In Spaces Between

If you’ve been checking in on the blog over the past few days you may have noticed a couple of little changes, so I thought I’d talk you through them quickly.

1. IN SPACES BETWEEN IS NOW ACCEPTING SPONSORS!

I’m excited to tell you that in a relatively short time, In Spaces Between has become a gathering place for thousands of like-minded, life lovin’, inspiration seekin’ people just like you, and as a result, I have made the decision to open up a select number of ad spaces on my right sidebar.

These spaces are perfect for bloggers who would like to generate a sweet flow of traffic to their gorgeous sites, or business owners who are keen to have a bright light shone on their company’s grand offering.

If you have a small business of your own – or perhaps you’re an amazing photographer/ a brilliant graphic designer/ yoga teacher extraordinaire/ life coach/ virtual assistant/ vintage clothing store owner/ artist - then this could be the leg up you need to really put yourself and your services ”out there.”

My media kit is currently being professionally beautified but if the idea of In Spaces Between + {insert your rad blog/ business} making magic piques your interest, shoot me an email on rachel@inspacesbetween.com so we can chat and I can send you through all the relevant information.

And, finally, as a special introductory offer, I’m taking $20 off the standard monthly ad cost for February and March, so lock down your space today!

2. A FEW DESIGN TWEAKS

Lovely Jo from The Darling Tree did a bit of rejigging on my right sidebar late last week and although the changes were relatively minor, I think it has such a great impact on the overall look of the site. Clean and ordered – just the way I like my design!

I can’t speak highly enough about working with Jo. Super professional, ultra accommodating, and mega efficient… I could seriously go superlative crazy describing this girl! Her work is impeccable. She also alerted me to (and subsequently changed) a couple of things she’d noticed were playing up on my site, just because. That kind of service is RARE.

Head over to Jo’s beautiful blog, August Empress, for a poke around and while you’re immersing yourself in all things Jo, be sure to check out her online course Your Darling Blog. I think you’ll love her stuff as much as I do.

According to Hitwise reports, in the past six months or so traffic to Pinterest has increased 4000%. Yes, you read right – 4000%. Wowsers.

It’s no secret I’m gigantic Pinterest fan (I’ve written about it here and marvelled at it’s awesomeness more times than I can remember) and I was talking to a few friends about the site recently – most are newcomers and agree that pinning a few beautiful images every day is highly relaxing – and it got me thinking about the other ways Pinterest can be used for everything from pimping out your products to keeping you on track with your yearly goals.

Read on to find out how to get the most out of your Pinterest account – oh and before we start, you can follow me on Pinterest here!

1 // How did we all plan weddings without Pinterest? It’s been essential for my planning, and my ‘dream wedding’ board is seriously bursting at the seams with inspiration for our Big Day! Brides-to-be, do yourself a favour and make Pinterest your first port of call before you even consider buying expensive bridal magazines.

2 // Create a specific board for wedding DIY’s to save yourself hunting around the web every time you want to make a doily lantern or burlap bunting.

3 // Gather images for wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses in one spot so you can see how colours and styles will work together.

4 // Save images of wedding day hairstyles to help your hairdresser out.

5 // Likewise, pin images of pretty made up faces so you have a bunch of inspiration to show your make-up artist.

6 // Create a board for photography – the styles you love, different poses, the kinds of shots you want to ensure your photographer gets on your special day.

7 // Invitations. I can’t tell you how much I used Pinterest when I was looking for inspiration for our wedding invites. Pin examples of fonts/ calligraphy, colours, examples of wording and creative Save the Date ideas.

8 // Unless you have a specific idea on the types of flowers you want for your wedding, navigating this important element of the day can be tricky because there are so many options (a lot of them season-dependant). Use Pinterest to gather images of a variety of different bouquets and blooms and see which ones you’re leaning towards when you go back and review your board. It’s so handy to have all the options in front of you!

9 // It’s a bit of a no-brainer, but use Pinterest to source stunning imagery to complement your blog posts.

10 // Take a leaf out of Victoria from sfgirlbybay’s book and create a ‘Blog Log’ board for all your favourite blogs (see example above). Much prettier than your standard Bookmarks bar!

11 // Read Bree’s super informative Pinterest post and add a Pin It! button to your blog like I have below, so people can pin images straight to Pinterest (which will link back to your site). The plugin I used is called Pinterest ‘Pin It’ Button.

12 // Discover which images from your blog have made popular pins (market research!) via www.pinterest.com/source/inspacesbetween.com (add your blog URL to the end instead).

