Alrighty! Now that we’ve got the best part of HLS covered, we can move on to the nitty gritty, blogging-related details of the actual conference itself. While I can’t deny that my main motivation for attending was definitely getting a chance to meet some of my favourite bloggers, I was also really looking forward to picking up some new blogging tips, and that’s what the majority of Saturday was all about…
We had a pretty packed schedule, and I ended the day with those four highlighted sessions under my belt. Each one was full of some pretty good info, which I dutifully took down so I could share with you guys…
You can thank me in cookies. Or cereal. Or coffee. Or almond butter 😉
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Blogs in Transition: Embracing Your Blog
Tips on how to find your blogging voice and develop a consistent blogging schedule.
How to Find Your Blogger Voice
- Write a mission statement. This is your voice and personality – your “brand.” It’s basically who you’re going to be and the image you’re going to give across. Be consistent and stay true to it.
- Be authentic. Don’t try to be who people expect you to be. Don’t try to be perfect.
- Write the way you speak. Treat blogging like you’re having a conversation with a friend.
- Coin your own phrases, terms, and slogans (eg. WIAW, MIMM, Thinking Out Loud). Over time, people begin to associate these phrases with you, making you easier to identify.
- Make your design an accurate reflection of you. Use colours, images, themes, etc. that you enjoy.
How to Develop A Consistent Blogging Schedule
- Be realistic about what you can achieve. You don’t HAVE to blog every single day. It’s better to have fewer, better quality posts than put out lackluster content just for the sake of posting.
- Spend some time each month brainstorming. Depending on what time of the year it is, you can pick a theme to focus on and base a lot of your posts around that.
- Create an editorial calendar. Pencil in what topics you’re going to post about ahead of time so that you’re not left scrambling to come up with content. Keep it flexible.
- Plan ahead! If you have a busy week/month coming up, devote some time over the weekend to come up with a posting schedule. Reach out for guest posts if you need to.
Focus on Your Design
- Create a header in PicMonkey. A nice header makes your blog look more appealing and professional. It’s free and easy to do [Tutorial].
- Have social media buttons. Make sure it’s easy for people to follow you with buttons for Facebook, Twitter, RSS, and Instagram in your sidebar.
- Add/update pages. Research your top posts — see what people are most interested in.
- Update your sidebar. This can be done with recent tweets, posts, recipes, etc. Keep things current.
- Add badges to your sidebar. This helps people see what you’re up to (eg. Sweat Pink, Fitfluential, upcoming races, etc.).
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From Blog to Job: Using Your Blog to Elevate Your Career
Just because blogging isn’t your job doesn’t mean it can’t help you find one.
- A blog is a great way to get your foot in the door and put your name out there.
- Use your blog as a portfolio — make it good quality because you never know who’s going to stumble upon it.
- Use your blog to explore what you’re passionate about.
- Include your blog on your resume. It shows your personality and what you’re passionate about.
- Great news for smaller blogs! Companies are interested in how fast you’re growing, not necessarily how big of a following you already have.
- Quality counts! Many brands prefer someone who is a better, more passionate writer than people who have a huge following.
- Don’t be afraid to submit your writing/recipes to companies and magazines. You have nothing to lose and might get lucky!
- Find mentors. Talk to other bloggers and ask for advice. Don’t be afraid to reach out to bigger bloggers with your questions.
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The Organized Blogger
Tips, tricks, and tools for staying organized in blogging.
Organization and Content Creation
- Have a plan. Create an editorial calendar (monthly/weekly)
- Plan out what your posts are going to concentrate on (theme) – this gives you focus makes it easier to come up with content.
- Be flexible. Stay within your theme 50-80% of the time and keep things fresh.
- Tools for content creating:
- Blogger friendships. Bounce ideas off one another.
- Windows Live Writer (PC) and Mars Edit (Mac).
Tips on Blogging More Productively
- Use your time wisely! Set aside a certain amount of time to complete a task and devote that entire time slot to working on it. A great tool for tracking your time is Online-Stopwatch.com.
- Limit multitasking. Keep your work focused.
- Track your time online. Limit online distractions by monitoring what sites you spend the most time on. A site like Rescue Time can do this for you.
- Create short-term and long-term goals. Reward yourself when you achieve them.
- Listen to the right music. Focus@will is a site that will play good ambient music for you.
Community Involvement
- Be an active part of the blogging community. Never underestimate the power of collaboration and connection.
- Become a person known for sharing valuable content via Twitter, Feedly, Buffer, Facebook, etc.
