Blogging It Forward

Alt For Everyone – An Online Conference for Bloggers

Comment May 12, 2013

Have you heard about Alt For Everyone? Alt For Everyone is an online conference by the creators of Altitude Summit, a design and blogging conference held annually in Salt Lake City, UT. This is the first time they are bringing their conference online thanks to main sponsor Bing.

Alt for Everyone is this Thursday May 16 through Saturday May 18. For $125, you receive access to seven online classes/webinars on different topics related to blogging and networking, one keynote address, and one virtual party. And everyone knows that the Alt parties are just as valuable as the classes!

I’m so excited to announce that Bing gifted me a ticket to Alt For Everyone! I had such a great time at Alt Summit a few months ago, and I can’t wait to absorb even more knowledge from this great institution. Thanks Alt Summit and Bing! Don’t forget to take the Bing It On challenge and find out which search engine you prefer in a blind test. I took the test, and Bing won!

It’s not too late to sign up for Alt for Everyone! But classes are selling out fast, so act quick. Will I see you there?

Tagged blogging, conferences
FTC Disclosure Guidelines: The Changes You Need To Know About

2 April 4, 2013

Dear Blogger: Are you up to snuff on your disclosure policies? Are you FTC compliant? If it seems like I’m writing in Greek, then you need to read this post from Taylor at Pink Heels Pink Truck. In fact, ALL bloggers need to read this to make sure they are disclosing their sponsored posts and sponsored tweets correctly. (I’ve been doing it wrong!!) Taylor really breaks it down in a way that is easy to understand. Bloggers – this is required reading. I mean it!

“Have you heard that the FTC has updated the .com Disclosures?? Their last update was in 2009 and a lot has changed (technology-wise) over the last few years. So what does that mean for Bloggers? Well it means that we have to really disclose, disclose, disclose. If you thought your blog disclosure at the bottom of your post was sufficient enough, it’s no longer the rule.“

Click here to continue to Pink Heels Pink Truck to read the rest of the article.

Image source: Pink Heels Pink Truck

Tagged blogging, disclosure, sponsored posts
Wedding Bloggers: Are Watermarked Pictures in our Future?

3 April 2, 2013

This post is for all my fellow wedding bloggers.

I run three wedding-type blogs and as a general rule I only feature images without watermarks – the generally small image that photographers will put on their images so 1) their photos will continue to be attributed to them as they get spread around the web and 2) creeper fake photographers can’t claim the images as their own. Most wedding bloggers follow this same rule as I do. The general reasoning behind this is that watermarks tend to taint the beauty of the photo, and readers of wedding blogs want to see photos without them. So, if you are the blog that features watermarked pictures, and all the other blogs don’t, then the reader is probably going to skip your blog in favor of all those other blogs.

There are always exceptions. Sometimes I’ll agree to the watermark if it’s very small and unobtrusive, or if I really, really, really love the photos and want to share them. But makes up a very small percentage of my features.

Photographers are generally agreeable to this rule. As long as the photographer is properly credited in the blog post, they are still getting free exposure. Of course the photos are now “out there” and vulnerable, but it seems everyone agrees it’s a mutually beneficial relationship between wedding blogger and wedding photographer.

Today, I was contacted by a photographer regarding a wedding spotlight I did a couple months ago, asking me to take his pictures off my blog. I received the pictures from the bride and I assumed photographer permission was obtained because I state this very clearly in my submission guidelines. Turns out permission was not obtained, and the photographer asked me to either replace the pictures with ones with his watermark (a big ugly watermark) or remove them. I opted to remove them.

One unfortunate downside? Those pictures had gone wild on Pinterest and that post had received hundreds of views, and had the potential to get THOUSANDS of hits over the lifetime of the blog. Now when people click those images on Pinterest, they will find a wedding spotlight with no pictures – and no photographer credit. That photographer will miss out on potentially thousands of eyeballs viewing his work. The photographer’s argument is that, yes, his pictures are being spread around Pinterest with no watermark identifying them as his work, and that is bad for his business. I respectfully disagree.

