Over the last year, a switch happened in the blogosphere. People with influence have stopped working for nothing. I think this is only fair.

Looking at the signs, I initially thought this was a trend occurring within the design and women blogosphere. This way until I read two posts written by social media consultants that were saying that if you want their time you will have to pay what it is worth. Chris Brogan wrote a post about his Price points. Then, Taylor Ellwood explained Why I no longer do Free in my business.

How it Applies to the Design and Women Blogosphere?

I think that bloggers who write about products, stores and restaurants should take notes. With all the brands pitching us stuff that suit their agenda, it comes a time when we have to say “this is enough”. Otherwise, how we can expect to make a living from blogging. I think beyond the banner ads as a monetizing technique.

Take for example, the sales alerts and store events. I receive many emails every week from retailers about these topic alone. But announcing a sale or another promotional event is a form of advertisement that the retailer should pay for. Why not have a classified section or published a (clearly marked) sponsored post once a week announcing the sales?

I suggest you reexamine what you are willing to do for free and think about how much you could charge for certain services. I am talking about services like giveaways, contests, sale alerts, and announcements. These are straight-forward marketing tactics that I feel brands should pay a fee to bloggers if they want some type of coverage.

So, what do you think? Do you charge for these services?

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Bloggers continue to grow their influence. More and more traditional print media recognized how the blogosphere and social media forced them to evolve. As an avid magazine lover, I am happy that they embrace the Web.

We can co-exist and support each others. Margaret Russell pointed out in her January/February 2010 Editor’s page the contributions of bloggers in providing insights about what people like:

And design bloggers have stimulated an animated and powerful dialogue based largely on images published in magazines. They are our treasured partners, and the conversation they engender and sense of community they encourage benefit us all.

At the end of the day, we all enjoy more great design ideas. I encourage you to read her editorial article.

+ photo: Elle Decor

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If you follow social media, you probably read the headlines about the numbers of Facebook fans. (November 30th, 2009 Update: On average, Facebook pages have 4, 596 fans). The highlight of the latest survey by Sysomos is that 77 percent of Facebook fan pages have less than 1,000 fans.  I read different theories about why or how to fix this. So here is my two cents.

First of all, let’s not forget that many small businesses, local designers and blogs have Facebook pages. Many of them has embraced Facebook as an affordable way to promote their brand. The owner or their marketing people typically passes a few hours a week or a month managing their social media presence.

Second, except for a small group, big names have not fully take advantage of Facebook pages. Many large corporations or organizations do not have a community manager or social media spokesperson on their payroll. Some people blamed the lack of a proper social strategy for the small numbers of fans. Yes, Facebook is not the answer for every business but I would tell you that getting the manpower to realize the strategy is more than often the biggest obstacle, besides misconceptions about social media. One thing is certain: If you do not engage with your fans, you cannot expect to get millions of fans just like that.

Lastly, Techcrunch noted that Facebook pages are typically updated every 16 days. They argue that Facebook users become a fan to show their support of affinity while people follow a brand on Twitter to hear what they have to say. There made some valid points. In fact, this is why I do not say or show the same things on my Facebook pages than on Twitter. The level of conversation is different. And maybe the problem is that brands have more trouble figuring out what to say on Facebook.

+ via Techcrunch where you can find more statistics about the survey by Sysomos

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It is not really a surprising news if you ask me. First of all, I told you about the female Internet in autumn 2008. At the time, I reported that Women’s community was the most visited and fastest growing Internet category, tied with politics according to ComScore Media Metrix’s year-end report.

I attributed these statistics to the fact that women are the ones who typically lead conversations, share information amongst themselves and create relationships with their peers. This is basically what social media is all about. What surprised me is what age groups haves the most users. As you can see, it is either 35 to 44 years old or 45 to 55 years old.

I added the more popular age group on the graph produced by Information is Beautiful. The data were compiled by Brian Solis.

+ via a tweet by Miss Rogue

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Look at your fan page as a destination for your fans to connect with your brand and amongst themselves. If you accept the fact that the content of your fan page does not have to be just about your brand, it reduces the amount of original content you will need to produce. Here are two ways to make it easy:

1. allow your fans to post their content
2. put content produced by others that is relevant to your readers.

