Last week, I received three media event invites to see Christmas collections. I am sorry but it is way too early for my need as a blogger. My editorial mind is on “Back to school”, fall collections and then, Halloween. Really, it is a question of industry. In the fashion industry, bloggers are pleased to attend fashion shows because their readers are curious to know what will be in vogue in two seasons. But it doesn’t fit a home decor nor a mom blogger’s agenda.

I know it because I tested before to talk about Halloween in early September and people ignore these posts. Another issue for a bloggers is that we must produce content for now. Therefore, we do not have the time to write a Christmas post that will be published in a few months.

I understand that brands must present their home Christmas collections in July or August if they wish to appear in print magazines. And I applaud the fact that bloggers are included in what used to be reserved to the traditional media. But PR agencies and brands need to show more flexibility if they want to get the best coverage from us. For PR and communications agencies, it requires more than just educating your clients about the social media backdrop. It requires adjusting the budgets to be able to host two media events per season: an early event for traditional media and a second one for bloggers. Social media is changing the world at every level and your business process must follow.

SOURCING:
+ Ferm Living’s Calendar Wall Sticker $126.50 USD

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I want to inform you that the blog of my new business, Media Sidekick, is up and running. I invite you to join me in the conversations.

The Media Sidekick blog will concentrate on social media marketing and what it means for lifestyle bloggers (design, living, food, hobbies, women and moms) and influencers. You will find there topics like, my popular blogging tips column. But we will also explore how consumers brands successfully utilize social media marketing today and bounce ideas on what’s next.

If you are a lifestyle blogger who, directly and indirectly, deals with consumer brands, it’s best to stay current on what is going with brands, PR and bloggers. I believe that bloggers should have a say in defining the best practices on social media marketing. For that important reason, I invite lifestyle bloggers, PR professionals and B2C marketers to share their views on those conversations.

For your information, On the Web with Kim Vallee is not dead. I plan to continue to write here on social media topics that would be appropriate for the Media Sidekick blog. As you can imagine, this will happen occasionally.

You can learn more about the mission of Media Sidekick and its blog here.

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The way that lifestyle blogs, magazines and the style section of newspapers manage their editorial calendar is not that different after all. It’s true that blogs tend to view their editorial calendar on a short time basis versus the yearly scope of traditional media. It is probably due to the fact that bloggers talks about what is hot right now. But when we think about it, bloggers also work on a yearly calendar. Holidays, seasons and the timing of new collections often dictate when we will discuss many topics.

Aim for Better Content

First of all, planning a 12-month editorial calendar is useful if you want to run monthly series based on specific topics. Think about how magazines design an issue around one main topic. Letting your readers know in advance that some of your posts will concentrate on a topic can generate a buzz. The same is true if each day of the week is allocated to a specific type of post. Both methods can help you grow the right audience.

Brands or readers have a better idea of when and which stories to pitch you. It gives you more time to research and to develop outstanding posts, to find experts that will deliver inspiring interviews or answer key questions. It can help you to determine who can be a guest blogger. You can plan ahead the events that you wish to attend. In short, an editorial calendar can make you more efficient and will enable you to focus on what you are doing, and on where your blog is heading.

Planning an editorial calendar does not mean that you give up the spontaneity that bloggers are known for. Many posts will continue to be about what inspire you today or will highlight your opinion on what is making the headlines on the blogosphere. As your blog matures, you need to find the right balance between planning and the inspiration of the moment; especially when you hire writers.

Can Increase Your Ad Revenues

You can potentially make more money because the advertisers will be able to align their ads with the monthly topic. This could lead to more effective results and increase your chances that the advertisers book more ad spaces. Your sales team will be equipped to reach out to the best suited advertisers for your audience. They can suggest to host specific giveaways, run contests, and other promotional campaigns. Finally, it sends the message that you are serious about what you are doing.

And like anything else, you will get better with practice. If you find it hard to write at a set interval, developing an editorial calendar will push you towards consistency. Every blogger does not necessarily need to keep an editorial calendar. This post was about exploring if that can be a good idea for you. For the ones who keep an editorial catalog, I’m curious to know how you develop your editorial calendar and which tool(s) you use to maintain it.

+ photo: Action Cahier by Behance

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It used to be that the first thing I did every morning was to visit Google Reader. It has not been the case for a long time. With Twitter and Facebook, it seems that I, as many people, relied less and less on my RSS subscriptions. I think it is a mistake because we are missing out on great stories. We need a balance between the random finds on Twitter from the people we follow and the insights of blogs we trust. This is why I decided to go back, after I made some changes to my subscriptions.

Why did I stop in the first place?

The problem with my RSS subscriptions was that it was out of control. It grew by 1000 posts a day. I did some Spring cleaning. I dusted off the blogs that I do not feel are relevant to me. I plan to continue to purge blogs as I go to maintain the number of daily posts at a manageable level.

