Press Release November 5, 2009

OPERATION HUG-A-HERO®

SELECTS FEEDBLITZ AS ITS PRIMARY RSS FEED

AND NEWSLETTER AGGREGATOR

WHO WE ARE: Operation Hug-A-Hero® (OHAH), www.OperationHugAHero.org
WHAT WE DO: Provide FREE Hug-A-Hero® Dolls to Children of our American Heroes
WHERE: Across the Globe
WHY: To Help Comfort the Children of our American Heroes
HOW YOU CAN HELP: Donate to and Help Make Others Aware of Our Inspiring Cause

Effective November 1, 2009, OPERATION Hug-A-Hero® is using  FeedBlitz services to integrate their RSS feeds to supply Newsletter subscription services to all viewers on our site.

OHAH Board Member and acting CTO Thomas Townsend said,

“We wanted to provide our viewers with an easy option to receive news and updates about our nonprofit organization. As a nonprofit in its infancy, we wanted to  differentiate ourselves from other nonprofits to call attention to our cause. This is the primary reason our website was redeveloped into a Social Content Managed System this last spring. Today’s technology is Web 2.0 based and social by design. Our cause has a huge social element to it, and we needed a venue that would work seamlessly into our new site to allow us to communicate on a more dynamic level, have a wide reach of different social network aspects that would still allow us to maintain a very personal and down to earth feel to it. This is where FeedBlitz uniquely fits in.

As our organization grows, we now have the ability to reach all of our potential demographics with a single service that integrates analytics, subscriber management and data collection facilities all in one service.

We have a dynamic team supporting our fundraising efforts.  In the current economic climate we feel using Feedblitz will help get our message out to more people, help bring awareness to our cause, visitors to our site and hopefully more donations and sponsors so we can help more children.”

About OPERATION HUG-A-HERO®

OPERATION Hug-A-Hero®: a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization incorporated in August 2008, and granted it’s 501(c)(3) designation in early July 2009. Operation Hug-A-Hero® reaches out to families of our deployed military and public safety officers in need. We do this by providing a FREE Hug-A-Hero® doll to the children of families who cannot afford one or who have lost a loved one in the line of duty.

For additional information, photos and back story on Operation Hug-A-Hero® or for local recipients (i.e. military families in your local area that have benefited from our services), contact Lisa Berg or visit www.operationhugahero.org.

CONTACT:
Founder: Tricia Dyal (910) 333-1502, Tricia at OperationHugAHero.org
Executive Director & Media Relations Point of Contact: Lisa Berg (910) 546-3127, Lisa at OperationHugAHero.org

About FeedBlitz

FeedBlitz, LLC was founded in August, 2005 to provide a service enabling marketers, publishers and bloggers to make more effective use of newsletters, RSS and new media technologies by helping subscribers get the information they want in their preferred format. FeedBlitz converts RSS and blog updates into email newsletters delivered daily (or desired frequency) to subscribers’ inboxes, instant messengers or social network site. Managing subscriptions, circulation tracking, real-time analytics, and email Autoresponders, FeedBlitz is compatible with all major blogging platforms and services. More information is available at http://www.feedblitz.com/

Down load a copy of this Press Release

Newsletter migration to FeedBlitz

The team at OHAH has been working hard to spread the message about our cause. One of the ways we achieve that is by communicating on the different social sites we have accounts on such as Face Book, MySpace,Twitter and YouTube to name a few.  Our web site here at Operationhugahero.org is our main communications portal if you will, and helps us to achieve one of our goals of being able to maintain that close dialog and relationship with our Hug-A-Hero families, as well as all those interested in following our progress or in helping us to spread the word about our mission.

Many of you have signed up for our email newsletter and it is to you that I am writing tonight’s post. We have some very exciting new features and enhancements to the site that we will be rolling out this month. The first one of those is our new and improved newsletter feature.

If you are a current subscriber, there is some important information below that we need you to be aware of so you can keep getting updates from us. If you have not yet signed up for our newsletter feature, you are going to want to do this so you don’t miss out on all the great new features in store for our visitors and subscribers.

Late last month we converted out RSS feed system from FeedBurner to FeedBlitz.  Most of you will not have noticed as it was a fairly seamless process. The newsletter feature is the final part of the integration and that means that everyone that is currently subscribed will be getting a notification from our newsletter vendor FeedBlitz in the next few days. Actually the cut-over is going to take place on November 4^th at approximately 8:00 PM EST.

So what do you need to do if you are currently subscribed to OPERATION HUG-A-HERO ?

Add feedblitz@mail.feedblitz.com to your address books or email white lists immediately.

• Only unsubscribe to our newsletter using the links we provide in each email, and not on your ISP’s spam or abuse buttons.
• Look out for the message from FeedBlitz advising you that the change has taken place.

If you want to know what the new Newsletter will look like, click on the Preview Link either here or on the home page. Be sure to pass our Newsletter on and invite others to sign up too.

Stay tuned for our Press Release that will be posted on Wednesday evening after the migration.  It will be in the new format and  the Press Release provides a lot of the details as to why we decided to use FeedBlitz services.

Thanks Again

Team OPERATION Hug-A-Hero