The Fans Have Spoken! (Follow-up from M2M's 1 Year Giveaway)

What an amazing turnout for my 1 year anniversary giveaway! 1115 entries and 192 unique entrants. Wow!! I just finished going through all your feedback and it was great to hear everything you love about M2M as well as many helpful suggestions, general encouragement and how you first discovered my blog. It makes me feel warm & fuzzy to know that all the time and effort I put in is appreciated by so many people! :D

I thought I'd share a summary & some highlights from all of your comments. Enjoy!!


New Followers & Where You Found Me:

• The $25 Amazon giveaway alone brought in 67+ new followers. Welcome everyone! I hope you stick around for more great giveaways, product reviews and other fun stuff!
• A whopping 29 of you found me on www.online-sweepstakes.com. (Note to other review/giveaway bloggers - this is a TERRIFIC place to list your giveaways! I've had lots and lots of traffic from OLS.)
• About a dozen of you found me on the following sites (1-2 referrals each): Facebook, Twitter, Contestgirl, Picket Fence Blogs, Baby Giveaways Galore, GreeN MaM-a JaM-a and Canadian Giveaways.
• 3 of you found me cruising other blogs 
• And finally, 3 of you mentioned that you were recently referred here by a friend. I'm so happy that some of you enjoy my blog enough to recommend it to others - now that is the biggest compliment of all! :D 

Feelin' the Love!

• 17 of you love my giveaways. Awesome! I really try to work with brands who I feel are a great fit for this blog, and it sounds like I'm doing alright here!
• 9 of you enjoy reading my reviews, with a few of you adding that you love how comprehensive they are. This means a lot to me, as I really do believe in the "quality over quantity" philosophy and I also think it's important to highlight both the positive points and the constructive criticism for a product or company in order to present a fair & honest picture.
• 16 of you are into the cloth diapering and/or eco-friendly content here. Sweet, as there'll be a lot more where that came from! Stay tuned!! :)
• 7 of you like my site layout and/or design. It has definitely been a goal of mine to maintain a clean, simple and easy-to-navigate layout with minimal clutter, so I'm glad that my followers appreciate this! In terms of design, credit goes to a good friend of mine for my header image - thanks Chrust!
• 6 of you appreciate the Canadian-friendly nature of my content and giveaways. Sounds like I'll need to participate in #TGCBB again next year, eh? :) And I plan to continue ensuring that all giveaways I host are open to Canucks, so no worries there!
• 5 of you love Rafflecopter for giveaways. That's great, because I do too! It's definitely here to stay at M2M! :)
• 3 of you enjoy my menus and recipe posts. Great to hear! Although it's not the primary focus of my blog, I love doing these and would ideally like to do more of them moving forward (time permitting).

 Suggestions:

• A few of you want to see more time management and thrifty living content. Definitely a couple topics I want to continue writing about and I have a few loose ideas on the radar.
• A couple of you want to see easy recipes. Another great topic and I'd love to dabble in this more, however it's hard to find the time amid my regular review/giveaway posts, my daughter's development updates, etc. I'll try to sneak a few of these in periodically, however there are many great blogs out there dedicated to this, so I recommend taking a look around out there!
• One of you suggested a bit more colour in my blog sidebars (perhaps a light blue). I'll definitely consider that - thanks!
• One of you would like to see a monthly post dedicated to my daughter's development. When I read this, I wasn't quite sure whether to take it seriously as this is something I already do! (Which reminds me - I'm overdue for her 10-month update. Hopefully I can get to this within the next couple days!)
• One of you would like to see printable coupons. This is probably an area I won't be getting into myself, however there are many, many, many dedicated coupon blogs out there so I recommend searching/browsing to find some that you enjoy!
• In terms of review suggestions:
• 2 of you would like to see beauty product reviews - to be honest, this probably won't be happening here as I don't (often) wear makeup or use other traditional beauty products. I do enjoy a good manipedi and I've been known to get hair ripped off my body in various places (ahem...now we're getting into TMI territory) but that's about it. :)
• 2 of you suggested electronic/technology reviews - again, something that probably won't happen here as a) I'm somewhat technologically illiterate (ironic since I have a Computer Science degree and work in software, but I digress) and b) I would prefer to keep my reviews and giveaways to more of a family and eco-friendly nature. Again, though, there are many blogs out there which conduct excellent reviews of these products.
• One of you suggested reviewing a Babyhawk carrier. I hadn't heard of this brand before but it looks awesome! I'd definitely be up for this. Perhaps I'll shoot a note over to see if they're currently in the market for some blog PR!
• One of you would like to see more reviews of green cleaning/health products and gluten-free snacks and foods. Definitely in scope and I'd be up for reviewing products in these categories.
• One of you would like to see a Tupperware review. I just took a look at their site, and actually the Twistable Peeler looks pretty neat-o. I'd love to try that out! ;)

