Steps to Building a Laudit (Extended Dance Version)
O lovely Lauditors,
Read this with a calendar at your side, and mark upon said calendar what actions you need to take on which dates to ensure that your Honoree is well and properly Laudited. Also check out the advice given here, if you want the short n sweet version.
Step 1: determine your Big Day (the Honoree’s birthday, the Honorees’ anniversary, etc.)
Step 2: collect your Guests’ email addresses. This might take some time, especially if you need to sneak into a loved one’s address book. Start reaching out to friends and family for their input and ideas a few weeks early, if you can.
Step 3: reach out to five or six key people a week before you want to send the Laudit Invitations out to everyone. Ask the key people to prepare what they will write and to be willing to post their stories and photos right away. That way, when other Guests visit the Laudit, (1) they will feel the experience more fully, (2) they won’t be intimidated about being the first to post, (3) they will have a better idea of what is expected of them, and (4) those key people’s messages will be the first that the Honoree reads on the Big Day.
Step 4: write a draft of the post you want to have as the first message, and find the photos you want to use.
Step 5: choose your design scheme and upload (or write) your message and photos (when you upload the photos, use the best one first, as that will be the one on the cover of the book). Note: all of these can easily be changed at any time.
Step 6: plan to send the link to your Guests 10-14 days before the Big Day. You need to ponder the nature of your Guests, the time of year and other, similar, factors when choosing the exact date (sending an invite on December 23rd expecting full participation by January 2nd, for example, might not work so well).
Step 7: send your first reminder 7-9 days before the Big Day, a second reminder (if you feel it’s necessary) 2-3 days before the Big Day, and the last reminder the day before the Big Day. In your reminders, you should point out, again, to your Guests what their deadline is, and thank people who have contributed already. Don’t send more than four reminders, unless you have very tolerant Guests, or you are building a Laudit very slowly, and you need to remind people over a long period of time. Getting an invitation and then six reminders over the course of a week might drive your Guests a bit batty. And don’t fret if your Guests don’t post immediately. It takes people a while, and usually a few reminders, to get it together.
Step 8: the night before the Big Day you may want to edit/rewrite your initial post on the Laudit. If the first post was written with an eye to explaining to your Guests what you were asking them to do, you may want to change it to be a loving/celebratory/congratulatory message to your Honoree instead.
Step 9: once your Honoree has read the Laudit and wiped the tears from his or her eyes, see if he or she wants to write a post on the Laudit. Sometimes Honorees want to respond to what their loved ones wrote, and sometimes they do not. Respect their choice!
Step 10: if you would like everyone to read the Laudit after the Honoree has seen it (and possibly written something), email to everyone one more time. Note: Guests will be able to post still, so keep that in mind.
Step 11: buy the book or pdf or additional online time, if you would like. And, if you want, you can let your Guests purchase it, too, by giving permission on Laud-It.
Step 12: relax with a cup of tea or glass of wine, your Honoree, and your printed Laudit when it arrives in your inbox in one day, or your mailbox in 2-4 weeks.
yours with Lauditude,
Allison
allison at laud-it dot com