I do understand both sides of the argument It’s true that photos without watermarks can get passed around without proper photography credit. It’s also true that non-watermarked pictures on blogs and Pinterest are received better by readers. Do a search for “weddings” on Pinterest and tell me how many watermarked pictures you see on the main page. Probably zero. Yet those photographers are getting all kinds of exposure, on levels they never dreamed of before a medium like Pinterest. A lot of them would argue that exposure is worth the few uncredited photos that will escape.

So tell me wedding bloggers – who should be the one to adapt to this new social media world we live in, the blogger or the photographer?

(Stock images via Microsoft Images)

Tagged blogging, photography, wedding bloggers
Fighting Spammers: The Dreaded Captcha

2 March 26, 2013

Tonight I had to do something I didn’t really want to do … I added Captcha to the new user registration page.

Despite my blog being a tiny fish in the huge Internet pond, I am getting a ton of spam registration. I probably get 10 spam members for every legit member. I’m spending about 10 minutes a day deleting all the spam members and I had to take action to try to curb it. Unfortunately I had to look into adding a Captcha WordPress plug-in.

I can’t stand Captcha so I spent a while looking for the right plug-in. I found SI Captcha that seems to do what I need for now, which is just add Captcha to the registration page, but I can also add Captcha to post comments if I need to in the future.

I wanted a Captcha that is easy to read. There’s nothing worse than squinting at your screen and trying to decipher a 16 character garbled message and getting it wrong over and over. This one is just 4 characters and it seems legible enough. My big fear with adding Captcha is scaring off new REAL members, but hopefully this Captcha won’t be too intimidating

My only question is – are my spammers robots or human? If they are human then this won’t stop them. So this is stage one of my trial and error period. I will update the post with my results!

Update: 3/27/13 - Unfortunately I woke up to a new spam registration, so my Captcha didn’t work. But usually I get three or four every morning and this was only one, so maybe it’s working? Time will tell.
There’s No Spell Check in Paint.Net

10 March 13, 2013

Here’s a post about how I screwed up. Big time.

The last time I sent out a newsletter (sign up here, by the way!) I noticed I had a major typo in my newsletter heading.

Do you see it? It’s not glaringly obvious. Heck, I’ve looked at it several times and completely missed it. Here, I’ll help you out.

No big deal, I only MISSPELLED THE NAME OF MY OWN WEBSITE in my newsletter header graphic. And I sent out THREE newsletters like this before I caught it. I’m completely horrified.

My first thought was – oh no, my blog header is also misspelled. But it’s not, thank goodness. I quickly made a new header for my email newsletter and sent it out. I suppose it’s a good thing that my readership is still relatively small at this point. And that I caught it on the fourth edition of the newsletter, and not the forty-fourth. But still, I was so embarrassed. Still am.

So how did this happen? I can tell you exactly – there’s no spell check in Paint.net.

Photoshop is expensive, as you know. So for my basic photo editing needs I use Paint.net, a free software that mimics the Photoshop interface. It generally works fine for me – I’d love to buy and learn how to use real Photoshop someday but it’s not in the cards for me yet. I get by with Paint.net. But in an age where everything auto-corrects your spelling for you – email, Word, your phone – I got lazy. I also was making about a dozen different headers of various shapes and sizes and when that’s happening, your eyes are going to fail you at some point.

I did some research and it seems real Photoshop does have a form of spell check – you have to select it from the “Edit” drop down menu.

So here’s how you can learn from my mistake:

1. If you use Photoshop, always always always use the spell check tool!
2. If you don’t use real Photoshop and your photo editing software doesn’t utilize a spell check tool, be sure to check and double check your spelling. And ask a trusted friend to also check your spelling before you upload it to a website or send it out in an email blast to the world.