Comments:

• I've only been following a couple days, but you site is great and you're not just an inspiration to moms, but us dads too.  Thank you. (M2M - Nice! Glad to hear there is at least one Dad happily following me! Welcome and enjoy!! :)
• I'm a new follower.  I definitely like the concept since so many women are in the work force and face the decision of working during motherhood. (M2M - Thanks! And indeed, this is a tough decision. I've been lucky in that I've been able to take a full year off on maternity leave, but many other mamas are going back already after several weeks. This must be so challenging and I admire those who go back early and manage to keep everything balanced!)
• I started reseacrching everything about cloth diapering my daughter and found you through facebook! I can't remember who reccomended you! lol I've loved reading through all of your old posts! :) (M2M - So glad you have been enjoying my posts, and I hope my cloth diapering info was helpful in your research! I have more cloth diaper reviews/giveaways on the horizon and plan to write some more articles as well, so keep checking in!)
• I love seeing the different giveaways and review.  There are so many companies out there that I have never heard of before.  Gives me a whole new online shopping choice! (M2M - I totally hear you! I felt the same way when I discovered the world of online giveaways. I feel like I have so many more great options for the holidays this year than I did in previous years!)
• I don't remember when I started following, but it was probably related to a cloth diaper giveaway. :) I love all your reviews & giveaways, and I especially love seeing the pics of your adorable daughter. I look forward to the monthly recaps you share, too. (M2M - Thanks so much! I have fun writing up all of these types of posts, so glad you're enjoying them all! :)
• Great blog... I enjoyed your review on Rockin' Green... and the artwork post with your daughter's masterpiece.  :-) (M2M - Thanks! I tried another art project with her recently but she wasn't too interested in it. She's too busy wreaking havoc on everything we try to keep organized - books, diapers, DVDs, etc. Love our li'l monster!)
• LOVE your blog - love reading about like minded familys, (natural parenting, BF, CDing etc)  Here is to many more years of blogging!!! (M2M - Thanks, and CHEERS Mama!)
• I have a friend who will be having her first baby soon.  I don't know how much she has thought about using cloth diapers, but I want to tell her about your blog and hope that she will seriously think about using cloth diapers instead of the disposible ones. (M2M - If my li'l blog can play a factor in "converting" someone to cloth, then it's all worth it! :) If you did point her my way, I hope she found the information helpful and I'd be happy to answer any questions she might have!)
• I started following you after I discovered your cloth diaper round up that had giveaways open to Canadians. Thanks for all your help when I was trying to find out how to host my own reviews and giveaways! :) (M2M - It was my pleasure. You're doing AWESOME now, girl! Way to go!)
• Come on...what am I going to say! Love catching up on S when I can't see her EVERYDAY like I would like to! Also love when Avery gets a cameo appearance! You really are doing a great job!!! (M2M - Awww, thanks T! I'm sure there will be many more cameo opportunities as the gals grow up together! :)
• I'm a fairly new subscriber. Just read your birth story. Babies aren't in my life plan, but your story made me well up in tears. I already like your attitude and spunk. (M2M - My daughter's birth was truly an amazing experience and I'm happy I captured it while it was fresh! Glad that it touched you, and thanks for your kind words!)
• I like your blog, especially your article on your life. It was super to read and you have a lovely family. (M2M - Thanks so much! It was a lot of fun to write!)
• I just want to say that I won one of your giveaways and instead of just being short in your emails, you took the time to make it personal and to share a conversation with me... I REALLY liked that!!! (M2M - I'm glad you appreciated that! I love contacting my winners. From being on the other end, I know how awesome it is to receive that "You've Won!" email and I'm happy to be able to provide this excitement for my own followers. Even better when it opens the door to a conversation, as this is a great opportunity to get to know my readers a li'l better!)
  

Well that was lots of fun! Many thanks to everyone who took the time to share their feedback. Manager to Mom wouldn't be the success it is without all of YOU! Cheers, and hope to see all your smilin' faces back here again and again!! :D