BigTent Blog | Product updates and news for groups

Learn how to organize your school online with BigTent

BigTent — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:24:47 +0000

We are once again honored to have PTA volunteer, community coach and expert, Monica Baucke, host a free upcoming webinar for school leaders. If you can, please sign up and join us.

How to Organize Your School Online

Thursday, September 9th @ 9 am Pacific/noon Eastern

Register for free at http://bigtent.webex.com

Monica will share several tips for managing your group online, including:

How to get buy-in from other school leaders
How to set up and organize your group and subgroups
How to create a BigTent buzz

The session is designed to be interactive, and no question is too big or small. Take this opportunity to learn from Monica! Monica is entering her third year using BigTent to manage communications for not one, but two schools: Croce Elementary and Christensen Middle School.

Hope to meet with you soon. Let us know if you have any questions or feedback.

Best,

The BigTent team

Help Save Marine Life Threatened by the Oil Spill!

BigTent — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:48:21 +0000

BigTent is very excited to announce our new partnership with Cloud B. We are partnering with Cloud B and the Audubon Nature Institute to help saves animals stranded and injured by the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.

There are three easy ways to help through our website:

1. Donate $1 with the click of a button

2. Donate $5 with your Cloud B purchase

3. Share this opportunity to support the Gulf Coast through Facebook and Twitter

By taking one of the actions above, Cloud B will make a donation on your behalf to the Louisiana Marina Mammal and Sea Turtle Rescue Program.

To learn more about this new campaign, please visit http://www.bigtent.com/promo/cloudbaudubon

Thanks everyone!

The BigTent Team

About Cloud B

Cloud B is an innovative designer of award-winning sleep products for children of all ages. Cloud B’s Twilight Sea Turtle, Gentle Giraffe, Sleep Sheep, and other high-quality products are helping children sleep peacefully and healthfully the world over.

About Audubon Nature Institute

Audubon Nature Institute is a family of nine museums and parks dedicated to nature. The Institute serves as an educational resource, an environmental guardian, a leader in economic development, and a venue for family entertainment.

BigTent helps spruce up your group for Fall

BigTent — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:10:38 +0000

In the spirit of back to school, BigTent is bringing back its Transition Tool promotion to help your group get organized. What does this mean? For a limited time, we will migrate full member data for groups, which can include anything such as names, addresses, and kids’ information.

What you need to participate:

-Group with 50+ members

-List of member data (can contain names, email addresses, kids’ info, etc.)

As an added bonus, groups that migrate their data by the end of August will get a special, BigTent-hosted Q&A forum in their groups. The Q&A forum provides a month’s worth of tips to get your members comfortable with using BigTent, and features timely responses from BigTent experts.

To participate, send an email to support@bigtent.com with “Data migration” as the subject line. You can also attach a copy of your member list, if you have it ready.

We look forward to seeing your group on BigTent soon!

Best,

Diane & the BigTent team

Let us know what you think of our Customer Support!

BigTent — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:01:09 +0000

Hi BigTent Members -

It’s that time of the year again for you to weigh in on how we can improve our Customer Support, help resources, and our communications to you. We strive to provide the best Customer Support out there for trusted community groups so please let us know how we can make our service even better for you.

We’ve created a quick survey that will only take a few minutes to complete. As a thank you for providing your feedback, you can enter to win one of two $25 Amazon.com at the end of the survey. Take the survey here:

http://bigtent.com/l/feedback

Thank you! Please let us know if you have any questions by leaving us a comment.

Cheers!

The BigTent Team

BigTent Group of the Week: Momologie

BigTent — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:22:26 +0000

Momologie is “where family life blooms.” Founded by Michele and Gia, personal style experts who first teamed up at Martha Stewart Living, Momologie has launched a BigTent group to help strengthen the community of moms who receive the daily Momologie newsletter.

We got an opportunity to meet with Michele and Gia and find out more about their Momologie adventure:

Q. Tell us about a day in the life of your group. What’s the focus of the Momologie community?

A. The Momologie community on BigTent allows you to connect with other like-minded moms to discuss the latest in style, food, home, beauty, organizing, outdoor living, holidays, parties, travel, family and kids. By joining you are able to post messages, ask questions, find out what other moms think about a particular topic, share photos, write reviews and more.

Q. Why did you switch to BigTent?

A. BigTent’s community platform exists in addition to the editorials in our daily newsletter. We wanted to build a community where we can connect and communicate directly with our readers.

Q. What are your future goals for the group?

A. Our main goal is to grow the group with women who enjoy getting the most out of their family life. We want to share our expertise and hear about what matters to our community, so we can bring the most relevant topics and ideas to life.

Q. You’re two busy, entrepreneurial moms. What are you up to outside of Momologie?

A. Michele and I are busy juggling our daily lives. We are both proud moms of 4-year-old boys. In addition to maintaining the Momologie website and creating all of its content, we oversee our MiGi, a consumer product brand for baby and kids.

We’re used to a hectic schedule, but are always learning new ways to use our time well. It definitely helps that we’ve been business partners for 11 years.

Michelle adds: My husband and I just finished a gut renovation on a house we bought last year. No project ever turns out exactly as planned, but you gain insight from your successes and mistakes along the way.

My son is in preschool and has several activities that he’s involved in — swimming, gymnastics and art. Things are the home front are always changing.

I also started working out again. I don’t really enjoy the process of working out, but I like how I feel afterward and have seen a big improvement in my energy level — a big motivator to keep going!

