Blogger's Summer Camp Part 3

All the lovely panelists and Moderators

This is my last installment of School House Craft's Blogger's Summer Camp. Thank so much to etsyRain for sending me (I won a contest! Which really just never happens to me.)

Previous posts: First Panel Discussion, and Lunch Roundtable discussion about better photography

The Second Panel discussion of the day was titled The Myths and Realities of Monetizing your Blog and below is the list of the wonderful women on the second panel:

Marie LeBaron of Make and Takes
Melanie Biehle of Inward Facing Girl 
Moorea Seal of Moorea-Seal

This discussion was one of the most interesting to me but also probably not the most relavent. I dont know if I will ever get to a point where I will monetize my blog. I am really hoping to use it as a device to reveal a little bit more about myself and my process so that my readers and fans can get a inside peek of what makes me inspired and tired. I am also hoping it will be a way for more people to find me and be introduced to my work as a designer and letterpress printer. 

Here were some of the key takeaways that I came away with:

* Trade ads with other bloggers : introduce your readers to new people and in turn you will be introduced to new people as well. 

* Use an ad network :  Wikipedia defines this as: An online advertising network or ad network is a company that connects advertisers to web sites that want to host advertisements. The key function of an ad network is aggregation of ad space supply from publishers and matching it with advertiser demand. 

Here are some ad networks mentioned : Clever Girls Collective, Daily Buzz, BlogHer, Blam Ads, Spark, Rivit Media, Amazon, Blueprint Social, Google AdWords, and Google AdSense

There were two highlighted Ad Networks that were talked about above the rest and those were:

Passion Fruit Ads, and Reward Style.

* Promote people and link to them (which hopefully I am doing a satisfactory job here :)

* Do product reviews : Though I assume one must have some sort of readership before people will give you their stuff to review. :)

* Giveaways : again the same as above applies. 

* Affiliate Ads** :  About.com defines this as being:  an online marketing channel. An advertiser pays a blogger to promote the advertiser’s products or services on the blogger’s site.

There are three main types of affiliate ads: pay-per-click, pay-per-lead and pay-per-sale. Each of these affiliate ad types has one thing in common. They are all performance based meaning you don’t earn money until your readers perform an action such as clicking on a link or clicking on a link then purchasing the product on the page to which the link brings them.

**If you are going to go the route of affiliates and promotions you must be sure to disclose that to your readers. And before one decides to take on affiliates or promotions check with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to get all the details.

Someone in the audience asked a question about how to grow your readership and here is the list of answers:
* Comment on other people's blogs. All of the panelists complained about how people rarely comment on their blogs anymore, they find more people leaving feedback on Twitter or Facebook. If you comment you are more likely to get a response and everyone who visits that post is likely to see your comment too.

* Submit your work to blogs you already like to have a feature written about you. This is pretty relavent to me because there are a ton of paper and stationery blogs out there with huge followings.

* Participate in an Interview Series. Interview someone for your blog, or be interviewed on another. This is a way to be exposed to a wider network of readers.

* Promote other people and companies. Again this can widen your network.

* Engage in twitter conversations with people who's work you admire, you may just catch their eye and get a feature on their blog.

* Do a Series. This makes people want to come back for more, so if they enjoyed reading the first one of the series they may go back and read the subsequent articles and also share with others they know.

* Be Creative. Be Kind. Be Graciously Aggressive. This great advice came from Andie Powers of Assemble Shop and Studio


I really enjoyed going to this event. I met a lot of great people, did some networking, made some connections, got amazing advice, attained a ton of great resources, and got a nice kick of motivation. And the best part of the whole thing was that I won my ticket. Even if I had paid for my spot it would have been more than worth it. I will be looking into more School House Craft classes and events for the future.

Stay tuned for my final post of all the great blogs that the panelists read and recommend.