HELLO everyone!! Well behind the scenes the Minti team and Board have been strategising and working towards making 2010 a very exciting year. We are in the midst of reviewing some new plans and ideas to come up with unique ways for community involvement. The idea is the more you engage the more you get back!

Latest News!

Business Directory

We need your help to add any cool parenting related business that are Australian into our database. We are also canvassing the current lists in our directory to encourage the businesses to upgrade to a featured listing for more prominence.

If you are a member and are a business you can also include your listing for FREE!

Lamaze topics

Okay parents you are full of knowledge, so help out with blogging, advice writing, and Q&A on the topic of "The Lamaze Techniques" to be honest I myself don't know much about the actual origins of Lamaze and we do get a lot of interest to learn more about this area.

Support our advertisers, who support this site

What I love most about being involved with Minti, is that I actually use the products and love finding out that they also advertise on our site. So, if your getting into the school preparations, Identikid is run by a mum and the team at Identikid are working round the clock!!! to get out all the name labels before school starts. I have just received my stack of labels....

Site Audit

Minti is currently undergoing a site audit being lead and conducted by myself. This is in planning stages and strategy mode. Hopefully by second term of school, members will actually feel and see the benefits of our first quarter hard work and mind stretching.

CEO on the panel - Web 3.0

I will be in Sydney in early June on the panel of industry people to discuss what social media will look like going forward. It will be great to potentially set up a Minti Meetup. If you live in Sydney, register your interest here...email Rachel

A big thank you!

Last but not least, a bi thank you to our members, admins, community manager, ad sale and social media manager, tech team, board and Minti management/founders. All your love and efforts make this site a pleasure to manage and grow. Keep sharing, keep explaining your parenting experiences, all these positive efforts makes our site glow for those bleary eyed mums, dads and carers who just need a little sharing and help...

Here's to a great start and New Years Resolution!

Helping parents by sharing parenting knowledge!!! Lets help build a generation of happy kids!

Best,

Rachel Cook

CEO

 

I am back from my break and the Cook family had such a wonderful holiday. I am feeling refreshed.

I will be back on deck tomorrow :0)

Cheers

Rachel

Our lovely friends at Queensland's Paradise Resort are having a holiday competition!

Now, what made me excited when Paradise Resort was advertising with Minti, was that I HAD "actually" stayed their last year and used their kids clubs.

I can't say enough how much Clay and I enjoyed the holiday knowing that both boys were able to enjoy themselves as well.

I think it is the only place in Queensland mainland that provides care facilities for children under 2.

Feel free to tell all your girlfriends to enter into the competition...

Paradise Resort, Gold Coast, Queensland - Win a Holiday!!!

Howdy all, (yes Josh awoke and my brain is in overdrive lol, about to get my milo! Dont tell on me to Clay lol that its 2:23am in perth)

It has been insanely busy here on the Minti front, with back to back meetings and getting a fast track absorption on the business. One thing we have lined up quickly for November was the awesome competition that you would have all received. Would love feedback here, as we have one lined up for December and then the real fun starts.

Just to let you know we are scoping out our communications system and Belinda our Social Media Manager, has so many improvements of our newsletter system, she has really understood what needs to improve and better connect with our members in a way that makes them excited.

At the same time we are about to launch a new area for business. If you know of any parent related businesses Minti-mail me as I am happy to give a spotters or referral fee, but will give you details upon launch :0)

So excited to work on ways to give back to Minti members!!!!

Clay has a great post on this new area of Minti, called our "Popular Topics" pages..

Here is the post on - Popular Topics

This allows members to see what are the most popular topics for parenting and ideas for more articles to write about.

What is great about how this helps Minti is that we can attract readers to find Minti rather than just arriving at the main homepage, which then helps more readers find your articles in these popular areas!!!

Best,

Rachel,

CEO Minti

Hello All,

I am attending a store launch here in Perth. Minti-mail me if you live in Perth Metro Area and I will give you the details.

Tuesday at noon - ie. tomorrow

Rach

What breaks our Terms of Service and Code of Conduct and what is fine to blog about?

In regards to advertising, it is perfectly fine to blog about products or services you want people to know about, but it has to be from your experience, or from friends or something you discovered and genuinely want to share and have an opinion on or excited about to help the Minti Community. That is perfectly fine.

What isn't fine?

Blatant sales one-liner from a person that signed up a second ago and will never contribute to the community but spam the blogs with constant lines of links and fake avatars and no completed profile or sharing in the community.

Does it come down to working out what the intent is?

YES

You will always know that before you even report?

- Is this member passionate about sharing their knowledge about a product or service as a mother?

YES

then you cannot report.

Is this member just here to provide spam links or spam our list of members?

YES

then you can report, but check...

if they are a legitimate company, then you can tell them or I can if escalated,

"that member profiles are not the place to do their free blast of an ad campaign. Best that they actually contact myself or Belinda about a proper engagement with our wonderful passionate members and give them some real value that actually "is" accepted."

Case by Case and Boarder-line Content?

Reviewing certain issues case by case helps us refine the policies as well as judge on "boarder-line content". I always like to review the "intent" this is usually a good reference point.

*I am in the process of reviewing all our policies and make sure there is clarification and proper guidelines. As well as reporting policies and escalation methods. As well as rewarding admins with positive tasks to balance out the negative side of managing the challenging side of reporting issues. Update our rewards to Admins in very innovative ways.

Hi All,

Belinda and I are soooo excited. We have come up with a proposal for businesses to get involved with Minti with a co-promotion and targeting the radio here in Perth.

Now, before anyone feels left out. I am trying to entice businesses here in Perth just to start with and some Perth members about 2800 of them can actually visit the instore promotions, but first signing up to a Minti/[company] group for exclusive offers which will also be broadcast over the radio so we can get more local mums to join this fantastic community.

I have more meetings to get to the final outcome, but I couldn't keep it in any longer. So if you are in Perth stay tuned. If you are rural and also in other Aussie cities, Rachel is working overtime (poor clay) to get to you.

Izzy came up with the initial proposal and for a regular Product Review group which will be the long term group, and we could have samples available everyday to experience and write about which hopefully will be global.

I also want something for Minti mums who have just had a baby. Ellosunshine just had a baby and Izzy is soon!!!!

The local push, is because we need these companies to launch advertising with us to feed Minti's site developments, ie. photos are slow to load, we all can't stand the blog editor and Minti mail is a nightmare to load. So please I hope you all support this effort!!!!

And yes I will have a break over Christmas!!!

Luv

Rach

Poor Nell and Raven have had it up to here with the unusal sign up of I think one particular spammer. I will check with Clay to see if we can narrow in on the IP. Don't worry we are on the case.

Okay, I am feverously working on ideas to help mums during these times, but I need your feedback.

I am thinking of another survey about sampling products in exchange for writing a product review (Izzy has had some great examples of current blogging sites doing this as well as herself) and we think it is a great idea.

I also I am looking into ways of making direct email advertising more palitable for members in a way that they really engage and get benefit, ie. maybe you get samples if you receive and engage with the direct email. I want to get clear on what great information our mums want to make their lives easier and help the back pocket.

So I want all Minti members to think about their day and what brands they engage with and take a mental note of how you feel towards them. I want to gage the "Love" factor and this will help in coming up with ideas to keep this site free, allow us to make money to grow our site and business and give back to our passionate Minti community, as well as grow the passion across the site were members may be want to ignite their passion too.

I am also looking at exploring the "work from home" companies maybe we can be a connector for mums.

So lots of ideas, and I am letting you all know so that you can put your feedback hat on. Feel free to start now and comment here :0)