¤¤¤

We at BigTent wish Momologie best of luck as they add a new community dimension to their Momologie following! Stay up to date with Gia, Michele, and other Momologie moms for free on BigTent: http://www.bigtent.com/groups/momologie

Follow Momologie on Twitter: http://twitter.com/momologie

Follow BigTent on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BigTentGroups

BigTent CEO speaking on The Evolution of a Community

BigTent — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:05:30 +0000

Headed to Evo ’10? If so, be sure to check out BigTent’s CEO, Donna Novitsky, as she joins other online leaders for a panel discussion, The Evolution of a Community. The panel hosts bring a variety of expertise to the table — Lorraine Robertson (The Blogrollers), Leah Segedie (Mamavation), and Laurie Turk (Tip Junkie) have built popular, community-driven blogs, while Donna and Karen Bantuveris (VolunteerSpot) are heading up companies that add an online dimension to real-life group interactions.

“I’m excited to share what we’ve learned working with thousands of different groups who range from parenting groups to professional associations,” says Donna. “It’s really heartwarming to see the impact these groups have on their local communities and how loyal and active their members are.”

Evo ’10, presented by MomItForward and Today’s Mama, has been slated as “summer camp for bloggers,” and hundreds of attendees are expected to join the fun in Park City, Utah, from June 24-26, 2010. Going to the conference? You can meet up with fellow attendees by joining the evo10 group on BigTent.

Learn Social Media for Your Twins Club

BigTent — Wed, 26 May 2010 19:22:44 +0000

Is your twins club looking for ways to increase engagement, connect with new local parents and supporters, and raise awareness of all the great things you do in the community? Join me and BigTent for a fun, free, and informative social media webinar designed just for you.

Social Media for Twins Clubs

Wednesday, June 9 @ 9 am Pacific/noon Eastern

Register for FREE at http://bigtent.com/l/smtc

I’ll cover 10 tips for getting started with social media, drawing on my experiences as Director of Manhattan Twins Club and Founder of Twiniversity. With Twiniversity, I’ve gained over 2000 Facebook fans, 500 BigTent friends, and 300 Twitter followers in just a few months. These products have played a substantial role in helping me build an international support network for parents of twins and higher order multiples.

But enough about me. This session is all about you, and we’ll keep it open-ended to discuss any of your questions or suggestions. No topic is too big or too small!

All parents groups leaders and folks interested in learning about social media are welcome to attend, though my approach will be tied to the unique experience of parenting twins.

Hope to see you at the webinar!

-Natalie, founder of Twiniversity.com & expert BigTent leader

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Twiniversity

Follow BigTent on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BigTentGroups

Join us for a free webinar: How to Grow Your Group

BigTent — Sat, 15 May 2010 00:14:54 +0000

Hello admins and awesome community leaders!

My name is Jaine and I’m one of BigTent’s Community Coaches. I wanted to let you know about a fun, free, and educational webinar I’m hosting on Wednesday, June 2, about how to grow your group.

I have grown and led my own group, Moms and Tots San Diego (www.bigtent.com/groups/mtsd). I have also partnered and shared best practices with over 3,000 groups on BigTent.

Join my webinar to learn 10 tips and tricks on how to grow your group. There will also be a portion devoted to sharing our best practices so we can learn from each other. Here are the details:

How to Grow Your Group

Wednesday, June 2 @ 9 am Pacific/12 pm Eastern

Register for FREE: http://bigtent.com/l/grow3

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like more information. I hope you can attend!

Best,

Jaine, BigTent Community Coach since 2007

BigTent Group of the Week: Lima Moms Network

BigTent — Wed, 05 May 2010 17:48:47 +0000

Kristi Lucchese started Lima Moms Network in 2001 to provide support and pool resources among a few of her friends. News of the group spread throughout the town of Lima, Ohio, and today the group has over 350 members.

“It’s like having a whole community in your living room,” says Kristi of the group.

Kristi moved Lima Moms Network to BigTent in 2008, and since then we’ve had the opportunity to learn a little bit more about her and her group:

Q. What does your group like to do for fun?

A. Garage sales and Moms Night Out are popular activities for us. We also post local community events on our calendar.

Q. Why did you switch to BigTent?

A. Before BigTent, we had a lot of members emailing about things they were selling or looking to trade. As our group grew, not everyone wanted to get those emails. BigTent’s Classifieds feature makes it easy for members to buy, sell, and trade things in a separate area. Interested members can subscribe to Classifieds emails for the latest sale updates, while other members can filter out these messages.

Q. What are you up to when you’re not leading Lima Moms Network?

I’m a busy mom of three! I’m the past President of Lima Junior Service League, and I run my own online jewelry business, Princess Designs Online. In my free time, I enjoy reading, reality TV, and Sudoku.

Q. Any future plans for the group?

I’m hoping to form playgroups to provide additional opportunities for members to connect.

New BigTent Help area arrives!

BigTent — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 23:46:09 +0000

Our new Help home is here! Check it out by clicking here or sign in to BigTent, click “help” and then click on “Search our Help area.”

Here are a few changes from our last Help center:

- Cases are called “Requests.”
- FAQs are categorized by feature.
- The Help area & support emails have an updated look.

Here is what is staying the same:
- You can still submit requests through the web or via email.
- We’ll still respond to you within 3 business days or less (or 1 business day for new users and Premium Support members).
- You can view your previously submitted cases in your “existing request” queue. If you notice missing information from your old cases, it will be updated in the next few days.

We hope you’ll find the new Help area intuitive and easy to use. If you have any questions or feedback about the new Help area, please leave us a comment or submit a request in our Help area.

All the best,
The BigTent Team