- Use the time you have available to you. Be invested on the go — Tweet while walking. Hop on Instagram while waiting in line. Make the most of the time you have.
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Blogger and The Brand
How to build quality relationships with brands.
What Every Brand Wishes Bloggers Knew:
- Brands prefer working with bloggers who have already tried their products/services.
- Be concise. Tell a brand what you would like from the outset.
- Reach out with your own ideas. Don’t just wait for them to pitch an idea to you.
- Brag a bit. Include your stats and any other successes with blogging – be tenacious! Don’t give up!!
- Budgets are limited so be open to other ways brands can add value to you besides payment.
Ground Rules for Both Sides:
- Determine if your values align before making any outreach (ie. Don’t reach out to a vegan product if you are not a vegan).
- Be each others’ fans. Follow each other on Twitter, like each other on Facebook, comment on posts, and participate in conversations.
- Make it easy to say ‘yes’. Both sides should be detailed and clear in the initial pitch phase and keep it uncomplicated for everyone.
- Keep communication open and honest. Be clear from the state about both parties’ goals for the project to make sure everyone feels like they benefit from the relationship.
Tips for Bloggers Working With Brands:
- Just say no. Not every brand is the right fit for your blog and it’s okay to say “no” in order to say “yes” to the right opportunities.
- Be proactive and reach out to the brands you admire and really want to work with.
- Disclose! Understand FTC guidelines to protect yourself and your blog.
- Go above and beyond with a little extra – a post, tweet, etc.
- Don’t try to do it all. Keep your deliverables simple and stick to what you are good at.
- Show your value. When approaching brands, be sure to explain in detail how the partnership is beneficial to both parties. Bloggers add:
- Targeted Awareness
- Credibility
- Compelling Content
- SEO
- Candid and Helpful Feedback
- Be honest! Even if it’s a bad review, you build credibility by being honest with your readers.
- If you don’t like a product, tell the brand beforehand and they might find a better fit for you.
- Ask for something different to review. Brands like to receive positive feedback.
- Remember YOUR worth. Reviews take time and effort. Don’t spend time on things that are not worth it to you.
Tips on Approaching Brands:
- Just ask! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
- Be picky! Approach companies you admire and want to work with.
- It’s okay if they say no. Sometimes it takes persistence to make a connection.
- Don’t put out too many requests at one time. There’s nothing worse than a string of posts that are nothing but product reviews.
- Media kits are not always required from the outset. Only give numbers if a company asks.
- Say thank you! Being polite and professional encourages a lasting relationship.
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Yowza. So that post was a monster, but like I said… there was a lot of good into to share. There are just so many little tips and tricks to blogging, that you could probably study it forever and constantly have something new to learn. Daunting, but exciting at the same time.
Happy Tuesday, friendly faces! 😀
Bloggers: What’s one area of blogging that you need to work on? Consistency? Productivity? Organization? Outreach? Design? Productivity is definitely my downfall… I need to start using my time more wisely and stop trying to multitask so much.
Do you consider multitasking to be beneficial or detrimental to productivity?
Thanks for sharing! Looks like a really informative day. I definitely need to work on consistency, among other things. :/
This is such wonderful and useful information! I can’t wait to start putting some of it to good use. Thanks for sharing!
That’s an awesome bunch of tips. Thanks for sharing them!!
Awesome! Thank you so much for diligently taking notes so all of us n0n-attendees can benefit from what you learned at HLS, too. That’s so sweet of you.
Even though I think/hope my blog has developped ever since I started I feel there’s still a lot to learn. Then again I don’t necessarily think learning is a bad thing – especially not when related to things I enjoy :). Most important to me would be improving my organisation, productivity and consistency. Though the latter really depends on how many ideas I have – or better yet: if I don’t just have a million post drafts of a quarter lenght that I have yet to finish. Might be due to multitasking, too. My downfall …
Looking forward to putting some of the advice you shared to use.
WOW thank you for sharing all of this! Such incredible advice and insight! Can’t wait to put some of this to good use with my own blog! 🙂
Ah the sidebar. What a girl with a “free” WordPress wouldn’t give to have a sidebar that always shows and is more easily manipulatable. Le sigh. Thanks for sharing this, as a new blogger it’s super helpful to have these tip resources!
Most of us started out with a free WordPress blog 🙂 You never know what’ll happen with time!
Thanks for sharing! I need to work on Design and Outreach with my blog. I’ve loved the products that I’ve reviewed and I’d love to work with more brands.
