* What is Mama Buzz? *

The Beginning of the Buzz . . .

Melissa J, the founder of Mama Buzz, entered the world of product testing and review in 2003. She joined the world of book reviews in 2008.

It's been a fun ride. Mailbox trips have been fun because packages of all shapes and sizes have filled that black box throughout the years.

However, in the early summer of 2009, Melissa realized something was missing. In all the product testing and book reviewing she had done over the years, she could count on two hands, the number of reviews she had done that were geared for children.

She mentioned this to some fellow reviewers. Brainstorming began, and Mama Buzz was born. One fellow reviewer and blogger wanted to join in on the fun. At that point, Mel became a part of the Mama Buzz team.


So, what Exactly, is Mama Buzz?

Mama Buzz is a team of blogging moms who test out anything that's kid related - - books, puzzles, green toys, DVD's, even shoes and clothes. You name it, if it's kid related, we test it out and then buzz about it in the blogosphere.


Blogging is the new advertising and Mama's are the advertisers!

As companies and publishers give us books and products to test, we set up a "tour date" for whatever it is we're testing. After the product has been run through the kid test and the mom test, our blogging Mamas post their reviews on the specified tour day.

Posting numerous blogs on the same product, on the same day, helps both the product and the company behind the product get recognized on the internet and around the Mama blogosphere. Blogging has become the new advertising, and blogging Mamas have become the new advertisers!

Once the posts are up, Mama Buzz reviewers, who are required to register their blogs with Technorati, have Technorati ping the specific tour url so that search engines can begin crawling all the posts.


For the Love of Testing

Mama Buzz reviewers receive no compensation for buzzing these products. They do, however, receive the products at no cost to them, which they are then allowed to keep.


Become a Mama Buzz Reviewer

If you are interested in becoming one of our reviewers please visit our "Become a Reviewer" page.



Want us to Buzz Your Product?

If you are a company who would like our group to buzz about your product, please visit our page that we have set up, specifically for you.

* Become a Reviewer *

We here at Mama Buzz take product and book review very seriously. We do this, largely, out of respect to the companies who allow us to test their products. We want to make sure that their investment into Mama Buzz (complimentary products) is worth it - - and more so!

In order to become a Mama Buzz Reviewer, the following requirements must be met:

~ It seems obvious, but you must be a Mom.
* Special consideration will be given to those who are not moms, but have children in their lives on a regular basis, through childcare or guardianship. Consideration will be given, but acceptance is not guaranteed."

~ You must have children in the age ranges of the products that you are testing. Please do not request a product or book for a ten year old child if you have a five year old child!

~ You must be a regularly blogging Mama.

~ Your blog must be at least three months old.

~ The blog must have a minimum of 30 posts, none of which have more than a week's lapse between them.

~ Your blog must be listed with Technorati. ***Note, as of October 2009, Technorati changed their system, so although you must be listed with them, we no longer go with rank or authority on that site!!!

~ You must have a blog following of at least 30 individuals, perferably 50.

** Need help increasing blog popularity? See our post, "Increase Your Blog's Presence on the Web". **





Grounds for Dismissal from Mama Buzz

~ Any Mama who misses three consecutive reviews that she has signed up for, will be suspended until we can contact her and see what is going on. No further products or books may be requested at that point.

We are mindful that illnesses, internet and computer crashes, and (God-forbid) emergencies happen. We will work with you and will re-instate you to the best of our ability.

At the same time, we owe our companies respect and need to make sure that our reviewers are returning reviews in exchange for the products and books they receive, and we will keep that in mind as we examine why reviews have been missed.


~ Reviews that are weak and nasty. While we want you to be honest and even welcome constructive criticism, we ask that you be respectful in each of your reviews. We also want our reviewers to give extensive reviews. A review of, "My child liked the colorful pages," simply will not suffice.

We have written up a post on "Creating a Comprehensive Review". Please read it and refer to it when writing your reviews.



~ Not posting personal posts in between review posts. Part of what will make reviews credible, are if they are posted on regularly kept blogs by Mamas who also write about life with their children. If your blog becomes only review posts and the personal posts end, your membership will be suspended until it is filled out with personal-life posts once again.


~ Consistently leaving out pertinent information that we give you to include in your reviews, such as images, product links, and press releases.


~ Please keep in mind, that while we are not a "Christian" company, the women behind Mama Buzz do practice the Christian faith. Because of this, many of the companies and book publishers we will be working with are Christian based. We have no problems with you reviewing products that are Christian in nature, even if you do not practice the Christian faith. However, requesting and reviewing a product for the express purpose of speaking out against a Christian based product or book is grounds for immediate dismissal from Mama Buzz.


Still Interested?

If, after all that, you're still interested in joining our team, please email us the following information at mamabzz@yahoo.com:


Name:

Address:

Children's names, ages, school level:

Do you have special needs children? If so, please explain:

Type of schooling (public, homeschool, private):

Favorite activities you do with your children and as a family:

Contact email address:

Blog address:

What is your Technorati authority and rank?