Tagged Advice
{Book Review} Blog Wonderful by Dana Fox

1 March 11, 2013

I’m a huge fan of Dana Fox (www.thewonderforest.com), so I was super pleased when I received a copy of her new book Blog Wonderful for a review. Dana and I actually started blogging around the same time, but her blog is waaaaaay more popular than mine. I’m sure several factors are involved in that but it’s clear that Dana has a natural knack for this blogging thing.

Her blogging platform of choice is Blogger, which is super clear in her book. If you are a WordPress loyalist, Blog Wonderful may cause you to do some occasional eye rolling, but there is still a ton of great advice for all bloggers on all platforms. And I agree that Blogger is a great platform to use if you are a beginner blogger, since it’s a free service and the interface is very easy to navigate.

Blog Wonderful focuses on a few key elements to blogging. She gives advice on how to get started, what to write about, and how to find the time for blogging. Probably the central focus is how to connect with other bloggers, get yourself noticed, and effectively engage with your audience. Content is king, but if you can’t figure out how to get your content to reach eyeballs, then your blog will never grow.

Dana also gives some basic tips on design. Dana herself is an amazing graphic artist and designer, but you don’t need to have her level of skills to make your blog beautiful. She points out a few key pieces to focus on if you should focus on, complete with screenshots to give you a visual of what she is describing.

The final chapter is all about money and how new bloggers can start earning some. If this is on your blogging radar and you’re clueless on where to start (and honestly, who isn’t clueless at the beginning), then this chapter alone is worth the price of the book for you. She gives tips on what to do (and what not to do) when you want to enter the wonderful world of monetization.

There are a couple of pieces of advice in the e-book that I personally don’t agree with, but part of the beauty of blogging is that everyone’s experience is going to be different. The underlying advice of the book is, you have to put yourself out there and just jump in. If you don’t put in the effort and try new things, your blog probably is not going to pay off for you (monetarily or emotionally).

Overall, if you are a new blogger (under one year) or you’ve been blogging for a while but you’re now ready to put all your efforts into stepping up your blogging game, Blog Wonderful is a great place to start.

Blog Wonderful is available directly through Dana’s site at www.blogwonderful.com, on Smashwords, or through Amazon. The paperback version retails at $9.99 and the Kindle/e-book version is $6.99.

Image Sources: 1 – Blogwonderful.com; 2 – Smashwords. // This is a sponsored post, meaning I was compensated via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value in exchange for this post. All opinions are my own and I only recommend products I think would be a good fit for my readers. // This post uses affiliate links.

Tagged books, Product review, sponsored post
How to Network and Promote Yourself on Social Media

Comment March 6, 2013

My friend and fantastic blogger Anita recently wrote a great recap of a talk she attended as part of the Social Media Club Salt Lake City in February 2013. The speaker was author Peter Shankman, who is described on his website as “An author, entrepreneur, speaker, and worldwide connector, Peter is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about Social Media, PR, marketing, advertising, and customer service.”

Anita says the talk was mostly geared towards networking and self-promotion on Social Media, and she found herself with a lot of “tweetable” quotes from Mr. Shankman, which she has now cleverly displayed into beautiful images, easily pinable to Pinterest or to print and hang on your wall/fridge/mirror if you find one that speaks to you. Here are a couple examples, with text from Anita’s post:

“One of the first things he talked about that really resonated with me was that work can be fun. Once I thought I was one of those lucky people that just happened to land fun jobs, but when I look at my jobs with attention I realized that it wasn’t luck, I just made the job fun because it’s the way I am. I don’t believe in just working for the money, and yes, I have bad days at work like everyone else, but I loved all of my jobs. So his tip is to do something you love, always. My tip is, if you are not as gutsy as he is, find things to love about what you do. You are the only person that can make your job fun or not.”

