Our Talks on iBlog7

photo courtesy of Azrael Coladilla

When we attended iBlog6 last year, we were exposed to a whole new way of looking at our blogs. It was, of course, a validation of what we always wanted our blogs to be – viable income streams for us. But more than that, we saw what blogs can create: communities, friendships, and even social movements.

This year it was our turn to expand from our numerous reviews and the written essay to an actual stage. We felt it was important to give back the same way experts before us gave to the blogging community.

Ginger’s talk was about Offline Marketing for Blogs. My wife is a natural when it comes to marketing and networking. When we go out, she would always surprisingly meet, on the average, 5 people. This, of course, always prompts a surprised “kilala mo rin yon??” from me. So I attribute a big part of Manila Reviews success to her God given schmoozing skills. Because of her, we got invited to events where we met some industry big wigs. That has helped us discover more content which we bring into the blog as posts or even a business essay or 2 and, of coure, a lot of freebies that we give away as thanks to our readers.

In her talk, Ginger gave 8 simple tips ranging from talking to friends to creating value for customers. Here are her slides:

And Miss Janette was kind enough to upload videos of Ginger’s talk as well:

In my talk, I talked about where the money is in blogging. In preparation for this, I went through a LOT of material, from cheap essays to Google’s Annual Financial Report. Of course, Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere was a HUGE fount of information that I used.

In terms of where top earners get most of their revenue: it really is in direct advertising, adsense revenue, and affiliate marketing. Speaking engagements came next with paid posts and paid appearances in events rounding out the bottom. For me, the most significant trend is the shift to mobile content creation – posts are becoming shorter but more spontaneous. I guess readers aren’t really looking for encyclopedic entries any more and more of up to date latest news.

Here are my talks courtesy of Miss Janette as well:

All in all, it was a fun day for me and my wife. We got to catch up with old friends and met a few new ones. Most importantly, we were able to give back to the wonderful community of Pinoy Bloggers.

*special thanks to Miss Janette Toral and the UP Law Internet and Society Program for the opportunity.

**Ginger would also want to thank Mango for her clothes, Pond’s for her flawless white skin, and Payless for her sandals (which apparently were a big hit)

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