Too many posts is the reason that people quit their RSS. Look at the statement that Apartment Therapy published last week. They acknowledged that they were writing too many posts. They cut it down to 40 posts a day, which is still a lot to read.

Use Twitter, Facebook and Your Blog as a team

Look at when a tweet and/or a note on your fan page can be enough information for your readers. Then, use your blog as a way to expand on or to introduce fresh ideas. Explore how they can work together to enhance the level of relevant information you provide to your readers.

What about you? Are you still using a RSS reader?

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March 8th, 2010 Update:  ”Bloggers are not slaves of brands” was the original post title.

If you run a blog, you probably notice a surge on the number of brands that wish to either buy coverage on your site, ask to write a guest post for free or for money, or my “favorite”, the ones that offer you a link exchange buried I do not know where on their ecommerce site because they work on their link building.

With all the social media books and gurus that tell businesses that they can seek coverage from influencers, any bloggers with a certain level of popularity see the good and the bad. The goal of this post is to talk about the best practices.

I do not think that all the brands do that to exploit bloggers. Many, including PR and marketing professionals, are clueless when it comes to approaching bloggers. Others listen to the advices from the wrong people. The rules are clear with traditional journalists but defining the best practices is still in the making when approaching social media influencers and bloggers.

In light of these facts, I think that bloggers should take the initiatives to be treated the way we deserve. My advice to every blogger is to think about your values and to clearly determine what is acceptable for your blog. Then, write down a policy that you will publish on your blog.

For a while now, I published my editorial policy. I also have a comment policy that is more there to explain the fair use rules of comments to merchants, marketing staff or PR people that seem to think that blog comments are free classifieds. Any business should know that unsolicited promotion on comments is not playing fair.

With the current boom, I needed to put a stronger message. But I did not know how to do it until I read the About on Cool Hunting. They started in 2003 and they are way bigger than me. So, I cannot imagine their inbox in the morning. My revelation came when I read this:

Money can buy you a lot of things, but it can’t buy you coverage on Cool Hunting. All of our content is editorially based using the standard of “stuff we like.”

One thing that I learned in social media is to avoid the legal jargon that nobody understand and say the things like they are. They could not have said it better.

+ image: Cool Hunting

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Before you choose a blog template, consider form and function. Keep in mind that the Web is evolving all the time and we are always experimenting with new ways to display our content. And remember that content is king. The blog design is there to enhance your content, to provide a good experience to your readers and to convey what your brand/blog stands for.

Based on my experience and what I see in the blogosphere as of autumn 2009, I feel that:

1. Pictures sell. The trend is to go with bigger images. Aim for 500 pixels in width.
2. The the blog is becoming the hub of your social media activities. The blog layout is morphing and designers are experimenting with different options. There are no clear winner at this point. The multimedia blog template is an option. But clearly, we look for what will replace the magazine layout and the classic blog layout for your home page.
3. Make sure to display where to find you on other social media sites. Put a link to your Flickr and You tube account, a Follow me on Twitter link or a Twitter widget. The Fan box from Facebook works well to grow your fan base. You must leverage your participation in social networking sites.
4. Make sure your posts display well in Facebook when people add the link to their profile. You want to show the title, show the contextual picture and display the first sentences of your post. Click here for explanations. Any blogger should leverage the power of popular social networking sites to grow their traffic.
5. Assume that your readers use a screen resolution of at least 1024×768. On at my At Home blog, I get less than 2% of my readers with a 800×600 screen resolution or lower.
6. If you still prefer the classic blog layout (no harm in that), opt for a 2-column design since it allows your content to breathe. Allow a content column of 500 pixels or more to publish big pictures and properly embed You Tube videos. To give you an idea, the white section of my blog measures 1002 pixels in width.
7. If you publish many posts per week, display blog excerpts on your home page. This way, if a reader is not interested by the first post, you may grab his or her attention with the second or third post.

Make your Image Google-friendly

Do not forget to fill a short description of what the picture represents, think of describing the scene on the ALT attribute of the image. I am telling you, it makes a huge difference. As a bonus, putting ALT attribute helps on accessibility.

+ photo: Aperture multimedia blog template from WooThemes

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I am always amazed to see how many brands and organizations have not adapted to the new reality of Web communication. Brands and organizations spent a lot of money on marketing and advertising. Yet they fail at the cheapest and probably the most efficient promotion tool: the words of their fans.

If a blogger decided, on their own initiative, to write about one of your products or your event, chances are that they give you free publicity that their readers will trust because it is their honest opinion. People prefer to write about what they like than what they do not like. So why are you making it difficult for bloggers to write about your stuff?

