Nashville was home to my second BlogPaws Conference. My first was last year in Las Vegas. I felt really different this year. There were a lot more familiar faces and I had an idea of what I should expect. It was still quite the adventure! As soon as I touched down in Nashville, I was already being greeted by other cat bloggers. I really felt like there was a great sense of community among us. A bunch of us had dinner at the hotel restaurant on Wednesday night. It was great to meet people face-to-face and get to know them.
The Sessions I Attended
This year, going to BlogPaws was all about finding ways to grow my blogging business. I took the time to go to as many sessions as I could. As usual, I took a lot of notes and I plan on typing them up. If you want a copy of the notes (there’s a lot more than I’m jotting down here), just send me an email and let me know what you are interested in (robinsplayfulkitties at hotmail dot com). Below is a list of the sessions and a few main points from each.
- CWA – Bridging Journalistic Excellence and Blogging (Deb Barnes, Janiss Garza, Alana Grelyak, and Layla Morgan Wilde)
- Check posts for typos and grammatical errors.
- Adapt your blog and style to what is happening in the industry.
- Your readers will trust you more if what you write is credible.
- Branding can help you to get recognition
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Your Message…Your Mission…Your Movement (Kathleen Gage)
- Your reputation precedes you.
- Your blog is a springboard for many other opportunities.
- Look for joint venture projects.
- As who is my purpose, not why.
- Content Marketing (Karon Thackston)
- Short copy includes things like social media posts, blog post titles, book titles, and email subject lines.
- Short copy should be one topic written to one segment of the population.
- Authentic Blogging (Maggie Morton)
- Know your audience.
- Write blog posts like you are talking to your readers.
- Tell a story with each post.
- Understanding Contracts Better Than Your Lawyer (Paul C. Jorgensen)
- There are 3 essential parts to a contract: 1) an offer (“I will give you…”), 2) acceptance, 3) consideration ( “I will pay you…”).
- It is best to use written contracts with people you don’t know personally, rather than verbal contracts.
- It isn’t a great idea to use forms for contracts because they might be out dated or miss parts that are important to you.
- Contracts should be written in plain, easy-to-understand terms.
- How to Profit from Your Blog Business (Kimberly Gauthier, Beke Lubeach, and Jim Nelson)
- Only promote products that are a good fit for the message of your blog.
- Monetize your most popular posts.
- Partnerships can boost your exposure and general market awareness.
- Look at the marketing campaigns being done by the sponsors you want to get and try to fit in to their strategy.
- Making Video Profitable (Robert Semrow)
- Be a connector of people as much as you are an expert.
- Before you start a video ask your self why, what, who, and how.
- Don’t put videos up that don’t represent your brand well.
- Make sure you know your bottom line for doing each video.
- Youtube will only give you 2 views per computer that the video was watched from.
Where Playful Kitty Is Headed
As mentioned, I am looking to make Playful Kitty into a bigger, better business. I am working on my official business plan (still) and refining my mission and my goals. Coming up with a phrase or a sentence that defines Playful Kitty has me a bit stuck. After talking to a lot of people at BlogPaws about why I started Playful Kitty, I realize how important education is in my mission. The passion I have for helping other cat owners understand their cats even surprised me as I told my story about my late, Obi Wan. I may even do some slight re-branding to reflect some of that.
A challenge that I am working through is figuring out what to do with Playful Kitty’s newsletter. I hold myself to a high standard and I’m not happy with what I’ve done with it so far. I know that I can make it a pawsome letter that people are excited to see pop up in their inbox. I just haven’t found that unique thing to define it.
Over the next month or so I will be starting the launch of Playful Kitty’s Youtube Channel. I have some new equipment and I now have the ability to make great videos. There are a lot of great ideas swirling around in my mind. Video gives me another way of reaching cat owners and help them learn about their cats! Oh yeah, and there’s the fact that I love to be on camera. If there is anything you want to see, let me know!
Nashville Photo Gallery
I took a lot of great photos while I was at BlogPaws. Below is a sampling of what I saw there! Click to enlarge.
- Surfin’ Jack from the Lucy Foundation
- All the swag I brought home.
- Sophie from Kitty Cat Chronicles
- A day and a half old duckling I got to hold.
- I believe this is Riley from Oh My Shih Tzus.
- One of the foster kittens from Random Felines.
