10 Tips from Bloggy Boot Camp 2010

Bloggy Boot Camp in San Francisco, hosted by the SITS Girls, was an amazing crash course as well as next steps preparation for both the beginner and experienced blogger. A day-long conference designed for less than 100 participants, Boot Camp was packed with valuable tidbits we could all use. Here’s a peek:

1. When vlogging, keep it short. Comedienne Jessica Bern, author of Bern This, told us the golden rule of vlogging (video blogging) is to be short, short, short. Under 3 minutes for sure. And an added extra tip was to put the time in the title of your post. For instance, “How to argue effectively with your cat – in 76 seconds.” Did I mention she was seriously funny?”

2. Use a blog tracking program, such as Google Analytics, StatCounter or Sitemeter. Better yet, use all three. These programs not only help you track your visits, but also look at who’s visiting to get an idea of your audience. Added bonus, they give you information on IP addresses of your visitors, which you can track at www.ip-details.com. Did someone leave a nasty comment or do you have a troll? IP tracking can pinpoint the exact street address of where the person commented. Julie at Angry Julie Monday sat down and showed me how to do this, tracking one of her own visitors to the point where a pin showed up on a Google map of a Texas town’s neighborhood.

3. You get what you give. This seemed to be the theme throughout with all the speakers, but Jennifer James of Mom Bloggers Club went into depth in her presentation on using social media for maximum exposure. Engaging others on Twitter and Facebook and always responding to someone who mentions you are biggies. When you’re recognizing others, they recognize you. Pass it on. Here’s a link to her presentation.

4. You can monetize your blog and still be genuine and avoid being viewed as a sellout. Just be authentic, Ciaran Blumenfeld from momfluential.com told us. We’re all consumers. We all tell our friends about our favorite products. Doing so can attract a brand that may offer to pay you to talk about them even more. Simply choose brands you’re passionate about and tell your story with them. Bonus tip, make yourself familiar with FTC rules regarding solicited reviews.

5. Increase the chances brands notice you by getting and staying active on Twitter. When you mention a brand, hashtag and ask your Tweeps to RT. Do the same for your Tweeps.

6. Do not autotweet your blog posts. It may save time, but someone visiting your Twitter stream who sees this, especially a brand, will not be impressed. Instead, write your own unique tweet each time you post. Twitter is a conversation, not one sided – you posting link after link. Bonus, doing it yourself lets you put hashtags in too!

7. If you want folks to retweet you, your original tweet needs to leave 12-15 extra characters.

8. If you decide to register and trademark your name, blog title, etc. it’s your job to police it. Not doing so can lead to you losing the trademark, warned attorney Linsey Krolik. The citizen media law project is a good source for legal information regarding your blog and copyrights.

9. Buy domains of your children’s names now. By the time they’re old enough to be looking for professional employment, everyone will have a website with their names to promote themselves. Grabbing their names now and making that small investment to keep them is a nice investment for their future. (I was so psyched that I was able to grab both my kids’ names as .coms!)

10. Be realistic. Our hosts, SITS Girl Tiffany, reminded us throughout the day and again at the end to not attempt to try to do everything we learned that day at once. There was a lot of information and advice shared all day, and maybe it isn’t all for each of us. The trick is to choose what we want to do and do it, one stop at a time. Trying to do it all will stress us out and completely defeat the purpose. Blogging should be fun, not stressful. Unless you’re raking it in. In that case, then by all means, stress about it like a real job. You’re getting paid for it.

The SITS Girls are having plenty more Boot Camps and have already set dates and locations for next year. I’ll definitely be attending the Seattle stop in 2011 and highly recommend this intimate and valuable event, both for the information and great new friends you’ll make.

Tagged as: blgging advice, Bloggy Boot Camp, social media