Martha Stewart via Wikipedia
I feel like my life has come full circle.
Eons ago, I went to journalism school. I thought that taking photos and writing for a living would be fantastic. I wasn’t in it for the money, I just thought it would be awesome to meet new people and get to write about it, study life-altering issues and maybe win a Pulitzer or something. I fell in love with column writing way back then, but unfortunately for me, that’s not really a job you get fresh out of school. After a stint chasing firetrucks, interviewing families for obituaries, working with snarly and strange editors and wearing the full-mascot uniform at the local elementary school in the middle of summer as any good intern would do, I readily admitted that working at a newspaper might not be my gig. I moved on to graduate school, public relations, then marketing, and so on…
I fell into the role of President of the American Marketing Association DFW chapter from 1999-2000 and one of the many presidents’ jobs that I actually enjoyed was to pen columns for our then-paper newsletter every month. I would comment on timely trends and issues within the marketing community, and I distinctly remember noting how wowed I was with the Martha Stewart OmniMedia machine. She had evolved into a fully integrated media company – tying her television, magazines, website and brands into synchronicity. And that was incredibly progressive at that time. Her forward-thinking marketing strategy elevated her as the new standard to which other lifestyle brands aspired to be. Not to mention that I was a weekend crafter and I was in heaven to have so many touch points to drink in her creativity.
Fast forward 11 years and a full career as a business broker later and I’ve found a new outlet for my love of writing. I mean, heck. Everyone can have a blog, right? I dove into social media after the birth of my child because I needed to fill my pipeline again. I needed leads. I was desperate. What happened in the process was that I took on a few clients and re-established myself as a marketing consultant – but this time for social media and web presence management. I tweet and post compulsively for both myself and my clients. I annoy my husband with my iPhone that sees way more action than he does. Not only does my daughter have her own iPod touch, I’ve taught her how to text even though she can’t spell.
Obviously technology and media is still very important to me. My little girl is 3 now and together we have this fun little mommy blog that is my proving ground and my muse. I test strategy and buttons and widgets on it and she loves doing the crafts and projects together for it, and darn it if it hasn’t taken off. (Our smurf pop post is one you should really check out.)
On Saturday, one of my friends pointed out an opportunity that appeared briefly on Martha’s fan page. The show was looking for craft bloggers to come to a live taping during craft week — and tweet about the experience real time. I was so IN. Not to mention, AGAIN I was struck with the progressiveness of this media icon. That Martha is really on it, bringing in online influencers to virally spread the word about her new season.
I dropped everything, shunned my family and crafted my best essay entry. Hit send and began obsessively refreshing my email to see if they had been the slightest bit moved with my submission that I would somehow be award one of the 10 golden invitations. I was sure they had received gazillions. How would they choose? Did I stand out enough? I was tortured to find out. What if I never found out. The aaaggooooonnnnyyyyy….
And then it came on Tuesday afternoon. An email from Martha’s PEOPLE.
I was afraid to open it. Was it a form thank you for entering, we’ve picked people with higher Klout scores, bigger subscription base, larger fan pages than me?
NOPE. I really was IN.
Suffice to say, I am thrilled beyond words. If I had actually written my bucket list down instead of just storing it in my head, you’d find this one quite near the top. I feel as though I’ve just been handed a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Not to mention the unexpected benefit of the support and congratulations from my friends has been very humbling. I honestly don’t know and am afraid to ask if I just happened to get my entry in first or if they even had an evaluation process, but I know that I am going to New York to sit in the tech section of a show that’s been a staple of my life for as long as I can remember. And I am going to tweet my butt off to make Martha proud.
To make it even more off the charts amazing, Martha’s people (who are surprisingly nice by the way – not what you might expect from a New York enterprise) extended two additional invitations to my friends so I wouldn’t have to travel alone. “As long as they blog and tweet!” They did, but now they REALLY do.
So reporter me and my girls, we’re hittin’ the big city in 11 days. There’s a lot to do and I’m already learning fascinating things about my Martha that I’ll share with you here and on my Mommy blog up to and during the show. Be sure to send me questions and follow me on twitter @tperot and @mommyupgrade on October 5th to get the play-by-play of what it’s really like to attend and what really happens during a live episode of Martha Stewart.
I’ll be using the hashtag #roadtomartha with each of my posts so you can create a stream to watch on twitter.
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