October 2010

Blogging For Dollars: How To & How Not To

by Blogging Angels on October 27, 2010

Mom bloggers and money: if you’re not Dooce or The Pioneer Woman, is there any to be made?

The good news is, yes.  This week the Blogging Angels discuss how their blogs make them money, whether directly through advertising and sponsored posts or indirectly through conference sponsorships or freelance writing jobs.

The bad news?  For most of us, blogging will not be a path to getting rich.  But money isn’t the only reason we’re blogging, right?  If we just wanted to make money we’d go work for somebody else!

Our Golden Halos (plus some devil horns!) for the week:

Rebecca gave devil horns to NYC School Food, for still serving chocolate milk with HFCS when there are many other chocolate milk options out there.

In contrast, Rebecca gave her halo to Wellness in the Schools.

Nancy gave her halo to @ProBlogger, because he can help you make money with your blog.

Heidi gave her golden halo to Another Lunch, which gives great ideas on making interesting lunches for your kids.

Amy gave her halo to Liz at Mom 101, for being a brilliant voice of reason in the sometimes hyper world of mom blogging.

And we also discussed…

Amy had great success with Blogads.com back when her main blog was FilmingInBrooklyn.com, but not so much on SelfishMom.com

OpenSky is a completely new way of selling products through your blog, and Ted Rubin is always happy to answer questions.

Adsense also did not work well for Amy, but some blogs make a ton off of Adsense ads.

It’s not just all about blog stats: your reach on Twitter and Facebook is important too.

Some different ways to track stats are Google Analytics, Alexa, Compete, and Quantcast.

PhD In Parenting had a good post about the HFCS debacle (as did Mom 101).

{ 0 comments }

We are So PC – Ben “The PC Guy” and Lisa Worthington Lend Their Microsoft PR Expertise

by Blogging Angels on October 20, 2010

Blogging Angels Recording SessionThis week The Blogging Angels were lucky enough to have two Microsoft mavens guest angel on the podcast: Ben “The PC Guy” Rudolph and Lisa Worthington. The pretzel M&Ms were flowing as the Angels grilled Ben and Lisa about the ins and outs of Windows Live Writer and the best PCs for bloggers on the go (and yes you will be amazed by Ben’s insane PC hardware knowledge base). Do you want to know how bloggers should approach brands like Microsoft? What Microsoft looks for in a blogger and what you shouldn’t do when trying to work with a brand? How do the pros separate their personal and work lives online? Listen in this week and get the inside scoop on PR and blogger relationships and much more from these two incredibly well spoken guests! And at the very end is an earth (or Windows) shattering confession by one of our very own Angels…

Check out this week’s Golden Halos:

Nancy revealed that Smart Brief keeps her up to date on all the latest social media news so she can be extra smart every week.

Heidi threw a halo over – gasp! – a dad blogger, Howard Ludwig. Check out his thoughtful, well-written column Ludwig@Home on TheFatherLife.com.

Amy wanted to help a struggling new blog – CNET. Is there anywhere else worth going to for in depth reviews? No.

Rebecca loves Ellen Seidman in real life, and on her blog Love That Max. But, especially wanted to give her a halo for withstanding the crazy commenters on her Redbook Halloween article that Lisa Belkin wrote about.

Guest Angel Lisa gave her first ever halo to the Photography Corner on The Mom Bloggers Club. We concur that Jennifer James‘ site is full of fabulous advice for all aspects of blogging. (and we’re jealous of Lisa’s Nikon D5000)

Guest Angel (or Charlie?)Ben’s halo cast a golden glow around the Windows Phone 7. He’s been lucky enough to test it out for a while now and says it’s the first phone that allows him to get work done and get back to his life. Check out the cool new Windows Phone 7 commercials that we were watching before we began the podcast.

Here are links to some of the things we talked about this week:

What are Ben’s best PC recommendations for bloggers? We had to write them down, he has them all in his head…

Ultra portable: Asus UL Series, Toshiba R705, HP DM4, Sony Vaio Z (drool worthy)

Netbooks: Gateway LT320,HP Mini 311, Asus EEE PC 1215N

Ben singled out Ina Fried of CNet (remember them?) – as someone who is a true professional and someone he always looks forward to seeing

Lisa talked about the importance of a genuine relationship and cited Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet as a key person for her.