I go through my checklist before writing a story. The first thing on that list is the availability of great pictures. If they are none, I moved to the next story. This is because pictures sell a story.

Asking people to fill a form and wait for your staff to send me a password to access your media kit is so passé. Blogging is about what is hot today. What is hot today is what caught my attention at that instant. If I cannot find the material right away to write my story, I will pass to the next story. They are no shortage of good topics when you know how to research and have imagination.

As a blogger, I want direct access to promotional pictures that are at least 500 pixels in width (80% jpg or png-24). Simply protect your content under a non-commercial Creative Commons license and request that bloggers clearly give you credit and put a link to you (the source). If more people knows about what you are doing, you will be more successful. At the end, we all win.

By the way, the free Trend Briefings produced by Trendwatching.com is a must read. I am one of their 160,000+ business professionals in more than 180 countries who is looking for it every month.

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It is the time of the year where I re-evaluate what I am doing on my At Home with Kim Vallee blog. Remember that I told you that you should review what you are doing 3 to 4 times a year. I am thinking about what I will do next to improve the content. Like I said at PodCamp 2009, having a great looking blog is important but what will really insure that readers will come back is superior content that served the needs of your readers.

I go back to the basics and review everything with the current state of the blogosphere. I look at:

• How I can stand out from the crowd in my niche?
• What the competition is doing?
• What is missing in my niche, what angle is not covered by others?
• How I can make my content better and more useful for my readers?
• What else can I do to grow my traffic?

Books as a Souvenir

This morning, Mitch Joel tweeted about a talk that Seth Godin gave last year about how he used New Media, New Marketing, and New Thinking to Create 10 Bestselling Books. Seth Godin is in the idea business, not the book business. Seth gave away partial content before he published his books. He made the point that his books are, for many readers, a souvenir of their experience surrounding the book. It is more powerful to spread ideas first and encourage people to talk about them. Then, the books become a by-product that fans want to own.

Watching this Seth Godin’s presentation triggered new ways I could do things to further develop my brand. I invite you to watch him since you could probably transpose many concepts into your own industry.

MORE:
+ Seth Godin
+ Seth Godin’s presentation
+ via Mitch Joel on Twitter

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One thing that is difficult for many bloggers is to define their niche. As the competition on the blogosphere becomes fiercer, you need to position your blog in order to stand out. People needs to quick get what your blog is about and how it is different from the pack.

Whether you talk about one topic or many topics in your blog, you need to find one direction that summarizes what your blog is about.

Give Room to Your Niche to Evolve

If you are starting out, think about how to categorize your blogs in directories. Take my At Home blog. It is a design blog for women well positioned as a stylish living blog. It started in 2007 as a blog about entertaining at home with style. In time, I found out that it is the stylish living aspect that my readers are attached to.

Think about directories

In a real conversation, people would easily describe the scope of At Home. But I have a hard time selecting a category for it in Web directories. Lifestyle blogs are not exactly what I am since I do not cover cultural events or musics. I am not only about food or home decor. I also touch family life without being about kids and parenting. Women magazines are rarely there and when they are, it is often filled by feminist blogs or women issues blogs.

There is also another impact. I consider myself a design blog. But when they are blog awards on specific topics (interior design, food, etc), I realized that people would not instinctively think about my blog. I am not complaining. I am happy with my positioning. I just point it out so you could fully grasp the extent of your decision.

Examine Your Content

Ask yourself that question: Are you mainly

• a creator of new content – ex: a crafter,
• a collector  – blog is about what you like,
• a curator  – like I am
• a news publisher – being the source of all the news about a specific topic
• a problem solver
• one that inspires people to act or create
• a commentator, someone who shares his/her perspectives on issues and ideas, etc…

The content you produce may also influence how you define your niche. Lastly, you need to consider your competition since you need to differentiate yourself.

Remember that helps growth and maintain a readership:

1. Regularly write posts with original content
2. Concentrate on being useful for your readers
3. Be active in the social media community, not just in the blogosphere

For the last point, I refer you to an excellent post about how to get noticed by the right people written by my friend Lara McCulloch of Ready 2 Spark.

+ photo that I took when I went to the after-party of the Social Gaming Summit 2009 in San Francisco

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I put that story on hold after the long weekend. Plus, the summer vacations are at our door. I am writing this now because it is always after a vacation or a break that it is the hardest to get back to our blogging schedule.

People often ask me if I get the writer’s block. I don’t! I always have more stories than time on my hands. Many elements contribute to that fact. Let’s explore the ones that could be useful to you.

Frequency

The main reason in my mind is the fact that I write every day. The more you write, the easier it gets but most importantly, the more ideas pop up. But that does not mean that you have no chance to succeed if you do not write every day. There are other ways to achieve frequency.

You can write a few tweets about your topic every day, have a conversation with peers, post a few comments on related blogs. The idea is to concentrate on your blog topic for at least 15 to 20 minutes every day.