13 // Following influential ‘pinners’ gives you a great insight into upcoming trends, that can therefore inspire future posts on your blog. Some stylish pinners I follow (who always find the coolest stuff) are: Bri Emery from Design Love Fest, Kate Arends from Wit + Delight, Ez Pudewa from Creature Comforts, Joy Cho from oh Joy! and Victoria from sfgirlbybay, as mentioned above.

14 // Network with other bloggers by leaving comments under their pins.

15 // Save screenshots of logos, typography, colour schemes and other graphical elements you love to inspire future redesigns for your blog.

16 // Let Pinterest help increase your website traffic. Pinterest is the fifth highest referrer of traffic to In Spaces Between.

17 // Use Pinterest as a ‘virtual vision board’ by pinning inspiring quotes to a ‘Words of Wisdom’ board. Make it the first thing you look at every morning before you begin working to start the day off right!

18 // Pin aspirational images of places you want to explore on your next holiday and write a few words underneath each one to keep you motivated and on track with your savings. You might like to write a positive intention underneath such as ‘I will be lying on a sun lounge here in August 2012′ or something more specific that will pump you up every time you read it.

19 // Take your own photos and use a program like Photoshop to write your favourite quotes on them. Instant pin bait!

20 // Create a ‘Fit & Fab’ board and pin images of healthy, fit people to keep you focused on your fitness goals.

21 // Pin images of exercises and yoga poses to one board and have your computer screen open next time you’re working out at home.

22 // Create a board for your favourite books, people that inspire you, your bucket list or meditation resources.

23 // Save recipes for healthy snacks and meals – you won’t believe how helpful this is! Likewise for party planning – you can have recipes, table settings and decoration ideas all in one place.

24 // Pinterest is hugely popular for creating curated galleries of products people love. Use it to sell your products/ services by pinning your products and linking through to your Etsy store or website. As an added bonus, include your prices.

25 // Conduct market/ competitor research.

26 // Create informative tutorials that link back to your website or business blog.

27 // Pull together moodboards for concepts that you can direct your clients to.

28 // Showcase your portfolio, with descriptions on each piece of work. This is a fantastic way to drum up new business! As I mentioned before, Pinterest traffic is up nearly 40-fold on 6 months ago – that’s one mighty big pool to dip your toes into!

29 // About to embark on a home reno? Plan out each room by creating separate boards for your kitchen/ bathroom/ lounge room/ bedroom and pinning images that represent the mood, colour palette and design elements you want to incorporate.

30 // Save links to Etsy stores that sell beautiful artwork or imagery to adorn your walls.

31 // Get tips and tricks for outdoor DIY’s or decorating small spaces. My ‘pallet love’ board came in particularly handy when we were looking at furniture to make from recycled pallets.

32 // Discover a plethora of ideas to maximise your wall space. Some of my favourites in my ‘home is where the heart is’ board are pics of magazines hung on stark white walls, gallery walls with mismatched frames and polaroids shaped into a love heart display.

BONUS: I also love Bonnie Tsang’s idea of keeping a copy of her iPhone photos on one Pinterest board.

+ Are you a mad pinner too? Have you ever thought of using your Pinterest account for more than just bookmarking pretty images?

If you liked this post, I’d be forever grateful if you could share it on Stumbleupon or use the Facebook/ Twitter social sharing buttons below!

* Steph from Lipstick & Cake, Bree from The Blog Stylist, Darren Rowse from Problogger (I’m sure you all know him!) and some random chick from In Spaces Between, this awesome site you should tell EVERYONE about. Ha!

As I mentioned in Part I of my Problogger event recap, I loved my trip to Melbourne last week (for lots of reasons) and I wanted to share some of the highlights from the Problogger event and the lessons I learned that will hopefully be of benefit to you if you have a blog of your own.

I want to preface these points by saying that I believe a lot of the time, when you’re passionate about something, you’ve probably already read stacks of books and researched your little heart out online on that topic, but there’s something about attending a conference or workshop and interacting with like-minded people that really helps your motivation levels soar. Even if you only walk away with one great idea to implement or a new perspective on something, the event has been worthwhile in my opinion. That said, I walked away with a boatload of knowledge this time, and most importantly, a group of new bloggy friends, which in my eyes = total success!

Here are some of the points from the speakers that really stood out for me:

1. Unleash Your Passion

When you’re passionate about your blog, you attract passionate readers. People remember stories and how they make them feel. These can be your own personal stories or case studies or interviews (other people’s stories). In his talk about ‘Blogging from the Heart,’ Darren talked about the personal posts he had done on his blog that went on to become immensely popular. Videos are also an effective way to connect with your readers.