How do Lisa and Ben manage their twitter personalities? Follow them at @BenThePCGuy and @WinMommyLisa to find out.

{ 10 comments }

Blogging and Brands: It’s Complicated

by Blogging Angels on October 14, 2010

If you’re a blogger, chances are you’ve been approached by a brand to do a review, attend an event, try their product or talk up their latest and greatest.

And that’s great. And complicated.

This week, The Blogging Angels are talking about brands and bloggers and how the two interact. What does a brand owe a blogger?  What do bloggers owe brands? How much loyalty can brands expect from unpaid bloggers? How much do they deserve?

It’s a tough topic, but somebody’s got to tackle it.

Do you have thoughts about how to deal with brands?   Have you had experiences — good or bad — you’d like to share?  Leave a comment below and join our conversation about blogs, brands and the best way to build relationships between the two.

Our Golden Halos for the most click-worthy posts and people on the web go to:

From Heidi: Mom in the City, because she knows how to work with brands.

From Amy - The Consumerist. Because they don’t take advertising, and they really, really crack her up.

From Nancy - MamaPundit’s post about how to talk to her after the death of her son. Not because it has anything to do with brands, but because it’s the best thing she’s read on the web — or anywhere – in a while.

From Becca –  The launch of LegoUniverse and the Lego brand.   Because she loves the the new game and the old school legos, loves working with them and thinks they do a great job of working with bloggers.

Here are some links about the brand events we talk about on the show:

Nancy and Rebecca talked about meeting two Food Network stars – Bobby Flay and Marcella Valladolid – in one week.

All of the Angels went to the Zumba Fitness Video game event, which was a blast, and also featured the super cool Microsoft Kinect for XBox.

Nancy mentioned the Mouthy Housewives brand-full event where she got an LG vacuum that literally scared the crap out of her dog.

And yes, Rebecca really did go to an event about toilet paper.   Which would be weird, except that Tori Spelling was there.  Oh, wait. Still weird.

Keep the comments and ideas coming!  We want to talk about what you want to hear. So let us know what’s on your mind.

{ 6 comments }

When Social Networkers Socialize: Conferences

by Blogging Angels on October 7, 2010

Blogalicious, Mom 2.0, Blissdom. If you wanted to, you could practically go to a blogging conference every week. Which, come to think of it, would be fun, since blogging conferences tend to be as much social events as learning opportunities.
But most of us have lives outside of blogging.  We have houses to run, and kids to think about. Bills to pay. We can’t just be running off to every conference on the planet. We can’t afford to go to every conference.

So which conferences are worth attending? What makes a good conference? What works, what doesn’t, and what drives us absolutely bonkers when we go to them?

What are conferences for, anyway?

This week, the Blogging Angels are talking conferences: the good, the bad, and the annoying.

Listen in, then join in the conversation: What do you expect out of a conference? What makes them worthwhile? And what makes them a waste of your mighty minimal free time? Blogging Angels want to know.

This week’s Golden Halos go to the week’s most click-worthy sites.

Amy, after a half-hour of talking conferences, decided to give a Golden Halo to the one she loves most: Blissdom, where, she says “the trains always run on time!”

Heidi gave her halo to LaunchHer.com. Launch Her is all about helping women launch small businesses, or take their small businesses to the next level.

At Web 2.0, Rebecca heard Nick Bilton, NY Times lead technical writer and author of “I Live in the Future and Here’s How it Works,” and kinda fell in (totally professional and non-stalkery) love. Her Golden Halo goes out to Bilton for his funny, charming, and smart take on tech.

This week, Nancy discovered tungle.me, an online scheduler that really does what it says it will: it makes your life easier. How? It lets everybody see when everybody else is available, and makes scheduling group meetings (or Blogging Angel Podcasts) a breeze.

Here are links to some of the other topics and sites we talked about this week:
Parallel Path offered some great SEO advice at Web 2.0
BlogWorld is the biggest Social Media Conference in the world.
CES is a gadget geek’s dream event!
Rebecca and Nancy met a NYC based blogger they’d never met before!! Nice to meet you NYC Girl at Heart!

{ 3 comments }