By Renee Martinez, Founder of Raising Boys World
Today is my son’s birthday. He has made the jump from 2 to 3. Does this mean we are leaving the whining and high-pitched screechy cries behind? It’s incredible how quickly time flies. In our family, we celebrate birthdays with a small party (close family and a few friends), some pizza and of course; cake. We always recognize the birthday person regardless of age. It’s important to have one day per year that you feel a little more special. We don’t plan lavish events and shower the birthday person with gifts. Simple, small and special. I think that there’s a big difference in terms of the impact birthdays can have on the birthday child. The over-the-top events are sure to result in an insane amount of useless gifts and expense. What is that communicating to the child? That stuff is important? What I discovered was that I was having these birthday parties for my child and his friends and ultimately (and understandably) would end up with fifteen $20 gifts from the children that were either things we already had, or items I’d prefer not to have (ie. toy guns). I didn’t want to stop having kid parties, but I wanted to stop receiving those types of gifts. So, on the last kid party invitation I sent out, I wrote, “Gift cards only please. We are trying to teach the boys about how to manage their money, so gift cards would be a useful teaching tool. Thank you.” The result was fantastic. He wound up with all gift cards to a variety of different restaurant and stores. Some he’s saved, others he spent. Plus, then he bought what he wanted and frankly it was easier on the parent buying the gift. This is something I will do from now on. Since I knew today is going to be a busy weekday for us, we had family over for the big 3 year old birthday on Saturday. After all our activities today, we’ll sing and have cupcakes. Nothing too crazy – but not ignoring the opportunity to make my son feel special, like every child should on their birthday.
About the Author: Renee consults and speaks professionally on social media marketing, integrated marketing communications, public relations and branding. She is the president of Ruby Marketing Communications (www.rubymarcom.com), a boutique marketing communications company that specializes in providing branding, social media strategy and integration, and creative services. Her blog (www.lisac95.sg-host.com), provides resources on everything marketing and social media for her active audience.
Renee has contributed as a featured monthly columnist in the monthly jewelry industry publication, JCK, on matters related to internet marketing as well as in InStore Magazine as a featured blogger where she writes about developing effective marketing strategies for the jewelry industry using social media. She is the founder of: Social Media Biz Summit (www.socialmediabizsummit.com), the first large-scale SM conference to come to Buffalo, NY; #jewelrychat, a weekly twitter chat for the jewelry industry and www.RaisingBoysWorld.com. Renee teaches social marketing courses at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY for the business school as well as offers small group social media marketing training and educational seminars for businesses in Western New York and beyond.
Renee has dabbled in the internet marketing arena since the early 90′s and is not ashamed to call herself a “marketing geek”. From chatting in AOL, “sharing” music on Napster, and teaching HTML classes before it was considered “cool” to developing comprehensive social media strategies, effective public relations campaigns and managing online communities (most recently Chevy Girls Buffalo).
She enjoys being able to help people find their voice online and to create buzz about their product or service that will give them the results they desire.
Renee can be found on Twitter (@reneemmartinez) and Facebook (http:/www.facebook.com/RubyMarCom).
