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Janis - Contributor

Janis is raising a toddler with special medical needs in California. A former office manager who secretly wanted to be an author, she began chronicling her son's medical journey at Sneak Peek At Me. A cool year later she is now an avid Special Needs advocate, and quickly becoming a social media junkie with an addiction to sweet tea.

Hat Venture Builds Brands and Helps Charities

Mommy Perks hat venture aims to build brands and help charities on Twitter

Parenting expert and small business owner Shara Lawrence-Weiss, owner of MommyPerks.com, a free online resource for families has started a new branding campaign utilizing her avatar on Twitter, @MommyPerks. Shara has been known around Twitter for her clever hats promoting various occasions, holidays and obscure celebrations that include National Turkey Day, National Potty Training Awareness Month and more.

She recently collaborated with Louise Sattler of Signing Families and has taken the 'funny twitter hats' idea to a new level by helping small business promote their brand on Twitter. She's wearing logo hats for other business brands as her Twitter avatar in exchange for a donation to a family-friendly charity. She says:

"When Louise brought up the idea of using my hats for charity it didn’t even cross my mind to say ‘no.’ It just made perfect sense based on my upbringing and faith, my heart to help others and my love of charity work."

This branding strategy has quickly made it's way around the Twitterverse and now there is a waiting list of businesses eager to support a charity in exchange for Shara wearing their logo hat. The concept has similarities with the for-profit site IWearYourShirt.com.

Here's how it works: Each business ships a hat to Shara, containing their logo, and then Shara snaps a photo and uses that as her Twitter avatar for 3+ days.

This week the hat venture was kicked off with Louise Sattler's Signing Families logo hat with the donation being made to Project N.A.D.I.N.E. Shara says:

"I love that everyone is donating to different charity outlets which raises awareness of those organizations (free advertising for them!). It also gives me a chance to promote fabulous small businesses and their unique products/services."

{photo credit: Mommy Perks}

Sky’s The Limit For Bloggers' Earning Potential?

#opensky

OpenSky - revenue model for bloggers

This weekend in California, Ted Rubin, Chief Social Marketing Officer of OpenSky hosted events in Los Angeles and San Francisco to pitch bloggers. Friday night a who’s who of influential mom bloggers gathered at The Standard Hotel in Downtown LA to mingle and get the inside scoop on a new way to monetize their blogs and bring their readership quality products at the same time.

On the heels of much discussion in the blogging community about bloggers earning money for their time and effort, Rubin presented OpenSky.

This new platform offers an opportunity for bloggers with an entrepreneurial spirit to step beyond the current model of reviewing Brand products in exchange for non-cash gifts, or directing to their readers to affiliate links to earn cash.  Instead bloggers can review and sell their favorite products to their already engaged audience right on their own site and get a 50/50 share of the profit. OpenSky will source the products and handle shipping and customer service.  

An example of a blogger utilizing the platform is Kath Younger of KathEats.com who opened a store to sell products related to her content such as french presses and mixing bowls.

OpenSky Twitter Online ShoppingAmong the Los Angeles attendees were online community leaders, Leah Segedie of Bookieboo and Tiffany Romero of The Secret's in the Sauce.

Ted Rubin explains how the approach works:

"We provide a forum for blogs to meet small suppliers of unique products. Suppliers that probably aren't big enough to be carried by Walmart or Target, but still have amazing products. In today's world, these suppliers are being driven out of business, but we don't want that. We want a world where a little guy with a great idea and a great product CAN make it.

The bloggers can sample the products and then become the suppliers' champion. Meanwhile, the blogger also gets to earn money by doing something they would do anyway -- talking about products they love."

Will other influential mom bloggers be lining up to open their own online stores and sell the products they love to their readers? Given the fact that there is currently a waiting list of over 500 sellers, Rubin believes the answer is yes.

OpenSky started up in May 2009 and currently has over 230 sellers, the majority of which are bloggers. The platform will re-release in late July 2010 and the waiting list will no longer be a factor for bloggers eager to put their social and selling skills to work for themselves.

{photo credit: visualpanic}