On the Web with Kim Vallee » BLOGGING

What an Editorial Calendar Can Do for Bloggers

Kim Vallee — Wed, 19 May 2010 04:34:28 +0000

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

Why I am going back to reading RSS

Kim Vallee — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:28:44 +0000

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?

Why You Need to Preserve Your Blog History

Kim Vallee — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:43:11 +0000

I started to blog in January 28, 2005 with a blog that was called Flair et Style. My first post was about Dwell, the modern architecture and design magazine. I wrote exclusively in French at the time. In fact, I produced two blogs before I switched to the language of Shakespeare.

It is not for reminiscences that I tell you that. It is because I just migrated my closed blogs to WordPress. They were on an obsolete blog platform called Subtext. We will depart from old servers. We must transfer everything that we want to keep online. Since my husband, Jerome Paradis, developed a converter from Subtext to WordPress, it was easy for us to migrate the data. I simply lost the look and feel of the original blogs. It is all right! My goal is only to keep the content alive.

Why it is Important to Keep a Trace?

Think about what you want to do if you stop to write on a blog. Do you wish that the blog lives forever on the Web? For me, it is important to maintain the presence of my first two blogs as a proof that I had two years of blogging experience before I launched At Home with Kim Vallee. A new reality of social media is that part of your CV is publicly available on the Web. This is why I preserve the traces of what I accomplished.

Keep it Simple

Like I said earlier, the important thing is to preserve the content, not the container. I opted for a basic, free WordPress theme that I tailored to the minimum.

I took me a few minutes to tailor Typebased from Woothemes for each site. I do not need any bells and whistles that are common today. I simply created an image for the title, modified four elements on the CSS and configured my sidebar. Voilà! I keep my blog history alive.

MORE:
+ Flair et Style par Kim Vallee
+ Actualiser l’art de recevoir

The New Blogger Template Designer

Kim Vallee — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:34:47 +0000

Since I run a WordPress blog, I rarely talk about the Blogger platform. It is mainly because I never used it. A new developement on the Blogger platform enables me to share a good news for all of you who are on the Blogger platform. The news is a response to the lack of flexibility when it comes to the layout options and the template choices in Blogger.

Google took a step forward yesterday by releasing the Blogger Template Designer, which only available for the moment via their Blogger in Draft site. Blogger in Draft is just like regular Blogger, except with new, in-development features. One big improvement is the choice of one-, two-, and three-column layouts for each template, with complete control over the size and arrangement of the columns. If you are interested in switching right away to a new template.

As you can see from this video, you do not need programming skills to custom made the look of your blog.

If you are on the Blogger platform, you should have a look. You will find all the details of how to use it on Blogger in Draft.

Why I Refuse To Support IE6

Kim Vallee — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:40:42 +0000

Internet Explorer 6 is a very old (it was released in 2001) and buggy browser that caused and is still causing many headaches to Web developers. I took the decision to not support Explorer 6 when I started my At Home blog in 2007. I did it before You Tube, Google and many other mass market sites decided to phase out the support of IE6. In fact, I never checked to see what my blogs look like in IE6.

I still refuse it today even though a WP tool would ease the pain in supporting IE6 for my blogs. I take this stand because I believe that we should promote technological advancements. Supporting IE6 would be against my principles.

Before you make a decision, check out your statistics on Google Analytics. I checked this morning and, to my surprise, 15% of readers viewed my site with IE6. Still their average time on site and page views are slightly lower (only 2 and 6% lower) than the average for the site. I guess my IE6 readers are used to see it the way it is. These statistics reinforce the fact that the extra work to supporting IE would be a waste.

March 24th, 2010 update: After I wrote this and my husband showed me my blog on IE6. The glitches are so little that I know why it does not impact the visitors.

+ photo: IE6′s slowly death on PC World

Time is Money, even for Bloggers

Kim Vallee — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:51:00 +0000

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?

Bloggers Need a clear Editorial and Advertising Policies

Kim Vallee — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:29:59 +0000

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

My Interview on Blog Out Loud

Kim Vallee — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:00:31 +0000

Rebecca Orlov interviewed me for Blog Out Loud. I thought she asked very good questions about blogging and how to use social media for small business. When I read her introduction, I blushed. I feel really honored to have earned her respect.

Giving interview and interviewing other bloggers are effective ways to get word around about what you are doing and share with others. You should include both in your blog marketing strategy.

I am taking the opportunity to spread the word further about the next Blog Out Loud event that will happen March 4th, 2010 in San Francisco. The first 4 Blog Out Loud events were a success. I encourage you to do. It is good for learning, mingling and networking. Get more details here.

