gWhiz I like gDiapers

As a new mom, I heart gDiapers. As a marketing communications professional, I heart the community they’ve built around their brand.

I learned about gDiapers last year in a Chatelaine article and thought I’d try them out. They work really well and are easy to use and I plan to keep using them.

A mom and pop shop based out of Oregon, gDiapers marries the convenience of a disposable diaper with the eco-friendliness of a cloth diaper. Essentially, they consist of a washable, cotton outer little “gPant” and a plastic-free biodegradable diaper liner called a “gRefill”.

The liner gets lined with a paper insert that is 100% biodegradable and can be flushed down the loo, tossed into the compost or even the garbage. The insert will biodegrade within 150 days which is considerably less time than a typical disposable diaper (it takes 500 years for one disposable diaper to bite the dust).

Using the disposable liners can get expensive but not any more expensive than buying disposable and the company also offers gCloth inserts as another earth-friendly alternative to work with little gPants.

Moms and Dads across the US and Canada love gDiapers. And gDiapers is deeply engaged with its customer base.

You just have to visit the gDiapers fan page on Facebook to see how much. Customer post photos of their little ones wearing gDiapers. They also give feedback to gDiapers and ask questions about using the product. Not only does the gDiaper team respond to these questions and use the page to engage with customers, other customers also answer questions and offer advice.

If you go to the gDiapers website, there are multiple ways to join the gDiapers community including CEO Jason’s blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and more. And through the company website you can call their 1-800 number to speak to a member of their “Diaper Therapy Team” who are ready to answer customer questions and provide assistance with using gDiapers.

Shipping to Canada from the gDiapers website is expensive. They’ve told me that the company is looking for ways to broaden their distribution in Canada but there is no timeline yet on when this will happen. An economical solution is to go to a local retailer that sells gDiapers and purchase two or more of the gDiaper starter kits. It’s actually cheaper to do this than to pay for shipping from the gDiaper website.

Alternatively, there is another website called www.nappyshoppe.com that sells gDiapers and has much more economical shipping rates from the US.

They key here is that gDiapers listens and makes the effort build real dialogue with their customers. In doing so, they’ve created a brand experience where customers feel like they are part of something really fun. Oh and of course good for their babies and the planet.

*images used are from the gDiapers website

iDo have Droid envy too

Even with my iPhone envy in full swing, I’m intrigued by the Motorola Droid which Verizon will start selling on November 6th (just in time for the holidays). When it comes to Canada, I have no idea. But! It does offer some cool capabilities lacking in the iPhone.

The “Droid Does” commercial says it all:

However, it will be interesting to see how the market will react to this direct iPhone competitor. PC World gives a good comparison between the Droid and the iPhone, and the folks over at Wired.com give a detailed product review. If you know when the Droid is coming to Canada, let me know.

**update**

After tweeting this post, my Twitter pal @orenmazor sent me this “iDon’t Care” video response to the Droid commercial…oooh competition…I love it!

Embracing the chaos

I’m a new mom…my daughter is three months old this week and wow has the time gone by fast since her birth. I realized yesterday that while a full year of maternity leave may sound like a long time, it’s going by in a blink. So I plan to enjoy every minute I have with her.

I’ve only been separated for any length of time from my daughter twice, and both times it was to attend Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa (hashtag: #GGDOttawa). As one of the co-founders, I have a lot of fun planning these events, networking and learning from the many smart and savvy women in our city. But wow, is it ever hard to be away from my daughter!

I used to sneer at the term “babywearing” because I thought it referenced your baby as an accessory instead of a person in her own right. I’m still not crazy about the term but I get it. The idea of keeping your baby snuggled close while you carry on with the day-to-day necessities of life (e.g. never-ending loads of laundry to fold) makes sense. It’s comforting for both mom and baby. So I “wear” my baby in a sling as much as possible.

There are times however, when babywearing just isn’t practical. You can move faster and get more done while your baby plays in her bassinet, bouncy chair, crib or playpen. I look around my house sometimes at what looks like the aftermath of a tornado. There is just baby stuff everywhere and the dishes are piling up, not to mention those piles of laundry. All I want to do is tidy up and get my house looking like it did before my daughter arrived.

And it’s yesterday that I realized all of this chaos is the way it should be. Now is the time to enjoy every moment I have with my daughter and not concern myself (too much) with the state of my home. A new routine will work itself out eventually. If my home will looks tornado-aftermath’ish right now, that’s ok.

For now, I’m going to enjoy snuggling my daughter into her sling and doing what we can together without worrying too much about what more I could be doing. For now, I’m going to embrace the chaos.

ps: The movie Away We Go has a funny scene in it where characters Burt and Verona (played by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) try to gift a stroller to babywearing mama LN (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal):

LN: [to Roderick] They bought us a stroller.
Burt Farlander: What’s wrong with a stroller?
LN: I LOVE my babies. Why would I want to PUSH them away from me?

