of hope for humanity.

24) I don't feel right when I'm not wearing my necklace. Even if I switch it for a different necklace, it still doesn't feel right.

25) I can get so much done in the middle of the night.

TV - Raising Kids Since the Late 20th Century

Sometimes I wonder how much the television shows I watched growing up really impacted me. I was always a major TV glutton. I still kind of am. I can't get enough. I've always been in love with stories. I've always been in love with resolution, punch lines, the ending. I get engulfed in the lives of fictional characters that are completely brought to life before my eyes. And I find myself wanting to BE them. Wishing I could live in their home, be a part of their family.

Many moral lessons came from my religious viewing (pun intended) of 7th Heaven. I always wanted to be a Camden child growing up. They already had 7, what was one more? I learned about the importance of embracing who you are and encouraging others to do the same. To this day, my heart still melts when I hear the theme song. Where can you go when the world don't treat you right? The answer is home. That's the one place that you'll find, 7th Heaven.

Then there's Mr. Feeny -  the teacher/grandpa figure everyone never had. Such a sweet, sarcastic and sage old man. So rich full of wisdom and empathy, you couldn't help but feel as though he wasn't JUST talking to Cory or Shawn or anyone else on screen, but to you personally. The man  had a way of poignantly putting someone in their place and making them realize the world is a wondrous place and we're all wandering down this road that we call life.

I could tell you how I always wanted to be a Seaver child or the daughter that Tim Taylor never had. Hell, I'll even admit to wanting to be a Conner or a Bundy. There's just something about good 90's sitcoms that will always have a place near and dear to my heart. They always captured that coming-of-age in a way that just seemed to always make sense.

Now there's a strong chance for Boy Meets World to be revived in a spin-off of Girl Meets World. So many people are jumping for joy that the greatest couple of Generation Y is getting back together, but I fear it'll take away from that special nostalgia that I hold on to. It'll ruin that image that I have built up in my head that makes this show so special. My childhood in the world of television is being compromised. I can only hope I'll still feel the love for them if the show ever gets picked up. My memory of the 90s is teetering on the edge...

"Huh...Boy Meets World. NOW I get it!!"

Featured!

I love reading the blog, dooce.com. She has a way of captivating her audience that I feel I can only dream about. She has the right amount of sarcasm, wit, and anecdotal humor. No wonder she can MAKE A LIVING off of blogging.

Such a dream job!

She also made the genius decision of starting a chat forum on her page. You can pose ANY question and all of her readers can answer and start a discussion.

I'm a long time creeper. I've asked only a few questions here or there and answered probably even less. But I love hearing everyone's opinions. I love that the forum is so open and mature. The people who go on there are genuinely open-minded and interested in hearing different opinions. The exact epitome of what makes the world go-round takes place there and I love it.

While doing my usual multi-tasking of being on the internet and watching TV, I was watching Long Island Medium on TLC last night. Theresa Caputo is a Medium, who claims she has the ability to connect with the deceased and be the middle-man between the physical and spiritual world. She has the ability to connect with people through minute details that only the deceased and that person would know.  She brings people to tears of solace. Sometimes I start tearing up like an emotional baby because these people just feel so connected to someone they thought was forever-gone and I want so badly for it to be true.

I often wonder about people who capitalize on their "gifts". Those who feel they were 'called' to this Earth
I started to wonder how many people Theresa Caputo encounters that she DOESN'T read properly. It has to happen. I can't believe she's dead-on every time. So I figured I'd pose the question to the Dooce Community.

And I got to be one of the top featured questions!!

I'm Never Sure What the Universe is Telling Me

Through my latest spat of joblessness and, thus, self-depravity, I went to the omniscient universe to find a sign. Through my harsh discouragement, I needed a sign that my life isn't a complete waste of energy, skin, and sarcastic personality.

I usually go with an online Magic 8 Ball to tell me a flat yes, no, or "reply hazy" (which means no, but your future is bleaker than a Mattel toy cares to tell you). Sometimes I play the "radio game" to let the music gods tell me my future. However today, I went with news headlines. I sought out to self-interpret someone's fact-packed, creative 8 word quip.

First, I chose the Yahoo headlines. The first one to come up...

JENNIFER ANISTON'S HUGE ENGAGEMENT RING

Score!! The future predicts I will be rich and beautiful with a handsome (potentially fiscally responsible) man, and PRETTY JEWELRY*!!! Woohoo. I could breathe a sigh of relief. THERE'S STILL HOPE FOR ME YET!

But, I have a level head on my shoulders. I can't predict my future off of one little news headline.

So, NATURALLY, I went to AOL. Where it proceeded to say...

ROMNEY: 'HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY'

I can't really put my finger on where my life is headed...


*I don't actually care about jewelry so much as shiny objects in general.