The audience for the Secrets of Successful Bloggers panel was filled with people who had blogs or wanted to start blogging. The panel, Sean Cranbury (Books on the Radio & Advent Book Blog), Rebecca Bollwitt (Miss 604), Kelsey Dundon (The Anthology), Jeannette Ordas (Everybody Likes Sandwiches), and moderator Jenn Farrell (Canada Fancy) did a great job of introducing the topic.
After a discussion of how the panelists’ impulse to start blogging the direction was turned over to the audience. Some of the questions people asked were: How do you promote your blogs? By engaging in the wider community discussion on topics you’re interested in and creating content that your audience wants to share with their friends. The question of how people make money off blogs led to an interesting talk about the ethics of ads and disclosure of complimentary things to blog about. They discussed easy technical solutions for newbies and why someone might need more control. They talked about the difference between momentum and inspiration, and how using a pseudonym can get in the way of that.
The takeaways from the session are “Engage with your audience” and “Blogging is iterative and the blog you have today will be a different beast next year.”
It was a great panel, thanks very much to everyone involved.