“Another of his tips for self promotion was to simply be helpful. I almost whooped loudly at this. I’m a big believer of Social Media as a customer service tool, and that basically is being helpful. I was lucky to have participated in Walt Disney’s College Program and be trained by their people, because now being helpful is basically what I love most in life. Pay attention to the people in your network, if they are reaching out with questions that you can either answer or find the person to answer, then why not do it? It pays to be helpful, it pays to be nice.”

Click here to continue to AnitaBoeira.net to read the rest of this article.

Image sources: AnitaBoeira.net

Tagged Guest Post, networking, social media
Guest Posting and Collaborating: When Is It Okay to Bug Big Bloggers?

Comment March 3, 2013
This past weekend was the monthly Twitter chat BlogBrunch. If you don’t participate in BlogBrunch, you really should! It’s only one hour each month and I always learn a ton and feel totally motivated afterwards.

This month’s topic was all about guest posting and collaborating, and as always there was a bunch of great advice flying by on my Tweetdeck stream. But a few people had a negative response to one of my pieces of advice, so I thought I’d turn it into a post of it’s own to clarify my statement.

After I got over the initial shock that people – smart bloggers, some of whom I’ve met and consider friends – were disagreeing with me (hey, I’m a human being with feelings), I jumped in to see where the disconnect occurred. I think the main issue here is that this is a complicated topic with a lot of grey area, and it’s difficult to discuss properly in 140 characters or less.

My initial response – “Approaching a blog with a much, much larger audience will make you seem spammy” was based on my experience working part-time for one of the longest running and well-known wedding blogs in existence. I have been working with this site for a while but just recently transitioned into a roll where I am now, among other duties, filtering through the “press” email inbox. And wow, do we get a lot of junk mail, including requests for guest posts. A lot of them are offers to write a guest post in exchange for a link. Some even include fully written posts, tailored to our audience! But the problem with these types of submissions are: 1) they come out of nowhere and the person/company is unfamiliar, 2) we have no idea if they are submitting this same material to other wedding blogs, and 3) we don’t know the true intention. No one spends the time to write a 1000 word post out of the kindness of their hearts – it’s safe to assume they want us (and the dozens of other blogs to whom the email was sent) to share their link for SEO. If we are getting these types of emails, then I think it’s safe to assume that other big blogs with similar stats are getting the same emails.

The above is what I had in mind when I sent out that tweet.

Of course there are always exceptions, and there’s absolutely no harm in setting your sights high! You just have to take a few steps to make sure your email stands out among the “junk” that all big bloggers receive in spades. Here are a few tips:

Make sure you have plenty of your own content on your own blog before you approach bigger bloggers for collaboration. If you want to offer to create inspiration boards for a popular design blogger, be sure you have examples of inspiration boards on your own blog. If you want to write a guest post about cooking tips for a popular food blogger, be sure you have plenty of posts about cooking and food on your own blog. Your blog is like your resume, so make sure it’s representative of the work you claim you’ll be able to offer to a bigger blogger.

Make sure you are following the big blogger on social media. Even better if you have interacted with them (RTs, Likes, respond to questions). That goes for commenting on their blog, too. Don’t be a daily stalker, but if you are someone who has interacted with this blogger on a regular basis, then they will probably recognize your name when they receive your email.

Keep an eye out for guest post requests. Every now and then your favorite big blogger might put out a call for guest posts or collaborations. It’s great to take advantage of these situations but know there are pros and cons to this. The good thing is the blogger will be more receptive to your guest post offer because they are seeking them, but the downside is they will probably get a flood of requests and you’ll have to work a bit harder to make sure your email and pitch stand out from the crowd!

Have a couple guest posts on smaller blogs under your belt. When you send your email, be sure to include links to other guest posts you have done so they can get a feel of what you have to offer.

Use an email from your own domain. If you don’t have a personalized domain, be sure you have a Gmail or Yahoo email with your blogs name as the handle. If your email doesn’t match your blogs name at all, this is a red flag and your email will probably get deleted. There’s no excuse to not have an email just for your blog; if you have a personalized domain it’s free, or you can set up free email through a service like Gmail. No excuses!