So basically, if anyone asks me what I learned at HLS I’m just going to direct them here. Such a great recap love! I think when it comes to blogging, i need to be more proactive. i tend to put things off because I don’t think that companies or organizations will be interested in me because I’m not a big blogger – hence why it took me like a million years to reach out to an advertising company :-p The tip that companies are more interested in how much you’re growing is definitely some motivation to reach out a little bit more. I also remember someone mentioning that companies are more interested in bloggers who are already familiar with and a big fan of their products – I’m starting to work on a list of companies that I’d love to work with in the future.
P.S. I miss you!!! <3
Proactivity is definitely something that I struggle with as well. One thing that I found really beneficial to hear was the importance of persistence and not getting discouraged if a company says no at first. I’m working on my list of interests as well… we need to swap ideas some time 😉
P.S. – ridiculous withdrawals over here…
Great recap! I definitely need to take advantage of all of the organizational options that are out there. I have a list from HLS that I’m planning on taking a little time to go through.
This was a long post but it was FULL of useful information. You summed things up in a good way and I definitely got some key tips. I need to work on my social media involvement… Not just for my blog but just interaction with other bloggers. I feel like I need to have a better way of connecting with people more! I struggle with setting a time schedule for myself and getting myself out there to have things to blog about in the first place. Lol
All great tips – thanks so much for sharing! I would like to work on organization, planning ahead, and my photography!
I’m always up for blog-improvement talk if you ever want to chat 😀
Totally! Do you have g-chat?
I don’t! But I’d definitely be open to looking into it.
Love all the detailed tips! Now I feel like I was there 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing!
Love this post. I feel like I was there 🙂 kinda.. haha but seriously thanks for recapping all this amazing info! I think I need to work on the design aspect of my blog. I already re-designed once (when I went self hosted) but now I want to spruce it up even more! But I’m a little frightened.
It would have been AWESOME if you were there! And I know it seems like a daunting task, but once you get your foot in the door and start, you’ll see it’s really not that baad. Baby steps!
Oh wow, thank you for sharing all of these really helpful tips! It looks like you got a lot of really helpful information from the sessions. I love blogging, reading other blogs and getting to know bloggers but really had no idea that a good bit of time goes into it. Thinking of topics and ideas for posts when you have free time is a great idea.
I’m so glad you shared these tips! I had a feeling there would be a lot of useful information shared at HLS, which was a main reason I was sad to miss it!
Wow I really liked reading all of this. Seriously some awesome tips, things that seem like common sense and some I might not have thought of.
I’m glad you had a great time at the HLS and learned so much, sounds like it was definitely a great and rewarding experience!
Thanks for summarising! 🙂 Definitely bookmarking to look through again later and make sure I’ve taken it all in! Shame England is so far away from the HLS!
Omg this post is amazing…you are amazing! Thanks for such a thorough recap for all of us who couldn’t make it to HLS- definitely bookmarking this for future. As a blogger, I have definitely improved in terms of organisation and consistency but I really want to work on the back-end, technological aspect of it! I know I am not capitalising nearly enough on my blog and that’s merely because stuff like meta tags, SEO, and so on go right over my head!! I definitely think planning ahead helps me with consistency- I have a spreadsheet on my laptop and notes section on my phone to jot down ideas as they come. A lot of the time they get pushed back but they are great fall-back topics for when the juices just ain’t flowing!
Oh geez… the SEO thing still confuses the heck out of me. I really need to start tackling that area. Maybe we need to add some blog chat to our e-mails…
I definitely need to work on organisation. I know of bloggers that have their posts planned out for the next year and I don’t even have tomorrow’s blog planned out.
Wow! Those are some informational sessions! Thanks for sharing all these tips!
Thank you so, SO much for this! I felt like I was there. I think it’s awesome how you’re providing such useful information to others when you could easily just keep it to yourself. It shows how amazing the health and fitness community is 🙂 I’ve been really interested in reaching out to companies but never really knew how. I’m definitely going to do my research and this was a great starting point!
Info needs to be shared! Especially because blogging can be SO intimidating and confusing when you’re first starting out. I know I love reading posts like this, so I’m just returning the favour.
Great recap! Thank you for this post. I found a few tips that I’m going to put to use right away!
omg Amanda these tips are fantastic! Thank you for sharing them, it’s greatly appreciated. I’m learning bit by bit what I need to do and work on so these kinds of posts are super helpful. Thanks for the inspiration!
