I was proud to read what Genevieve wrote on O.xide Design’s blog about my coverage of working with them for my husband’s birthday party. Gen wrote: “Bloggers like Kim are more like editors of magazines”. Even if Genevieve only met me once, she understood what I do for living.

Her comment brings the question of defining my job title. How do professional bloggers differentiate themselves from the casual bloggers? How we differentiate the different types of professional bloggers? You get the corporate bloggers, the bloggers for hire and the bloggers like me who are creating their own publishing company.

My Quest for the Right Job Title

After months of telling people that I was a professional blogger, I noticed a flaw. It does not convey my business goal. I must not forget that I am entrepreneur. I founded KimVallee.com to be a publishing company, a recognized media authority. I am the founding editor of that brand and this is where I put my energy all day.

Being a small business owner has its challenge. When you are a blogger, you are at the front of the brand. So, how do you disconnect your role from the brand? I feel that my job title should take into account the positioning of the brand.

Do We Need a Job Title?

Some people argue that job titles have become irrelevant. Maybe! After all, I am a lifestyle and entertaining expert when I give interviews for newspapers or magazines. I am the editor of a women online magazine (or a blog) when I meet people in my daily activities. That distinction works fine.

Still, we need to quickly tell new acquaintances what we do for living. You must take into account that the people you will meet are not necessary savvy in your area of expertise. Therefore, it is easier to refer to job titles that everyone can understand. This is why I say more often that I am the editor of a women online magazine instead of the editor of a blog. Or maybe it is because I always treated At Home with Kim Vallee (my main blog) as a women magazine.

What are your thoughts? Any advices?

+ photo by Jérôme Paradis at Webcom Montreal

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Newspapers are endangered species. Like many industries, it must adapt to its time. Although it is easier to read a print media, the hyperlinks, the velocity of the news and the multimedia power of the Internet clearly highlighted the weakness of the print media. Look at how this article I read on the San Francisco magazine is enriched by simply putting the hyperlinks.

Journalism is not dead but to survive these professionals must adapt. San Francisco is known for being a bed of fresh ideas. San Francisco magazine produced two excellent articles this July on how journalism could adapt to better serve their communities.

IDEO explores how we might someday experience the news

I particularly like the conclusions from an IDEO retreat on the future of journalism. If you do know them, IDEO is a consulting firm renowned for its creative problem solving. They take a design approach to create human-centered innovation and how to experience products and services.

The Power of Being Hyperlocal

People care about what happen in their communities. Readers said over and over that they want hyperlocal information and coverage on niche topics. They care about what affects their daily life. The Web enables anyone, including news media, to deliver specific choices to people. But the local newspapers cannot afford anymore to properly cover the news by neighborhoods. Many blogs have filled that gap and gained the trust of their readers.

Blogs are an affordable way to cater to a specific crowd. By establishing partnerships with residents, passionate bloggers and citizen journalists who concentrate on niches, local newspapers could aggregate these local stories. Then, the local newspapers could concentrate on more global stories. This is one way they can modernize their process.

Social media offers great ways to deliver the news. Anyone in the community could report and comments on facts and events. Non-profit news agency could provide fact-checking services that even citizen journalists could afford.

Multimedia Storytelling

Some journalism schools are starting to recognize the current challenge and the need to prepare their students for the new reality of journalism.

Berkeley provides a Digital News Project where 60 students participated so far. Thanks to a $500,000 grant from Ford Foundation, they produced 7 hyperlocal news Websites where they put in practice multimedia storytelling.

The content is excellent and well researched. In fact, Mission Local, on the most popular site, repeatedly scooped the San Francisco Chronicle on breaking news stories in 2008. There is a bright future for journalism.  And I wish that citizens and bloggers could collaborate in this adventure.

MORE:
+ Ignore the clutter by Caroline Lea
+ Newspapers are dead. Long live journalism! by Nina Martin
+ News Flash from the Future produced by IDEO
+ Credits: Shown Illustrations by Tom Manning for IDEO

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Whenever a new technology becomes popular, it challenges the status quo. It takes time for the world to adapt the vocabulary, their practices and job titles to reflect the new reality. We are experiencing it with blogs.

The problematic comes at every level of our life. I am the editor-in-chief of two blogs; this is what I do for living. I noticed the first impact last year. We traveled a lot and the custom officials will ask what I do for living. The first week, I instinctively answered I’m a blogger. What did you say? answered the guy at the customs. I settled for writer for the rest of our trips. Since then, I updated to editor-in-chief of a magazine. It is better keep it simple before boarding a plane.

Which brings me to the second occurrence where bloggers/editors of blogs must use another title: trade shows and media events. Have you try to fill a media pass request for a design show lately? Blogger or Editor of a blog is not a function available. Your only choice is to answer Journalist.

I got the idea to write about this important topic when I read the start of a post by Gwen Bell:

[This is what happens when you're asked to come as a new media journalist to experience the opening of a new ride at an amusement park. This was the Manta Media Day at SeaWorld (with bonus scenes from Busch Gardens).]

Gwen Bell writes a popular blog on branding, social media and creativity. She is an entrepreneur (Kirsty partner), an educator plus a social media speaker and consultant. She does not define herself as a journalist on Twitter, on her blog or on LinkedIn.

Why do we need to use the term New Media Journalist?