- Piggies! I don’t remember who these belonged to.
- The court yard of the hotel.
- The hot tub and gazebo at the hotel.
- I believe this is Herman from Wonderpurr.
- The Good Humor man!
- Dezi from Dezi’s World in a beautiful cat tree.
- Coco the Couture Cat
- Cathy Keisha’s stuffed fill in from Stunning Keisha.
Wow, so much info to take in. I really don’t know what criticism I could provide as I am still trying to mold my site into what I want it to be as well.
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
Never try to make your blog into what someone else thinks is right. Follow your gut, you’ll be right every single time!
Thanks for sharing these great tips! BlogPaws was such a wonderful learning experience, and I came away with lots of things to try to implement with my blog as well.
I’m a new pet blogger (my blog is only 2 months old), so I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’m also in the process of trying to grow my blog and I’ve been reading a lot about blogging tips. A business plan is definitively a must have and I plan to write down mine too (haven’t had the time yet).
Coming up with a phrase or a sentence that defined my blog was one of my first priorities and I came up with “a lifestyle blog for the modern cat lady”. I don’t know if it is catchy enough, but I felt this phrase represented my blog goals well.
Your blog seems to be already well established, so I think you just need to keep up the good work 🙂
BlogPaws was really inspiring for lots of humans (I just thought it was FUN!). I think you work really hard on your blog – whatever you do, make sure to include lots of Cinco and Manna! They are great comic relief to your more informative posts and add personality to the blog.
guys….onlee critacizm we haz iz …we see yur mom holdin that burd !!!
yur blog iz YUR blog; ya gotta be ewe; thatz what makes it ….ewe…N thatz why peepulz follow…ewe….
we follow playful kitty bee coz yur blog IZ…ewe….
N we haz enuff ewe’s heer fora hole flock oh sheep now huh
Heerz two a longnose whiptail catfish kinda week oh end ♥♥♥
Excellent post and thanks for sharing information you learned at BlogPaws. I am sure you will be able to meet all your goals.
Thank you for sharing!
We hope to go next year…
Noodle and crew
We wish you all the best as you grow your blog. Most of all, enjoy whatever do…blogging should be fun and never a chore.
What a great summary of the things you learned at many of the sessions the head peep didn’t attend. We admire your blog very much, and we can’t wait what you’re inspired to do next!
It’s great to see the updates from the “KittyCon”, we never get to go to those events. Maybe one day? Meanwhile feedback… Love all of the informative and comedic posts, unfortunately I haven’t had the time to post for months so it’s great to share other peoples posts.
It was a really busy weekend! Great recap of the sessions.
I’m going to keep an eye on you! I love it that you walked away from BlogPaws with inspiration and ideas you could put to use right away. I’ll bet this will be a banner year for you!
Jean from Welcome to the Menagerie
Thank you so much for sharing this ! Mum saved your post in Evernote ! Purrs
That’s some great info from your time at BlogPaws! Whatever you do, remain true to what is in your heart — your blog is a wonderful reflection of you, Cinco and Manna, and we wouldn’t want that to change. 🙂
Thanks for sharing what you learned! Lots to think about. I need to rebrand as well and I’ve been wanting to do more video. Loving what you’re done with Playful Kitty already!
this was a great post! I am confused on what is re-branding, branding and monetizing.
Thank you! Monetizing refers to the different ways you make money with your blog (reviews, sidebar ads, affiliates, etc). Branding is giving your blog a look and concept that people easily identify. Starbucks has branded itself with their mermaid logo. If someone just sees that image, they think “Starbucks” and “coffee.” Re-branding is what happens when you have already branded yourself and you make changes to either the look or concept of your brand. Domino’s Pizza has rebranded itself as “Domino’s.” Write me if you need more info!
I loved our catch-up at BlogPaws this year and enjoyed reading your wrap-up. The YouTube channel is a fabulous idea and we look forward to checking out your videos.
Hi Robin,
Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today and commenting on our Catty Cat! I was drawn to your BlogPaws post because I attended this wonderful event on Saturday. 5/30. I attended as many classes as I could as well and took bunches of notes. I wish I could have met you there. I like your blog just as it is and wish you much success!
So glad to meet you in paw-son at the conference!
I’m glad that we got to meet at BlogPaws too! I really appreciate everything you do for pets.