Do not waste any ideas

Develop a fast system to track potential story lines. I use the notes on my iPhone to do that. Audio notes will work too. Before my iPhone, I used the old fashioned way where I scribbled my thoughts on a pocket notebook that I carried around everywhere.

When you are hooked to your computer, create a draft post on WordPress or Blogger for each future topic.  They will be there whenever you need it.

If you do that daily, it is enough to keep the creative flow active.

RSS Feeds

When I started blogging four years ago, I used to read my RSS feeds every morning before writing my first post. I bookmarked my favorite posts. Sometimes, I would write a post about the best of what you read that day. Most of the times, simply reading your RSS feeds puts your brain in the right set of mind and a story will emerge from nowhere.

Be sure to select a wide enough niche

The key to my inspiration is not only that I write about what I am passionate about. The fact that my topics (home design, entertaining and social media) are very dynamic universes helps a lot. There are always new ideas, new products, practical tips or solutions, sharing experiences to talk about.

If you have problems finding good stories all year long, ask yourself if the angle of your blog confines you. Analyze if it would be appropriate to add a new dimension to your talk.

With everyone having a busy life, people are also looking for curators. Examine how and if you can write useful short posts (75 words or less) a few times a week. Ask yourself what will be useful to your readers may be the only question you should answer to release the creative juice.

For a boost of creativity, watch the handmade video portraits of an inspiring etsy seller, birdhouseaccents.

PHOTO CREDITS:
+ Birdhouses created by Fred and Lynn of Birdhouseaccents on etsy

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I always say to new bloggers that they must try to take their own pictures. Nothing beats original content. Time constraints, money, logistics and talent do not always make it possible.

Most successful food bloggers excel at photography; it is part of their personal brand. Take for example La Tartine Gourmande. We are craving to have a look at her fabulous photos. Bea creates dreamy moments that inspire us and bring happiness to our day. Her writing complements the scenery depicted by her pictures. The whole makes it an awesome experience that encourages us to go back to her blog.

Lifestyle Pictures from Brands

Great pictures also contribute to the success of retailers and distributors. Many brands are known for their superb pictures. Making available inspiring shots also influences the amount of coverage a brand/retailer may get on the blogosphere.

I start any post for At Home with Kim Vallee by creating my photo collage. The photos provided to me or that I am able to find on the Web site of the retailers and the producers influence which products or storyline I will feature. In fact, many of my posts started by a fabulous picture that I spot on a brand Web site. It goes deeper that that since I moved to another story or put it on hold whenever I was unable to get good pictures for a subject.

As more and more brands pitched bloggers for product reviews, I suggest that brands make sure to have a wide selection of creatively styled pictures available. It is in the advantage for both sides that various pictures are shown; it avoids fatigue. As a reader, if I see the same picture over and over, I am less inclined to read the post because it seems like dejà vu.

Product close-up pictures are needed to understand what the product is all about. Make sure to display them on an inviting background. I believe that without including lifestyle pictures on their press package, brands are missing opportunities. If you wish bloggers to talk about your products, make it easy for them. We are busy people.

Having said that, I encourage bloggers to create their own styled pictures if they have the product on hand or if they are at an exhibit. Then, you can use the brand pictures, if needed, to extend your coverage.

+ La Tartine Gourmande
+ Hawaiian Dream Vacation Sweepstakes by Pottery Barn

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I prefer reading blogs through Google Reader. Still, they are people who prefer getting my posts through an email subscription. This is why I provide the option. With Google Feedburner is so simple to do and once you set up the service, it runs by itself.

Use it to Build Loyalty

The popularity of email subscriptions varies per blog. Between 15% to 25% of my subscribed readers (email + RSS feed) opt for the email subscription. Readers can opt to receive an email for every day where you published something.

Since it only takes a few minutes to set up the service on Feedburner and add the proper link to your blog, I advice all bloggers to add this feature. Instead of a link, you could add an email subcription form directly on your blog. The instructions are on Feedburner.

Immediate Access to a Backup

To make sure the system always works fine, I subscribed to my feed by email. This afternoon, I found an unanticipated advantage for me as a blogger. I wanted to delete a draft post. By mistake, I delete a published post. I was desperate since I have no clues about which post I deleted by error. I could have recovered the post via our backup but I was looking for a faster solution.  Simply opening on my inbox gave me all the information to reconstitute the post.

I verify that the post kept the previous URL. It is important to keep any links and trackbacks that refer to your original post (the deleted one). And to fully correct my mistake, I edited the publish date of the post to the original date and time. The information was on the email sent by Feedburner.

Because of my email subscription, my blog is back to  what it was before I made the wrong deletion. I made the corrections in less time that it took me to write this post.

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