By letting your fans posting their content, you will learn more about them. It gives you a chance to discover:

• what they care about,
• what they do,
• what they like about your blog or your products/services,
• what they want to know.

Their content can inspire new blog stories. If you are a business, letting your fans speak freely enables you to discover how people really use your products in their daily life and what are their expectations. It is also a good tool to discover influencers.

Fans are not necessary Your Blog Readers

One thing I noticed as a blogger active in my local community is that not all my fans read my blog. My case may be special. While these non reader fans are a minority, I welcome them.

I noticed that the gender split of At Home with Kim Vallee‘s fans is different from my readership. The reason is that many business bloggers that I am friend with and often met at conferences decided to show their support by becoming fans of At Home with Kim Vallee.

These social media and tech bloggers do not read At Home with Kim Vallee. Reading my tweets, seeing my post links on Facebook and knowing me personally enabled them to determine that my blog was worthy of their support. Although they are a minority, having their support gives my blog (and my brand) exposure outside my targeted circle. Having their trust adds to my credibility. This is one thing a fan page can do to support the growth of your blog.

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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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Social media is not only for people. It provides great opportunities for businesses, when done right. Social media allows any business to engage, listen, share and exchange ideas with consumers like you never been able to do it before. Plus, I feel that you can discover way more than with traditional communications and running controlled focus groups. You will discover the truth about what people feels and thinks.

One friend who shares my passion for social media in the business is Lara McCulloch, Marketing Director at Regal Tent Productions Ltd. I met her last year while blogging. We had dinner together last winter after the IDS 09 in Toronto.

Lara produced a blog called Ready 2 Spark but she is also a change agent in her industry. Lara organizes Twitter chat events twice a week where event professionals discuss matters affecting their industry. Her #eventprofs Twitter chat have been noticed by Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media and will be included as a good practice in the The Twitter Book.

I am telling you all this because Lara wrote an article for Special Events Magazine last month about the need for change in business marketing and communications. She made a good argument on why business must adapt and take advantage of the possibility that social media offers to them. She addressed some of the most common fear by management.

MORE:
+ The World is Changing … Why Aren’t You? in Special Events Magazine

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Still I like to check the life cycle of post links I published on Twitter. To track the statistics you must login to Bit.ly and shorten your URL on BIT.ly instead of TweetDeck or other desktop applications for Twitter. This enables me to get the statistics from the links I directly triggered. People that retweet my tweet (with the link) will be included.

If you do it often and over a long period, you can discover which content works best. It is important to quickly grasp what content works and which one do not. This is one of the several components that define your power as an influencer.

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Continue with part 3 about monetarizing a blog.

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In the first part, I highlighted key statistics about women Internet usage.  Learn why and how women use social media. These statistics will help any blogger grasp the extent of the women and mom social media universe.

Continue with part 2

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Many persons express the view that it is reducing the role of the women. But I think they are missing the point. Elle France/WIKIO determines the influencers based on their scope of interest. You do not browse Elle France to read about a blogger who writes about how big corporations plan their Web strategy. This is about niche market.

The Other Side of the Medal

No one get offended when none of the top women and moms bloggers appear on the top 50 women bloggers of the Web. These lists do not specify that they only considered female consultants working on politics, tech products or brand marketing.

I see plenty of Top Women Blogger Lists with names of the list that seem to me (because I do not know them) less popular or influential than the top bloggers in our community. Having said that does not mean that the recipients do not deserve to be on the list.

In fact, most lists do not include women and moms blogs because the authors were not aware of their existence; they are even less able to assess their true power. At the end of the day, you can also only judge what you know.

The point I wish to make is that the Elle France/WIKIO compilation and any similar awards have nothing to do with the role of women in society. Each Top list is representative of who influence a person or a group. And this is based on the scope of interest of the publication.

Update Dec. 19, 2008: I found a Top 12 Women Real Estate Bloggers for 2008. Some Best Blogger lists are detailed on their scope after all.

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