Personalize the subject line. If your subject line is “A Guest Post For You” or “Can I Write a Guest Post For You?” you’ll probably slip through the cracks. Something like “I Love <their blog name> and Would Love to Collaborate!” is better.

Introduce yourself at the start of your email. Take the time to tell the blogger who you are, your blog’s name, and your blog’s elevator pitch. Don’t make the blogger wait until the very end of your email to learn who you are. (Also, if they recognize you from interactions on social media, they are more likely to pay attention to what you have to say.)

Compliment the blogger you are contacting. Spammers have gotten smarter and are starting to put, “I love your recent post <post title>!” So be sure to go beyond that. Write something like “I have been following you since 2011 and you inspired me to start my own blog about <topic>, and it would be such an honor for me to collaborate with you.” Bloggers never get tired of reading this kind of stuff! ;)

Tell them what you can offer their audience. Don’t make your pitch all about you! Be sure to tell the blogger about why their readers will love your post and your unique voice.

Keep it short and sweet. Bloggers have to read a lot of emails, so keep your email brief. Start off with an introduction and a small pitch about what topics you can write about. If the blogger is interested, they will respond and then you can send your longer, hard sell email.

Thank them for their time. At the end of your email, be sure to thank them for taking the time to read your email. A simple “thank you” seriously goes a long way!

Don’t forget your URL! Even if you included your blog’s URL in your introduction sentence, also include it in your signature. That way the blogger can click on the link and view your blog right away, instead of having to scroll back up and search for your link within the body of the email.

And here’s a sample email you can use as a launching pad when sending out your own guest post pitches!

“Dear <blogger’s first name>,

My name is Mindy and I blog at www.bloggingitforward.com. Blogging It Forward is a community site for bloggers that offers blogging advice, useful tips and tricks, and a forum where bloggers can connect and mentor each other. I actually was inspired to start my site after reading your blog <blog’s name> for the last year or so. I love the advice you give on your blog and how you connect with your readers. Thank you for doing what you do!

I wanted to reach out to you today to see if you are interested in collaborating? I think my site would be of interest to your readers and I think we would work well together. I can offer a guest post for your blog and if it’s a hit, maybe we can turn it into a regular series! I was thinking I could write a post about <topic, topic, and/or topic>, and of course I am open to chatting further about what would be of the greatest benefit to your audience.

Here are some links to guest posts I have done in the past, so you can get a feel for my writing:

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my email and for considering working with me!

Best regards,
Mindy
www.bloggingitforward.com”

So there you have it! These are my tips for sending guest post offers to big bloggers without seeming spammy. Do you have any tips to add? Any success stories? I would love to read your thoughts in the comments, or feel free to jump over to this topic in the forum to continue the discussion there!

{Image credit: Typing photo}
Tagged blogging, collaboration, guest posting
Are You a No-Reply Blogger?

6 February 21, 2013

If you are a Blogger blogger, you might not realize that your comments aren’t getting responses because you’re unwittingly marked as a “no-reply” blogger! What does that even mean? Emily of Newlywed Moments has explained it all for you, and provided step-by-step instructions on how to change it. I was a “no-reply” blogger for months (maybe even years!) before a nice friend gave me a heads up.

“What exactly is a no-reply comment blogger? It’s when you comment on someone’s blog, but they can’t respond because your email isn’t linked to your blog account (this also happens if your Google+ account is linked to your blog).

“I love receiving comments and try to respond to every one, but it makes me sad that about half of the comments come from no-reply comment bloggers. This happens to more people than you think, so take a few minutes right now to check if you’re one.”

Click here to continue to Newlywed Moments to read the rest of the article.

