G0od evening! I’ve never blogged a post so late on a Saturday night before, but sometimes you just gotta blog and go. When I started writing this, I was sat on a train and homeward bound to Whitby (where I literally arrived just moments ago). With a little time on my hands this evening, and whilst it was fresh in my head, I wanted to get some thoughts down about my day in London. I don’t often interrupt the weekend schedule to share something personal, but I’m feeling focussed and energised after a day surrounded by like-minded creatives and I want to sprinkle some of that positivity onto these pages.
Today I have been at Blogtacular – an annual conference organised by and hosted for bloggers. Bloggers from all walks of life, bloggers from all over the world and bloggers blogging about all kinds of things.
I was in attendance at the conference as I was asked to be a part of the ‘Genius Panel’ (that’s Professor Beeforth to you) offering 1:1 advice specifically on blogging for business. It was a task I enjoyed immensely – thank you to everyone who queued up to ask me questions who were so kind about Love My Dress – I’m beaming right now!
Blogtacular co-founder Kat Molesworth opening this years conference
Our keynote speaker was Grace Bonney of Design Sponge. If this name is unfamiliar to you, all you need to know is that Grace is a first generation blogger – one of the pioneers of today’s thriving blogging community, someone who has been sharing her thoughts via designsponge.com for some ten years now. A bit of a blogging legend if I’m honest.
Grace had a lot to share with her audience and her presentation was energising and inspiring. She touched on the way the blogging environment has changed, almost unrecognisably so, since she started out, and how she deals with her resulting business fears. Grace tackled these issues today by offering bloggers a well considered plan of action, but there were two things she said that stuck with me the most. They were ‘don’t be afraid to go against the grain’, and ’trust in your gut’. Bloggers haven’t had the easiest time of late – we’ve had to adapt rapidly to the many changes that have and continue to take place across the social media landscape – changes that have severely disrupted the status quo. And those changes are occurring at lightening speed. Not got your blog equipped for viewing on a mobile device yet? Then Google are penalising you and your hard earned SEO as you read this very sentence. Not thought about ways you can earn money and support your sponsors beyond the straight forward static banner advert? Then you’d better get your skates on and start thinking quick.
Add to that the naysayers for whom it’s easy to criticise bloggers and the way bloggers earn their money and run their businesses. We’re accused of selling out when we work with the bigger brands and we get criticised for sharing sponsored content. We’re told ‘you sent me a load of traffic but I didn’t get any enquiries’, and ‘no one ever comments on the blog anymore!’.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course, so here is mine. Bloggers are entitled to earn a living and charge appropriately not just for their time, influence and reach, but for providing their advertisers with the privilege of being able to access all those hard earned readers and followers. We are also entitled to explore new ways of supporting our advertisers and enhancing our earning opportunities and this includes being able to work with bigger brands if we want.
Bloggers, you are not selling out by working with bigger brands. Providing you do so with integrity and authenticity – showing the same level of love, respect and support you would to any other sponsor (and this includes yourself! as in, making sure they pay you like everyone else!) then you’re doing a great job and well done you for getting that deal! Own it! You worked hard for those blog and social media followers, you’ve earned that reward. There is also no shame in sharing sponsored content. We share on average two of these kind of posts every week and I’m proud of every single one of them. Our sponsored content is designed to be inspiring and offer value to our readers. You can choose not to read it or engage with it if you don’t want to, but many other readers do. Just like this one.
Doubters – that traffic we generated on your behalf that didn’t produce any enquiries, what are you doing to convert that valuable traffic we sent you into business enquiries? And about the lack of blog comments – people want to engage with their favourite blogs through their social media channels these days. Accept it! We’ve chosen to embrace this change and make it work for us. Our Instagram follower number is increasing by around 500 a week and we’re creating all kinds of new business enquiries through this exciting visual media feed for our sponsors as a result.
I’m blogging at this odd time this evening simply because I’m buzzing after the conference today. And because, well, it’s my blog and my business and I make my own rules! 🙂 Secondly, it was to pass on a note of love to my fellow bloggers who are working so hard in the face of a tidal wave of change in the blogosphere and criticism about how they run their businesses. The future of blogging is in your hands my friends – just like Blogtacular co-founder Kat Molesworth said when she opened today’s event, ‘you are the people who are actually going to make it happen’. How we react as bloggers to all these changes taking place now will hugely influence how blogging works for everyone else in the future. For me, that means trusting my gut and supporting our advertisers the way I believe is the right way. I’m also going to go against the grain and make sure I absolutely do launch that project that I’m dreaming of, despite being advised by the well wishers not to take the risk.
Image credit – Mollie Makes/Piers McDonald Photography
I’m thankful that I’m part of a community of smart, intelligent, creative, super business savvy bloggers who are doing it right and running amazing businesses for brands they have created from scratch. But especially those who are taking their own risks that will push the blogging movement onwards and upwards. Here is to YOU amazing lot! Be proud of your successful business blogs!
Thanks a million Blogtacular for bringing us all together today. You guys have done amazingly well pulling off such a successful, fun and inspiring event.
I’d love for you to share your thoughts.
Love Annabel xx
Annabel View all Annabel's articles
Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.
I looked into going to Blogtacular and am now kicking myself as I look at all the amazing pics on Instagram.
Thank you so much for sharing this advice and passing on this positive vibe to fellow bloggers out there. I will be getting a ticket for next year that’s for sure. Hopefully I’ll see you there.