Social Media Breakfast Ottawa 8 Announced

The Social Media Breakfast (SMB) Ottawa organizers just announced that Chris Greenfield, product strategist and Founder & CEO of clever communications, will be the guest speaker at the April 15th event.

During this networking and learning session, Chris will discuss “Social Media Hype: Getting past the BS and making it really work.”

SMB Ottawa is always a fun and worthwhile event and this one promises to generate some interesting dialogue on what a social media “expert” really is and how gaining ROI means businesses need to align social media efforts to core busines goals to see any real value out of the effort.

The deets…

Date: Wednesday, April 15 from 7:30 to 9:00 a.m. 

Location: Gowlings, 160 Elgin Street, Suite 2600

To register, visit http://smbottawa8-emailinvite.eventbrite.com/

Be there or be square [read: out of the loop!]

Facebook ads are giving me a complex

I don’t get it. I thought Facebook Ads are supposed to be targeted ads. Meaning – they display ads that are of interest, or at minimum, of relevance to me.

Instead, my profile page is continually bombarded with ads like “Rachel Ray’s New Diet”, “Lose 3 Dress Sizes” and “Oprah’s Diet Challenge”.

I’m starting to get a complex here.

Like Facebook is trying to tell me something.

I’m being proactive and using the thumbs up / thumbs down feature below each ad as a way to tell Facebook these ads aren’t relevant to me.

But they still keep showing up.

It’s not that I mind seeing ads on my Facebook profile. I accept that in return for using their service, I will see ads on a regular basis.

But when I vote an ad down, and Facebook takes the time to ask me why, they should really listen to my reason and act on it.

I wonder if the issue is not enough companies are submitting ads on Facebook. And since Facebook has most likely promised these companies a certain number of impressions, my preferences go out the window.

I did a little Googling and I’m certainly not the only one to complain about this advertising spam. (See here and here.)

And while TechCrunch recently asked if Facebook ads are going to zero, eMarketer is predicting growth in overall online ad spend from $24.5 billion in 2008 to $28.5 billion in 2009. Well the way it’s going, I don’t see Facebook Ads as driving this projected growth. If you have any stats on this, please share via the comments section below.

So back to me for a minute. It must be something in my profile…somewhere on my info page or on my wall that is triggering these ads to display. Perhaps Facebook is expressing concern that I’ve listed “baking brownies and chocolate chip cookies” as some of my favourite activities.

Thanks Facebook. I guess you, Rachel Ray and Oprah are all looking out for me.

Americans prefer to interact with brands via social media

When you use social media tools on a daily basis, you can forget that to a lot of people, it’s a whole new territory. Yes that’s right, there a people (gasp) who don’t know what Twitter or Friendfeed are. Who don’t read blogs on a regular basis and wouldn’t know the first thing about subscribing to an RSS feed.

Which is why I read with great interest a recently published study about the preference of Americans to interact with brands via social media tools.

According to Cone, a US-based strategy and communications agency, 93 per cent of online Americans feel companies should be interacting with them via social media. (I apologize now for not having Canadian stats.)

The online study titled, “2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study”, was conducted September 11-12, 2008 by Opinion Research Corporation.

A summary of its findings:

• Companies should use social networks to solve their problems (43 percent).
• Companies should solicit feedback on their products and services (41 percent) via social media.
• Companies should develop new ways for consumers to interact with their brand (37 percent) e.g. using widgets, web applications, etc.
• Companies should market to consumers (25 percent) using social media.

The research is considered good news for marketers as it highlights that social media is a good way to reach the traditionally hard-to-reach markets: men and younger consumers:

• Men are twice as likely as women to interact frequently (one or more times per week) with companies via social media (33% to 17%, respectively)
• One-third of younger, hard-to-reach consumers (age 18-34) believe that companies should actively market to them via social networks.

One other finding of interest: two-thirds of the wealthiest households ($75K+) and the largest households (3 or more members) feel stronger connections to brands they interact with online.

While all of this is great news for marketers looking into or already invested in social media as a way to extend brand reach, it’s still a long road ahead in terms of reaching all consumers. Because in my anecdotal experience, there a still a huge number of people who don’t interact with friends and family via social media, let alone corporations.

Further, there are still a huge number of organizations who don’t have a social media strategy in place, nor do they intend to in the foreseeable future. Something to think about.

btw: The study polled 1,092 adults (525 men and 567 women) 18 years of age and older with a margin of error of ± 3%. The study is available for download from Cone’s website.