Image source: Newlywed Moments

Tagged Blogger, blogging
{Alt Summit Recap} Media Kits 101 by Meg Keene

3 February 13, 2013

Even if you aren’t familiar with the wedding blog world, you should be aware of Meg Keene and her fantastic blog A Practical Wedding. While she was planning her own wedding, Meg started a blog about real weddings and real marriages, involving actual real people. She found there was clearly a market for this audience, and over the years her blog has blossomed into a wonderful community and she tapped into something extremely rare – a wedding blog that retains its audience long after the wedding is over. In 2011 her book, A Practical Wedding, became a best seller, and she creates some of the most compelling and creative collaborative posts I’ve ever seen. So it was no wonder she was at Alt Summit 2013 to present a panel on creating a media kit for your blog. This was an intense panel, and sadly I had to leave early to get to my scheduled walking photography tour so I missed the last of the Q&A. But I’m happy to share some of the tips I learned here.

What is a Media Kit? If you are new to blogging or aren’t interested in making money off your blog, you may not be familiar with the term media kit. A media kit is a basically a summary of your blog’s stats that you can present to brands or businesses who may be interested in advertising or collaborating with your blog. Your media kit should basically be a mini commercial for your blog. It should definitely include: A summary of what your blog is about, your monthly page views and unique visitors, your social media stats, and your rates. Depending on how big (viewership-wise) your blog is, your media kit could be 1 to 10 pages, or more! Most bloggers make their media kits in a program like Photoshop and save the file as a PDF so it cannot be edited.

Now onto the recap!

Media Kits 101 – Meg Keene
Alt Summit – January 2013

I’ve included a few of my personal pictures I took of Meg’s presentation. I apologize that the quality is not so great, but hopefully they still get the message across.

Meg began her presentation by saying that any blog, large or small, should have a media kit and can sell ads. ”Sell what you have.” She reminds us that “bigger is not always better” and that it’s all about knowing your blog’s focus, knowing who your readers are and what they like, and keeping them engaged (engagement is usually measured in number of comments and social media interactions). Meg also referred to Pinterest as a “game changer,” and said it has been instrumental in her blog’s recent growth (as seen in the image above).

Media Kit Basics
- Tailor your media kit for its audience
- Major brands, independent businesses, media, and everyone else. You should have slightly different media kits for each one, giving them the information in which they would be interested. Would you give the same media kit to an independent Etsy shop owner as you would to a company like Coca-Cola? Probably not. They are going to be interested in different aspects of your blog and readership.

Meg also touched the debate of public verses private. Should you put your media kit online for all to see? Or do you keep your numbers safely guarded. Meg suggests that you should do both. Publicly, you can put your numbers online so brands can get a basic understanding of your readership, but the private media kit should really sell your influence.

Media Kit Details – this is what defintely should be included in your media kit.

- Page views per month
- Unique visitors per month
- Average time on site
- RSS subscribers
- Location breakdown

It’s important to know who your readers are. Meg suggests conducting a reader survey with questions custom to your site as the best way to find out who is reading your blog, and also recommends getting to know your readers through their comments.

Other details:
- Your media kit should be cohesive with your branding. (Use the same fonts and colors as your blog.)
- Include your mission statement. If you don’t have one, write one!
- Make your data simple and clear, with heavy visuals. An image can easily convey what a bunch of text could, in a much more compelling manner.
- Your media kit should tell businesses why they want to connect with your audience. Use case studies, including reader response to other past campaigns.
- It’s better to under promise and over deliver.
- Have a “press” section in your media kit. Start with what you’ve got, even if it’s just a mention on another blog. It shows you are on people’s radar.
- Include testimonals. These can be drawn from the reader survey, or even from comments or emails readers have sent to you.

Your media kit should show advertisers what sets you apart from the rest and what makes you (and your readers) special. What is NOT said about you, can be just as powerful as what is said. The media kit for A Practical Wedding highlights a quote taken from a comment on one of their posts: “It’s a wedding blog but not, you know, a wedding blog that will make you want to vomit.” Meg says this quote sums up their site as well as anything she herself could come up with, but it’s more powerful because it comes from a reader. Source reader comments and emails for quotes you can use to describe your site.