Lots of love x x x
Next year Gem! And all being well, I get to see you there too x
Beautifully put, Annabel! It was such an incredibly inspiring day. My mind is spinning (in a really good way) and I’m excited about the future of blogging. Thank you for standing up for and supporting your fellow bloggers, just like any small business we need to earn money too and we shouldn’t be made to feel bad for that. Goodness knows this isn’t an easy career path to follow, as there’s actually no path to follow! We’re paving our own way. Thank you for sharing your journey so openly here on LMD. I’ve loved watching the blog I read as a bride go from strength to strength and you continue to inspire me as a blogger and business owner. Keep up the great work! xx
Thank you so very much Elizabeth, just miffed that I missed your session and didn’t get to spend more time with you, but I hope you had a really fun and rewarding time. I love that you’ve taken time to reply to this and show your support – really truly thankful for that. I feel really positive too and excited that we are part of a community creating a brand new career path. Have a very lovely day my friend, Annabel xx
Hi Annabel
It was so lovely to meet you yesterday on the Genius Panel at Blogtacular. I really can’t thank you enough for your advice and words of wisdom. I’ll be actioning everything very, very soon!
Best wishes
Rona x
It was an absolute pleasure to meet and chat with you Rona! All the very best of good luck in continuing your beautiful floral blog – I adore your Instagram feed! x
Thanks so much for talking about this. I’ve only just found out about Blogtacular and it sounds like it is a blogging event not to be missed, so I’ll certainly be buying my ticket for next year!
Really interesting to hear your comments about how the blogging landscape is changing and I couldn’t agree more, when it comes to sponsored posts and lack of comments. I’m actually toying with the idea of turning my comment section off completely after reading lots of interesting articles on it recently, because the landscape has changed so much. As you say, people are more likely to connect on social media now than they are through a blog’s comment section.
Blogging is challenging but isn’t it just the most wonderful thing ever?! I still can’t quite believe that I now earn the bulk of my income as a freelancer, from my blog. Thank you for the reminder that as always, as with everything in life, it’s all about going with your instinct and not being afraid to go against the grain. 🙂 X
Oops, just realised I never replied to you Katie- sorry about that!
Thank you so much for stopping by to leave a positive words.
Basically, I love blogging, it is my career and so much more and has led to so many great opportunities. Things *have* changed and as I just explained to another commenter, I was so fearful of this change at first, terrified in fact, but I learned through sharing my fears with others (I’m member of a fab secret forum for wedding bloggers on Facebook – not sure if you have something similar?) that the ‘problem’ seems actually much less of a problem and through sharing, you generate creative solutions. I don’t feel fear now, I just feel like I’m being kept on my toes to remain creative, a step ahead of the game – capable of coming up with new and fun/rewarding solutions for those who invest in my blog and I’m LOVING rising to that challenge. That said, I’d be very grateful if Pinterest and Facebook could just let their algorithms settle for a while now please – enough changing things around every 5 minutes! 🙂 Much love xxx
Oh Blogtacular was so much fun wasn’t it! I’ve come away again completely inspired and fired up for what I’m doing, and I love the diversity of blog topics that are represented! I think you’re spot on that we shouldn’t be ashamed to work with brands but I also think that there are ways of doing it really well and ways that feel awkward and clunky and stick out a mile from the tone of the blog and it’s that that gives sponsored and collaborative content a bad name. In the mummy blogging community you see posts that are cut and pasted straight from the PRs email and put up with minimal effort, or a blog that’s so many reviews of everything and anything that it’s lost it’s original voice.
But when it’s done right, when the content feels so natural that you don’t notice that it’s a sponsored post until the end, then that’s just good business well done!
Hi Carie! It’s so cool to hear you are feeling so inspired after Blogtacular! I too love the diversity of blog topics and genres represented at this event. I guess things can become all a bit too insular when we’re working on our own blogs, within our own genres – I think I was one of just 3 maybe 4 wedding bloggers there, which is actually really refreshing. Getting to chat with other bloggers who experience and are going through similar issues but work in a different genre is super helpful.
I don’t come across any of those posts you refer too but I guess that’s because I maybe don’t read any of those blogs, but it is a big shame that those bloggers don’t take more time to carefully prepare and curate their content. I find working with PR’s who connect with bloggers a difficult one at the best of times – some PRs are really, really good, they get it, and they understand your needs – but these kind of PR reps I can count on maybe 2 fingers – the rest don’t have that innate understanding of how a blog differs from trad print media and either do they see to really care about developing long term, meaningful relations with bloggers. *Sigh*
Thanks for taking time to contribute to this thread Carrie! Love Annabel x
A great post Annabel. What you have done for the blogging world is really inspiring. It’s a really exciting future for bloggers! I also toyed with going to Blogtacular this year and this has definitely encouraged me to go next year.
Plus, I can’t wait to hear about the project you are going to launch later in the year. Huge amounts of good luck with it xx
Hi Emma, Thanks so much for your comment. You should definitely go to Blogtacular – if nothing else, it’s great to feel, tangibly, like your amongst your own and part of your own wider network of support. People who just ‘get it!’ 🙂
Thanks so much again for your kind words,
Love Annabel x
Love this post! All the changes in the blogging landscape can be so scary (Grace’s talk at Blogtacular and her fantastic State of the Blog Union post last year covered this up so well!) but we can find ways to work with the changes and keep our blogs moving forwards in exciting, interesting ways: embracing change & making it work for you = the way to go, for sure! 🙂
Thank you so much Lupin – I really appreciate you taking the time to stop by and leave a positive thought. At Love My Dress, we’ve facing big new challenges as bloggers and I can’t deny having felt terrified of them at one point, but I’m learning to embrace them and discover new creative ways of working and I LOVE that. It’s certainly keeping us on our toes! 🙂
Love Annabel xx