What are you doing to create exposure for your blog?



You can expect a response from us within two weeks' time, once you have sent in your application. At that time we will explain the next step that you need to take.

Thank you for your interest!

* For Companies and Publishers *

In today's world of the world wide web, social networking sites, and the blogosphere . . .

Blogging Mama's are the new advertisers and blogs are the new ad!

Are you interested in pushing your kid-related book or product out into the blogosphere, so that word quickly spreads about it?

We're interested in helping make that happen for you!


Mama Buzz came about as we, the founders of Mama Buzz, realized in all our book reviewing, product testing, and free-lance writing, that opportunities for reviews about kid-related books and products were limited. As dedicated stay-at-home moms, we wanted to change that. Mama Buzz was born!

That's the short end of the story. If you want "the rest of the story" you can check it out at What is Mama Buzz?



How does it work?


Option 1

Publishers and Companies can take advantage of the traffic that visits the Mama Buzz site and request a one-time post to promote their product.

The cost for this one-time post is $40, payable through Paypal.com.

It is helpful to have the book or product being promoted, be sent to both Melissa and Mel, so that they can do a joint review with first-hand knowledge of the product being promoted. However, this is not necessary in order to use this option.




Option 2 (our most popular option)


Publishers and companies send out a certain number of review copies that our reviewers and their children test out. Those reviewers then blog about it on a specific day, called a "Tour Day". After the posts are up, we have our reviewers ping them with Pingomatic.com, which pings major search engines such as Technorati, Google, Yahoo, and Bing. With several well-read blogs in the blogsphere, all posting on the same product or book on the same day, search engines sit up and take notice! This helps a book or product get noticed, not only by search engines, but also by the moms who frequent these blogs.

This site has also been listed on major search engines, such as BING, Yahoo, MSN, and Google, as well as over twenty secondary search engines.



Who reviews?

We are currently recruiting reviewers for Mama Buzz. We are asking that our reviewers blogs be listed with Technorati and carry an authority of at least 5 or more with an additional ranking of 500,000 or less - -and growing.

We have additional guidelines set up that you can check out on our Become a Reviewer and Creating a Comprehensive Review page. We take our reviewing seriously and will not be opposed to dismissing bloggers who do not live up to our standards - and that includes writing weak reviews!


What do we review?

Anything kid or Mama related. Our specific categories include:


* Family Oriented Resources
* Resources for Mama
* Homeschool Resources
* Books/products for Infants
* Books/products for Toddlers (1's and 2's)
* Books/products for Toddlers (3's and 4's)
* Books/products for K - 2nd grade
* Books/products for 3rd -4th grade
* Books/products for 5th -6th grade
* Books/products for Jr High
* Books/products for Sr High



How it works for you, the publisher/company


1. You send us an email, telling us there is a product available for testing or a book available for reviewing. Give us the tour date you would like to schedule, the age group the product/book belongs to, and how many products or books are available to our reviewers. In this email, include a contact name and email as well.

2. We will then send out the information in a mass email to our reviewers.

3. They are responsible to get in touch with the contact person, stating their interest in the product, their blog URL, and their mailing address.

4. Your company is responsible for the product/book mailing to each individual reviewer.

5. Send us, here at Mama Buzz, a list of what reviewers were accepted for the tour.

6. Include in that same email any images, press releases, or product links that you want our reviewers to include in their reviews. You may also want to include any significant key words you want inserted into the tags, title, or body of the post for search engine purposes.

7. Twenty-four hours after the scheduled tour, we will go around to the different blogs to make sure they posted. We then will send you an email with the links of each of the posts that went up about your book/product.



~ We ask that for a tour, you offer a minimum of two products/books to test, which Melissa J and Mel will test and review on this blog, in a joint review. Beyond the two minimum we request, the maximum number that you decide to have tested and reviewed is completely up to you.

*Please note: Melissa J. and Mel will always test and offer a review for every single blog tour that Mama Buzz does. This will always be done here on the Mama Buzz site and will be listed in addition to our reviewers' blogs.



Contact Us to Set up Your Tour!

We can be contacted at mamabzz@yahoo.com

If you prefer to communicate with us via the phone, email us a number that we can reach you at, and we will call you within three business days of receiving your email.




** Please keep in mind, that although we are not a Christian company, the women behind Mama Buzz do practice the Christian faith. We reserve the right at any time, to turn down a potential book/product review if it contradicts the tenets of our faith!

* How it all Works - - for Reviewers *

We (Mel and Melissa J) get a heads up from a book publisher or toy company that a product or book is up for review. We then email you the information from the Mama Buzz Yahoo Group.

That email will contain: the date of the tour, the product to be reviewed, the age category, and the contact's email.

You are responsible to get in touch with the contact person, giving them:
1. The product name in the subject line
2. Your name, blog URL, and mailing address in the body
with your stated interest in doing the tour. (Please do not forget to thank them for allowing you the chance to review the product in your email!)

The contact will then email you the product within 1 - 4 weeks.