Aim to solve a problem in your readers’ life. Inspire people to go on a hunt for for information, be playful, surprise your readers, write in your own style and most of all, be really useful.

2. Think Business

If you want your blog to be a business, treat it like one. You can do so by:

1. Identifying your goals - where do you want your blog to take you? Is it simply a creative outlet – a place to document your thoughts – or do you want to eventually make money/ land a speaking gig/ consult for clients/ write a book?

2. Creating reader profiles – I love this idea. Grab a piece of paper and have a think about who your ‘ideal reader’ is (use a photo if it helps you visualise them better). Detail what they like, what kinds of things they do/ buy/ wear/ eat. Get clear on who you’re targetting.

3. Branding - what do you want people to say about your blog?

4. Defining your call to action – what do you want people to do when they visit your site?

5. Research – get in touch with your most loyal readers and get inside their heads. What do they love about your site? What would they like to see more of? These are the types of readers you want more of, so find out what’s doing it for them (or not).

6. Structured content – I do this here with Blogs to Bookmark every Tuesday and Making Me Happy every Wednesday. This is content you’ll always find on my site each week and the structure keeps me on track because I know that 2 out of 4 (or 5) days are accounted for. This may not fit with your free-flowing, write when the mood strikes posting style, which is fine but it can be a great way to keep people coming back for more and build participation levels. I’m assuming this is because people start to feel more “comfortable” with commenting on a post that they see others commenting on regularly.

7. Biz cards - go for well-designed regular ones, or if you want to do something fun and different, take a leaf out of Danimezza’s book and make up some cute badges and stick them to your business card. I got one from her that said “I’m totally going to blog about this.” Cute!

8. Network - attend events, plan blogger meet ups in your city.

9. And one from me: Think about your “elevator pitch” - although I think the term elevator pitch is a touch wanky, there’s merit in having a concise statement that answers the inevitable “So, what’s your blog about?” question. My blog is quite hard to define given that it’s not focused on one particular niche (covering inspiration across the board, from beauty to weddings, health and fitness and personal development and more) so my take-away from the event is that I need to work on summarising all that into a statement that is short, snappy, succinct.

3. Establish a Presence

1. Comment on other blogs – regularly. Lady Melbourne said in the early days she’d visit up to 50 blogs a day and leave a comment, which is bloody impressive to say the least.

2. Email other bloggers personally and ask if they’d consider adding you to their blog roll – I actually didn’t know if this was du jour these days, but well, everything helps so give it a go! I think the key is emailing the blogger rather than leaving an “Add me to your blogroll!” plea in their comments.

3. Make YouTube videos.

4. Regarding traditional media, Lucy from The Design Files said that some editors are supportive but because blogs are so prevalent these days, you need to be doing something newsworthy (eg: running a pop up shop, launching an e-book/ book).

5. Create shareable content. Take a look at the posts by other bloggers that get lots of comments or retweets and apply that formula to your own content. List posts are winners!

4. Think About Planning Editorial 

If you have something you’re promoting and you want to bring attention to it – an eBook is a good example – start talking about it ahead of time. Give readers snippets, generate discussion, ask for opinions on certain parts.

Also think about big events coming up (eg: Christmas) and start forward planning. WP Editorial Calendar is a fantastic widget for planning content.

Other Fun Stuff

+ Author of ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’ Tim Ferriss surprised us all on the day by dropping in and delivering a punchy speech. There were audible gasps.. and yes, I was one of the gaspers. His advice: “Very clearly define what success means to you.”

+ Pink hair was abundant.

+ You know those people that are hired for events to rev up the crowd? Potential career for Mrs Woog – she had everyone in stitches and I’m pretty sure she didn’t even think she was being funny. She just was.

+ And for a bunch more recaps on the event, there’s a full list over on Problogger.

+ All in all, a fantastic event that I’ll definitely go to again next year! What about you? Have you ever been to a blogging/ social media conference, and if so. what did you learn?

Images: 1. Trendhunter 2. You Are My Fave 3. Some E-cards 4. Emmas Blogg 5. GTV One

Last Friday I attended my first blogging event and I loved it. It was actually the first conference I’ve (ever) been to where I thought time was going too quickly and where I wasn’t pretending to go to the bathroom at regular intervals so I could kill some time/ ring someone/ stretch/ have a micro-sleep/ eat something horrific from the vending machine/ get the hell out of there. Which obviously speaks volumes.

