Ricki Lake Show- Social Media

Hey guys, yesterday was a fun, exciting day in my little world. Elisa Camahort Page, who is one of the three amazing founders of BlogHer, my blog publishing company, invited me and some other local L.A. bloggers in her network to come to the new Ricki Lake Show and have lunch with Elisa afterwards.

I’ll be honest, I’m a little bit of a snob about waiting in line to be in the audience of a TV show since I work in the entertainment industry and have enjoyed shall we say, more “V.I.P.” treatment in the past–

But I love Ricki’s energy and I really wanted to see Elisa (she was a guest on the Ricki show yesterday) and meet the other bloggers.

I’m so glad I went. I’ve never sat in the audience of a daytime talk show before, and having done it I can see that it wouldn’t be intimidating to be on one of these shows as a guest. The audience is really quite small and intimate.

Actually, on a side note: Last week I was contacted by someone from the Dr. Oz Show to potentially be a guest on his show shooting today.

They film in New York, so I would’ve had to travel. I spoke with a young woman from the show who was extremely nice and lovely and then over the weekend, they changed the show topics around a bit and I was no longer right for it, this time.

I love Dr. Oz and I hope they keep me in mind for a future show on any topic like blogging and social media, medical miracles like Bexon’s Story, Scoliosis, Depression and anti-depressant withdrawal nightmares, Suicide in families…

Alcoholism, addiction and recovery, anything related to Mommyhood health and/or children with special needs, etc, etc. (Hi Fiona from the Dr. Oz staff, if you’re out there, don’t forget about me!)

By the way, ditto to the Ricki Lake Show producers, I live ten minutes from where they shoot the show. If you need a fill in Mommy Blogger, Ricki, I’ve got your back, girrrrlll.

But back to yesterday:

I got lost looking for the parking structure on my way to the show, freaked out and thought I’d miss it, but made it just in time and found a few of the other dynamic BlogHer ladies.

Above is a picture of me and blogger Jillian Riley from A Mom With a Lesson Plan.com meeting outside the show.

We were told to all wear solid bright colors to sit in the audience- do you remember how the “Oprah” audience always wore solid bright colors? It looks good on TV.

(Sarah Maizes ofMommy Lite Online.com wore blue- I hear that’s the best color for TV.)

I think this new Ricky is gonna be much more, err, “classy” than her younger show, more like “Oprah,” actually. Ricki’s older, she’s had kids, she’s interested in topics that are more my speed, now, not just drag queens and Baby Daddies- *hee*.

I have to say, it was very cheerful seeing so many people in “color,” so to speak. We waited outside the studio on some long benches as a camera crew shot some pre-show stuff, including picking two young women for make-overs for apparently another show, because they weren’t on the one we watched.

One of my new friends got her foot badly stepped on by another woman’s high heels! It was bad, her skin was cut and her toe bled and everything. She handled it like a trooper, though and stayed for the duration.

What was cool was that since the show topic yesterday was the power of social media, we got to bring in cellphones, laptops and iPads, etc, to live tweet, Facebook and take pictures during the show. It was one of the only times I haven’t felt rude having my face in my phone in the middle of a social setting.

Ricki seemed to be having a blast, she had her phone in her hand and was tweeting while she was filming the show and hosting.

This is me and blogger Liz Rizzo of Everyday Goddess.Typepad.com – we sat next to each other and showed some enthusiastic BlogHer love when Elisa was introduced.

The warm up guy got the crowd worked up and dancing on the stage pre show…

This pic is blurry because they were all doing a little more than every day shufflin’. Not a shy group.

Elisa did an awesome job on her segment. I really do admire the BlogHer founders, I would never have come up with the idea they did to start their flourishing company that empowers women to have more and more of our collective voices heard worldwide.

The Ricki show gave us an unexpected gift- everyone in the audience got a gift certificate for $45.00 to use at Best Name Necklace.com - where we can use it to get our Twitter name in silver. Very cool. I may get GirltoMom.com.

I’ll let you watch the show itself to see all of the the guests, but here’s a photo of one, Tristan MacManus from Dancing With the Stars, because we all like a cute boy. He was on the show because he needs to improve his Twitter skills. He has none.

Yeah…Tristan proposed to me, but I said no, I’m already married. You know how it is. *brushes dust off shoulder*

The influence of social media is obviously huge and is really changing our world as we speak. It levels the playing field, allowing people who are not only the very rich owners of newspapers and media outlets to have a voice, but everyone with a computer or a cell phone.

I love the new technology world and I’m not going back, baby!

After the show, Elisa treated us to a yummy lunch at a world famous vegan restaurant called Native Foods and then I went off to do an exciting TV comedy pitch with an adorable, sweet, very talented actress. I’ll tell you more about that later…(I mentioned her name yesterday on the Girl to Mom Facebook page.)

There are a lot of good things happening and I think it’s at least partially because I’m truly feeling like myself these days.

Being yourself and just being real, that’s where your true power lies, because it comes from within and no one can take that away. No matter what.

Have a beautiful day.

Love,

~ Heidi