You and your child test it out.

As soon as you feel you have tested in sufficiently, write your review! Even if the tour is not due for another month, write the review while it's still fresh in your mind. Save your review as a draft until the tour date.


Continue to check you email as the tour date approaches. We will be sending you a second message from the Mama Buzz yahoo group with any pertinent information that you need to add to your review, such as an image, product links, and a press release. If we send you this information, it must be included in your review!



We recommend that you print out the calendar we provide for you on the Mama Buzz Yahoo Group, which will have all of the upcoming tours listed. Keep it where you can see it often. Highlight the days you owe a review on, to make sure your attention is drawn to it! We're busy Mama's and it can be too easy to miss a tour or two, if we don't have the info in front of us reminding us periodically. (Melissa J speaks from experience as a book reviewer *blush* )




Grounds for Dismissal from Mama Buzz

~ Any Mama who misses three consecutive reviews, that she has signed up for, will be suspended until we can contact her and see what is going on. No further products or books may be requested at that point.

We are mindful that illnesses, internet and computer crashes, and (God-forbid) emergencies happen. We will work with you and will re-instate you to the best of our ability.

At the same time, we owe our companies respect and need to make sure that our reviewers are returning reviews in exchange for the products and books they receive and we will keep that in mind as we examine why reviews have been missed.


~ Reviews that are weak and nasty. While we want you to be honest and even welcome, constructive criticism, we ask that you be respectful in each of your reviews.

We also want our reviewers to give extensive reviews. A review of, "My child liked the colorful pages" simply will not suffice.

We have written up a post on "Creating a Comprehensive Review". Please read it and refer to it when writing your reviews.



~ Not posting personal posts in between review posts. Part of what will make reviews credible, is if they are posted on regularly kept blogs by Mama's who also write about life with their children. If your blog becomes reviews only, and the personal posts end, your membership will be suspended until it is filled out with personal-life posts once again.


~ Consistently leaving out pertinent information that we give you to include in your reviews, such as images, product links, and press releases.


~ Please keep in mind, that while we are not a "Christian" company, the women behind Mama Buzz do practice the Christian faith. Because of this, many of the companies and book publishers we will be working with are Christian based. We have no problems with you reviewing products that are Christian in nature, even if you do not practice the Christian faith. However, requesting and reviewing a product for the express purpose of speaking out against a Christian based product or book is grounds for immediate dismissal from Mama Buzz.


Happy Reviewing!

* Creating a Comprehensive Review *

Until writing reviews becomes second nature, please print this page out and use it as a guide.

Write in a conversational tone, from one Mama to another. Write a review that you would want to read!

(You can view reviews on this site for examples of what we are looking for)



In your review include the following

• An image (We will be providing this for you in an email, if it comes with the product/book.)

• The name of what you are reviewing, what ages it is geared for, and the price. Also include in this section, the name of the publisher or company. We will provide these details for you as well.
  

• What comes in the product package? (This is only needed for toys and games. Not for obvious items, such as books)

• If the product does not come with everything that is needed, list here what will need to be purchased in order to use it (i.e. batteries)

• How did you and your child use this product? How many times? Over what period of time?
  

• What was your overall impression? What does it look like? What kind of quality is it made of?
  

• What are it's strengths?
  

• What are it's weaknesses?

• How did your child respond to the product? First response? Repeated responses to it? (i.e. they grew bored within two days of getting it. They kept returning to it, even a week later)

• Would you recommend it? Why, or why not?

• Misc. opinions here: Would you pay the price this book or product is? What could improve the product? Was it better than you expected? What would you like to see as a possible follow-up product? Was it for the appropriate age range? Include any additional thoughts here in this section!

Some additional thoughts when writing reviews:

• We want honest reviews. Honest does not mean rude however! Even if you, or your child, did not care for the product, we ask that you attempt to still give one or two positive statements about it and then, state the negative in a kind and truthful matter.
  

• Our goal is to have tours scheduled several weeks after you have received the product. This gives you and your child a chance to test it and review it before you have to post about it. We suggest you write your review as soon you are ready to write it and then save it as a draft, to be published the day of the tour. It's best to write when the information is still fresh in your mind, not weeks after testing the product/book out.
  

• We will be checking all blog sites 24 hours after the product tour to make sure you posted!

• If the product did not arrive in time for the tour, please at least post the image and press release info on your blog and then, put up a review at a later time after you have had a chance to try it out.
  

• Please do not post your review until the scheduled tour day! Our goal is to have everyone's posts hit search engines on the same day.
  

• Take the extra step to write a thank you somewhere on your review to the author/publisher/creator/company of the product, for allowing you to review the product.  *** As of October of 2009, it is now a legal requirement to state on your review that you received a review product in exchange for the review!*** 
  

• Once your post is up, have it pinged on Pingomatic.com. 
  

• Go the extra mile and post your review on sites like Walmart.com, Target.com, ToysRUs, or Amazon.com. Mention you did this in your review, at the bottom, and link to it, so the provider of the book/product can go see it!