The corporate world has still to define us in their structure. In the meantime, savvy marketers recognized that bloggers are influencers. But to sell the idea of inviting a bunch of bloggers to a event, they rely on the term Journalist to get their expenses approve by who is in charge.

Dear journalists be lenient; I prefer to be called an editor of a blog. Until that day, I do not any other choice to bring original content to my readers. Changes in terminology will occur eventually.

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• Tourism Montreal hiring bloggers

Here is how it works

Instead of giving possible dates and time or listing when you are not available in an email, simply send a link that automatically keeps up to date of your availability. Tungle works in sync with your preferred calendar: Google Calendar, MS Outlook, Entourage for Mac and Apple iCal. I tried it with iCal and it works fine.

You can send and receive requests to book a meeting with you.

People can propose you several timeslots without registering. If they do not registered, they will need to confirm their email before you received their email with the proposed timeslots.

From the email you get a link that enables you to:

• pick a time that suits you from the calendar, then click to book the email and notice the other party
• send other proposed dates and times
• tell them that you will not attend the meeting.

As a bonus, Tungle will prevent the risk of double-booking a timeslot. But this is only true if you do not make typing errors, like I did last week. I entered A.M. instead of P.M. while recording an appointment with my iPhone. The appointment is for next week. I will send that person my personal Meet with Me link now. I suggest you get your own.

MORE:
+ Tungle
+ Via a tweet by afrognthevalley

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• When Blogging Becomes a Job
• IDEO’s Innovative Ideas on the Future of Journalism
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• Tourism Montreal hiring bloggers

If you are serious about attracting advertisers and sponsors, start by keeping a writing schedule. Consistency is important to build traffic. You wish to create a routine with your readers. Establish a schedule that is compatible with your agenda. The more you post, the more pages views you will get.

Ideally, you should aim to publish at set time. I am not there yet. With WordPress, you can schedule in advance the date and time a post will be published. Try to always keep a few posts in backup for when you are too busy.

One advantage for bloggers in the women and mom category is that advertisers wish to connect to women. This is because women are responsible for most of the shopping in a household. We are in the best position to attract advertisers and are often asked for product reviews.

Be Picky with Your Reviews

In fact, brands solicit women and mom blogs for product reviews at an increasing rate. That is why you should be coherent and carefully select the products you will write about. Think about what your brand stands for and if the product fits well within that identity.

Take At Home with Kim Vallee. It is a collection of things I like. Negative reviews won’t fit within my concept. Therefore, the merchants send me the products without any guarantee of a coverage. Even if I like the product, I may never talk about it. They cannot interfere with what, when or if I will talk about something. I published a simple policy on my At Home blog. I encourage you to write your own.

It is important for bloggers to maintain a separation between editorial content and advertising. You wish to preserve the trust and credibility you build with your readers. Remember that you can only be an influencer if people trust what you say. It is not just your traffic but also your power as an influencer that attracts the right advertisers to your site.

Let’s watch my session.

Learning from Two Podcasters who Monetized their Shows

Matt Campagna and Anastasia Tubanos gave an excellent session on how to be considered a legitimate media. They talked about how to make money with a podcast. One of the income sources that grab my attention is sponsorship. For example, sponsored events would fit within the scope of my At Home with Kim Vallee brand.

March 10th, 2009 update: what was original intended to be part 4 was the question period. The participants did not a micro so we do not hear well their questions, so I decided to not publish it

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The Gazette about the latest initiative of Tourisme Montreal to promote the city. They wish to hire on a part-time basis bloggers as ambassador to cover what is happening in Montreal.

This great initiative generated bad comments about bloggers being paid for hiring. Let’s make some facts very clear. The bloggers will not blog on their blog. They will publish their text, photos and videos on their dedicated page on Tourisme Montréal’s website.

I suspect Sid Lee with Tourisme Montreal wanted to reach to bloggers because we know how to write engaging stories. They also expect these ambassadors to talk about it in social media. Basically, they will be do the job of a Community Manager, which as far as I know is a real job position for which people are being paid at companies.

Blogger Recognition

What this initiative by Tourisme Montreal / Sid Lee proves is that the skills of bloggers are being recognized. Bloggers are writers who know how to navigate within social networks.

Most bloggers blogs as an hobby. This means the average bloggers earn their living doing something else. Many will like to make a living out by doing what they basically do when blogging or podcasting. Monetizing is the hottest topic for sessions at the upcoming PodCamp Toronto 2009. And yes, I believe blogging come become a profession (although my business model is based on advertising, not paid content).

But for the moment what Tourisme Montreal is looking for are Community Managers to cover 5 lifestyle scenes. They made the mistake of using the proper job designation. Something it does not work to try to be cool!

To close my argument, I invite you to watch the insightful comment by Todd Lucier.

+ More details on Marketing Mag

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A sign of the lack of girls in IT: I just wrote my name to attend iPhoneDevCamp. I am the only girl in a list of 36 participants so far.I am going there because I have ideas for iPhone applications that I will like to launch.

The iPhoneDevCamp will be at Station C in Montreal, January 23rd 2009 from 4 pm to about 10 pm. It is free as  far as I know.  Click here if you wish to attend.

You might also like these posts

• When Blogging Becomes a Job
• IDEO’s Innovative Ideas on the Future of Journalism
• Reality Check on the Need for a New Media Journalist Title
• Tungle Simplifies Booking Appointments
• Talking Blog Monetizing on my Updated Look at Women and Social Media Presentation – Part 3 of 3