Monday, December 31, 2012

Goodbye 2012: Year in Review

This year, Bringing Home the Bacon had visitors from all 50 states. Helped, I'm sure, by me furiously clicking on the site when I was in Iowa this summer and also my brilliant decision to have a friend who moved to Omaha.



I took all 18,893 words typed on this blog this year and inputted them into a Wordle maker to get this word cloud, which shows, by size, which words I used most frequently. Husband was thrilled to learn that once again he is my most blogged about topic.

Some of my classic hits remained popular with the search engines, including my post about the Cow Tipping shirts (that I HATE) at Dayton International Airport; my post about our favorite Christmas movie; and my handy instructions for making a snowflake.

This year I did a few product reviews, I blogged our trip to the World Pork Expo, I shared a few family injuries and did some how-to while keeping up my regular features like Snapshots on the Farm and Sign of the Farmpocalypse.

I have linked to some of my favorite posts throughout this review, but here are a few more favs:
Thanks for visiting. Thanks for commenting. Thanks for telling Husband what I blogged about him!



Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Fruit Christmas Tree

My grandparents host a HUGE gathering on Christmas Eve--45 people. This year was special because all 19 great-grandchildren were going to be present (age 1 through high school).


My assignment for the meal was to bring fruit. I decided to repeat my hugely popular fruit Christmas tree from last year.  We took a green Styrofoam cone and used toothpicks to attach green grapes, raspberries, strawberries and cheese cubes.


Fortunately, my visiting niece and nephew were eager to join my kids in helping with the assembly. I used an antique dish and placed strawberries at the base to keep the cone upright.


I used a thick lemon slice as my topper and shoved parsley in the gaps.
 


The final piece was a big hit. The kids plucked it almost bare and one little cousin single-handedly ate all the strawberries.


Whether you are feeding the whole clan or just a photo-bombing two-year-old, you can't go wrong with a tree of fruit!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

PR Idea of the Week

I am a big fan of leveraging holidays, big and small, in PR and marketing. I even wrote about it on my company's blog.

In my blog post I caution PR professionals against attempting to do campaigns on Christmas or New Years due to the high volume of communications and the difficulty in breaking through the clutter.

However, I ran across this story in the Washington Post that shows a pitch perfect example of how to take an issue and add a Christmas spin.

Think Progress not only created an interesting infographic about the cost to end homelessness, they dared to propose that the money being spent on Christmas decorations could be better put to use on this issue.




This has all the makings of a great December story: the less fortunate, controversy, great graphics, and consumerism.

One statistic transformed this topic from sad (but tired) to compelling and timely.


See any great seasonal stories out there lately? Comment with a link.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Sign of the Farmpocalypse

Every issue of Sports Illustrated has a brief quote titled Sign of the Apocalypse, a humorous but true sports news item that makes you wonder--have we gone too far? In that spirit, I present another installment of Sign of the Farmpocalypse, because I just can't make this stuff up.

A car was stolen in Youngstown, Ohio with a pot-bellied pig inside. Key quote from the article:

Officers had the car towed with the pig inside the report said.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

A Negative Review of Product Reviews

Question: How do you know if a blogger doesn't like something he/she got for free?
Answer: Because he/she didn't review it. 

Question: How do you know whether they didn't review it because they never saw one before OR if it's because this thing is trash you shouldn't waste your money on?
Answer: That's the rub, isn't it.


I was recently invited to be part of a VIP group of Mom bloggers affiliated with a larger blog. One of the perks of membership would be the opportunity to get free stuff to review. Hey, who doesn't like free stuff!

But then the leader emphasized that this blog does NOT do negative reviews. I have heard this before from many bloggers. And it rubs me the wrong way.




Maybe it's the term review. Maybe it should be called, as Husband said, I got something for free and here's my blog about it.

Because when you look at the concept of review, it's that you, as a member of the target audience for said product, tried it out and now have opinions to share. So when I read on your blog that you like EVERYTHING that you have EVER SEEN. You start to seem disingenuous to me.

But others think that's part of the deal. Company provides Product and Blogger writes sing-songy post. Blogger gets paid and/or swag. Company gets testimonial. That's the social (and sometimes very formal) contract.

So I guess that seeing blog after blog of favorable reviews tells you something to the affirmative about a product. But what about the bad products. How do you learn about them?

Last week I tried six different Target stores looking for a Disney Princess digital camera. When I posted on Facebook that I was desperately trying to find one, several people who had bought similar cameras warned that you get what you pay for and that they had a terrible experience.

Then I started looking for product reviews online. I finally found reviews of the Cars version of the same camera--and people hated it. And you know where those reviews came from. People who had already wasted their money. Judging by the scarcity of the Princess camera, it doesn't matter if it's any good or not. By the time people open these things in a month and think to write a review--Target will already have gotten their money!

My point in all this is that there are some really great-looking things for kids, for the home, for women--that suck. But we'll never know it by reading blogs. And come on, let's face it, even the very worst products can get some favorable reviews, if the price is right.

There are some blogs that are sunny all the time. They never have a gripe with anyone. Others, don't mind taking a shot at a product that they've tried on their own--but not ones where they've accepted payment.

I don't do many reviews. But I always write what I want and many times I'm sure that I gave their marketing people something a little outside of what was expected--but no one has ever complained.


See some examples:

So what if I got something that was really a clunker, that I thought I would love (and I haven't yet). Would I do a negative review, a mixed review? Call and politely decline? I really think I would want to warn people not to waste their money.

I have been wavering on my personal policy, even as I have drafted this, but I think I have it clear now: I will review things that fit with my life and my family that I anticipate that I will like. If it turns out that I don't like a product, I will be honest but not cruel.

I think this fits my personality and sense of direction for this blog. Back to the camera example, it would fit my criteria for something I would anticipate liking, but may have disappointed me in the end.

If you blog, what's YOUR policy? If you don't blog, did you realize that many blogs have positive-only policies?

Appointment Pooping

  NOTE: If you do not want to read about my healthy bowel movement, well too late you just did. I recently became you-better-get-a-colonosco...