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