You rock! Thank you so much for sharing all this valuable info.
That was really amazing of you to share all of that! Thank you so much! That’s great information and so valuable, especially to those of us who couldn’t go. Thanks Amanda! By the way, you looked amazing in that dress in your post yesterday!
Thank you, Alex 😀
THIS is amazing. Thank you so much for putting all of this together. I haven’t attended a blogging conference yet and am always curious to know what the presentations entailed. I learned so much from your recap. Thanks again!
Love to read these tips. I think the most important is just say no. Nothing takes away from a blogger and their theme like having a bunch of posts that are clearly product reviews. Also I think not worrying about blogging so much. Often times people think they do need to post everyday. There are very few bloggers that this is a full time job for so there is absolutely no reason to stress out about it.
It makes me sad when I see some bloggers that I really liked turning so heavily towards product reviews and sponsored posts. I mean, I understand that blogging takes work, and that it’s nice to be rewarded with free products and stuff, but I wish some bloggers would be more attentive to product overload… or at least make reviews more creative and personal.
Ahhhh – thank you, thank you, thank you for the recap! I didn’t take a single note during any of the sessions (I attended all of the same ones as you did…) and thought I would just remember it all 😉 I agree that I also need to work on productivity, especially with my new job quickly approaching. I doubt I’ll have as much time to blog at my new company so I need to balance my blog along with commenting on others. Good thing I’m always up for a challenge! 🙂
Such great tips here! I would love to go something like this. Even though I’ve been blogging for 3 years I still feel like a novice sometimes.
That is so kind of you! Thanks for taking notes and sharing them. I’ve always thought how interesting the topics on blogger summits sound and that I would love to take part. I will definitely start thinking about how to become better organized with my topics and since I plan to make the switch to self-hosting soon reaching out to brands is another point on my to-do-list for the end of this year.
Those are some great tips! I think the time management ones are the most valuable- it’s amazing how much time we waste blogging sometimes. I could be way more efficient than I am.
That’s my biggest problem too. I waste so much time by literally trying to do everything at once (Twitter, IG, posting, reading, commenting)… Need to figure out a better schedule with time slots devoted to each.
Thanks for sharing all the great info! I’ve only worked with 2 brands so far so I think brand reviews is what I need to work on the most. But I am a multi-tasker once I’m on the computer. I need to slooooow down and focus on one thing at a time.
Amazing!! Thanks for all the info.. now I don’t feel SO bad that I missed out on the real thing. Sounds like you had an amazing time. I really need to work on my design and the overall look of my blog. I am so busy with work that when I have time I like to blog instead of doing the dirty work behind the blog. Grant is my graphic designer and he is so busy as well.. maybe when things settle down a bit I’ll have to focus on it.
These are some AWESOME tips!!!! Thanks so very much for sharing …. I definitely need to work on all three, with sepcial focus on creating a blogging sched. as well as reaching out to others-both bloggers and brands. Great post Spoons!
I love to multitask – but I really am a work in progress in that department 😉
Thanks for this recap!! I actually just added my blog to my resume and since I’m in the midst of trying to find a new job, I always talk it up to head hunters. I think I need to do more direct company reaching out. lol i love the “brag a bit”- its true, everyone should be proud of all the work they put into their blogs!!
So true! I feel like we tend to downplay blogging so much, but it honestly takes a lot of time and effort! Definitely something to be proud of.
Organization for sure! The organized blogger panel made me realized how much growth I have to do in this area!
Great roundup girl, thank you!
I definitely need to work on prioritizing and stop multitasking. It takes so much longer if I have 389307 sites open on my screen and switch between them rather than focusing on one at a time.
I am currently working on my design and can not wait until it is finally out and happening 🙂
Thanks for sharing your wisdom! I wish I was better about communicating with brands. I usually just avoid it whenever possible. haha
Wow Amanda this is all really great info and I appreciate that you posted it all. I admit, last year I wasn’t so great at absorbing all that info;)
I definitely need to work on my productivity when I’m blogging. I have a serious case of distraction where almost anything can get me off my writing game. Like a bird outside…seriously, it’s a problem.
Oh and I could probably get better at outreach too, I don’t think I’ve ever contacted a company before.
Great tips!
😆 I think part of it is the fact that I just miss being in school and taking notes 😉 And my outreach could use some work too. Start by thinking about which companies you’d like to work with.
What fabulous tips! Thanks so much for sharing the information you learned! It’s like I was there 🙂