I’m going to break my wrap up of the event into two parts because I took A LOT of notes and I don’t to bombard you all too much, so I’ll kick off today by summarising the most important bits from the talk the inimitable Phoebe Montague of Lady Melbourne fame gave on ‘Monetising Your Blog.’

Before I start, can I just say Phoebe was one of the most engaging speakers I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. There were several breakout sessions throughout the day and the room was packed for hers, so in a limited timeframe Phoebe zoomed through her presentation with a whole lotta sass and a healthy dose of tough love. Her advice was it was insanely practical – she used real numbers, detailed her own stats and prices for advertising, and showed us her current media kit as an example. As a newbie blogger, I found this really helpful. There wasn’t ‘pie in the sky’ advice – it was realistic and actionable. The best part was seeing someone deliver their talk with conviction on a topic they are clearly very passionate about.

How to Make Moolah From Your Blog With Advertising

1. Build Your Audience First

This is a given, but if you’re asking yourself what that magic number of hits is that advertisers are looking for before spending money on your site, as a general rule, you’ll need at least 10,000 hits/ page views per month.

2. Get Your Network On

Walking into a crowded room by yourself and walking up to a stranger can be nerve-wracking. I get that. I actually did this on Thursday night at the Problogger event pre-drinks and the first person I met was Emma Merkas from $30 Date Night who totally took me under her wing and introduced me to a bunch of people, for which I’m extremely grateful. That’s the thing with networking though, everyone is in the same boat and that person you’re nervous to meet is probably nervous about meeting people sometimes too. As someone wise once said: “Get amongst it.”

The next step is to pimp your blog out, and not just at networking events. Anywhere. Get business cards made up with your URL, your Facebook page and your Twitter username (you might like to include your Instagram name or Pinterest profile as well). Always be ready to let people know that you have a blog and would love them to check it out. Phoebe made an awesome point when she said that no-one else is going to do it, it’s up to you. Your mum might tell the world about your blog but that’s about it. You need to be out there spreading the word. Amen.

3. Finding Advertisers and Responding To Emails From PR’s

Finding Advertisers

1. Look who is out there targeting and advertising on other blogs as they’ll have a better understanding of working with bloggers.
2. Go local.
3. Look at other bloggers – they may be willing to advertise on your site, especially if they have a store attached to their blog (EG: Etsy)
4. Cold call: email businesses/ brands and let them know you already use their product and would love to work together on a giveaway or build a mutually beneficial relationship.
5. Ad agencies like NuffNang in Australia, BlogHer or Google Ad networks can help you find advertisers and cut out a lot of the work – but remember you may lose some control over your content and you will be paid on a 30-90 day basis.

Working with PR Reps

1. Be extremely clear about what you will and won’t do from the outset.
2. Do not work for free.
3. Get used to saying no more than you say yes.
4. Answer every email.
5.  Be polite. If the brand isn’t the right fit for your blog and won’t add value for your readers respond by saying: “Dear X, Many thanks for considering me for your latest campaign. The XXXX looks gorgeous but it’s not the right fit for my audience. Many thanks for thinking of XXXX blog name. Warmest, Your Name.”
6. Think of all the added extras you can include – tweets, Facebook updates, newsletter mentions.

4. Developing A Killer Media Kit

Your media kit is designed to entice advertisers into advertising with you so ensure it looks as professional as possible. Hire a graphic designer and think about including the below:

1. Overview of  who you are and what your blog is about
2. Facts and Stats
3. Why You’ll Love {insert blog name}
4. Testimonials
5. As Seen In – include any press clippings
6. Rate Card At A Glance – see Lady Melbourne’s condensed rate card
7. Advertising Options
8. Terms and Conditions
9. Contact Details

5. Giveaways and Sponsored Posts

For giveaways on Lady Melbourne, Phoebe charges $150 (her fee), and says that the brand needs to provide her with the product (for testing) as well as the product for the winner. She also emphasised that the brand must send this product out to the winner and advises saying to the client that if they post overseas, they’ll get a better result overall.

For sponsored posts, Phoebe charges $1000 (for long posts) and she says to do them well you need to:

1. Write in your natural voice.
2. Include loads of pictures.
3. Be honest.
4. Be enthusiastic – but not fake.
5. Only take sponsored posts where you would use the product yourself – readers will see through it otherwise.
6. Ask “Can we add value for my readers?” by doing a giveaway/ providing an experience for them.

+ And that concludes my first wrap up! I hope you find this information useful. Let me know if you have any questions and be sure to check back for Part II of my Problogger Event wrap up later in the week.

+ Check out Part II of my recap.

Image: TW Collins