+ My Interview
+ Event 5 of Blog Out Loud

My New Year’s Resolution: Balanced and Organized

Kim Vallee — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:20:43 +0000

Jill Fehrenbacher of Inhabitat told us that her New Year’s Resolution is to spend less time in front of her laptop in order to spend more time with her family and friends. It is easy for a blogger who writes about his or her passion to be carried away. After all, it does not feel like work. It is probably why I feel that I succeeded in seamlessly integrating my work into my life.

Jill has a point. Being an editor of a blog could be very time consuming. Running a blog has always been a 24-hour job. It is part of the culture. I guessed it comes from the fact that blogs are about what is happening now. The real-time factor distinguished us from traditional media. But to enjoy a balanced life, we need to look at how we can avoid that. I already have a few ideas to maximize the impacts of my online actions. I will test them and will tell you about it if they make a difference.

With the projects I scheduled for 2010 for kimvallee.com, I also started exploring how to reorganize my work. Since I want a balanced lifestyle without diminishing my professional success, I need efficient tools to plan my work schedule and to delegate more. This is why I include “organized” in my New Year’s resolution.

What is your New Year’s resolution?

+ photo: kikki.k – an awesome stationery store in Australia (they shipped internationally but it is too expensive)

Blog Advertising 101

Kim Vallee — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:01:24 +0000

With the time it takes to run a blog, it is normal than more and more bloggers are looking at ways to make a living with their blog. I often meet people who asked me for advices on blog advertising at parties and conferences. To keep things simple, I will just review the basics of ad banners on this post.

The most frequent questions people asked me are: “How much traffic do I need?”, “Should I start with small advertisers?”, “Go for the big names?”, “How much should I charge?”. These are excellent questions but I will step back and ask “How much time and effort can you put on finding advertisers?”. Do you want to sell direct or to be part of an ad network? The answer is that you may want to do both initially since you probably do not have the traffic and human resources to attract big name advertisers on your own. Keep your options open by staying clear of an exclusive agreement.

Things to Consider

A fixed rate per month is the easiest way to start. Set up a rate structure based on how many ad positions you are allowing per page. Do not aim too low. A button at $50 a month is easy to sell but you will need plenty to make a living. If you prefer a cleaner look with less ads per page, this means you need to charge more per ad to make a living. Premium spots (meaning above the fold) are worth the most.

Ad sizes influence the type of advertisers who will attract. Do your blog template supports the 300×250 ad unit which is the most seeks by big name advertisers? Click here for my post on the most popular ad units. But if your blog focuses on local content, favoring local shops may be the best way for you to go. To fit their smaller budget, you need smaller ad units.

If you sell ads directly, get an ad server. Hardcoding the ads on your blog while managing the schedule is not efficient. To diminish the set up tasks, request a minimum booking of 3 months for small ads and request each month to be paid in advance through your Paypal account. If they prepay in one installment, give them a small discount.

As a publisher, I aim for ad visuals that will not hurt my brand. In fact, this is the reason I got rid of Google Adwords on At Home. The low quality of the ads on the Google Adwords inventory for my niche (home, design, food) meant that I had to constantly block ads. On the other hand, I am happier with the ad quality that Google Adwords generally delivers on On the Web. As you see, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

What to Do Next?

Make a media kit where you highlight your niche, describe your audience, give traffic statistics, and the ad positions on your site with the rates. Advertisers will request that. I also publish an Advertising with Us page on my blog with a summary of the advertising opportunities I offer and how to contact me.

Random Posts

When Blogging Becomes a Job

Kim Vallee — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:49:14 +0000

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

7 Blog Design Rules To Know Before Selecting a Template

Kim Vallee — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:02:30 +0000

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:

Pictures sell. The trend is to go with bigger images. Aim for 500 pixels in width.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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

On the Web with Kim Vallee » BLOGGING

What an Editorial Calendar Can Do for Bloggers

Aim for Better Content

Can Increase Your Ad Revenues

You might also like these posts

Why I am going back to reading RSS

Why did I stop in the first place?

Use Twitter, Facebook and Your Blog as a team

You might also like these posts

Why You Need to Preserve Your Blog History

Why it is Important to Keep a Trace?

Keep it Simple

You might also like these posts

The New Blogger Template Designer

You might also like these posts

Why I Refuse To Support IE6

You might also like these posts

Time is Money, even for Bloggers

How it Applies to the Design and Women Blogosphere?

You might also like these posts

Bloggers Need a clear Editorial and Advertising Policies

You might also like these posts

My Interview on Blog Out Loud

You might also like these posts

My New Year’s Resolution: Balanced and Organized

You might also like these posts

Blog Advertising 101

Things to Consider

What to Do Next?

Random Posts

When Blogging Becomes a Job

My Quest for the Right Job Title

Do We Need a Job Title?

You might also like these posts

7 Blog Design Rules To Know Before Selecting a Template

Make your Image Google-friendly

You might also like these posts