Before you start to sell anything, you need to determine what you are trying to sell and to whom you are trying to sell. Also, be realistic about what you can promise to both advertisers and readers.

Now that you have the numbers, figure out what you are going to sell. The big ones are:

- Ads (usually in the sidebar)
- Sponsored Posts
- Directory Listings / Vendor Guides
- Giveaways
- Social Media Campaigns
- Again, treat small and big brands differently. Don’t expect the small Etsy shop to want to spend $1000s on a full sponsored post campaign, and Coca-Cola wants just a sidebar ad.

Setting prices
- This needs to be tailored to your blog and your stats, but Meg suggests a $2.50 CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions). For sponsored posts you should include the production budget. Meg points out that sometimes you will make mistakes, and that’s okay. Market research + making mistakes = the right price. You will fine tune your pricing with each campaign.

Meg’s presentation included several real examples from websites with transparent media kits. The above image from Autostraddle.com shows advertisers how their site has grown in popularity which gives a sense of urgency that advertisers should jump in now.

Offbeat Bride has a real-time counter on their advertising page which tells potential advertisers how many people could be viewing their ad right at that moment. (Although at the time of writing this post, it appears the counter is down.)

Daily Candy refers to their readers as “Influencers” and uses visuals to describe its average readers. Sponsors get a quick and powerful snapshot of who they would be reaching.

Again, this Autostraddle image demonstrates using visuals as a way to easily convey information to sponsors, by using colorful graphs and charts of information obtained from a reader survey.

New York Magazine gives a great example of a mission statement:

“With culture-affecting editorial that gives New York the power to launch phenomena, coin phrases, define decades, start movements and endorse demographics, this is where the conversations start. Multidimensional and dynamic, New York is a wellspring of influence.”

“This is where conversations start.” – How could any advertiser resist that?

When using case studies in your media kit, be sure to tell a meaningful story. In the example above, Meg uses an image (that was shared on Instagram to her many, many followers) along with a heartfelt and unique quote that was used in her sponsored post. She did not use some kind of canned statement provided by the advertiser; she experienced the product herself and wrote about it in her own words.

The above case study uses reader quotes from comments and social media in response to a campaign for beauty products. Real comments from real readers give advertises REAL information they can use.

Testimonials are great to use if you don’t have any press mentions. Testimonials could come from other bloggers who have linked to you, reader surveys, comments, or emails.

The above image from Autostraddle shows potential advertisers exactly what they would be getting for their money, by showing where ads are placed and their size.

Advice for working with big brands:

1. Big brands don’t often control their own money.
2. Big brands are still figuring out digital marketing.
3. Big brands have to answer to their own objectives.

“Content is all important. You’re not selling your advertising options. You’re selling your content. Explain what you offer your readers. Show genuine reader engagement. Good content means advertisers can seamlessly integrate their campaigns into your editorial. So show ‘em what you got.”

Daily Candy effectively highlights their content categories in their media kit using icons and short descriptions.

Esquire provides their editorial calendar in their media kit so advertisers can see what content is coming up, “so campaigns can be scheduled for when they’ll have the most impact.”

Show off what content you are the proudest of, and whatever makes you happy. This could be reader quotes, stories of reader engagement, press mentions, pretty pictures of your work, or descriptions of the kind of stories you run on your blog.

At the end of the panel, we received a little homework to kick off our media kit creation:

1. What is your brand statement?
2. How is your readership unique?
3. What do you want to sell?
4. What does your readership mean to businesses/media/etc?
5. Start small. Who can you approach?

Parting words:

“You are a content creator.”

First and foremost, bloggers create content. Without content, there are no readers, and no advertisers. So the focus should be primarily on content above all.

I hope you enjoyed this lengthy recap, as much as I enjoyed attending the panel. Now, get out there and make those media kits and get YO MONEY.

***
Have you created a media kit for your blog? Do you have any advice or tips to add?