Blogalicious 2010 Sessions!!

I hope that you all enjoyed our little teaser from Friday. Here's another teaser-- our Blogalicious Sessions!! Each week we will be highlighting a few speakers and some of our sessions. We will also post our full agenda soon.

Here are the sessions we have lined up so far. Remember, early bird registration ends this week, on July 1st. Don't delay!!

LIFESTYLE TRACK
1. Chronicles of Fit Divas
2. Social Media Moms
3. Best Business Practices for the Lifestyle Blogger
4. Building Your Social Media Tribe
5. Style File: Trends in Fashion & Beauty Blogging
6. Love That! Design Blogging
7. Foodies

TECHNICAL TRACK & WORKSHOPS
1. New Bloggers Guide: Blogging 101 & 201
2. Building Your Media Toolkit: Kits, Training and More
3. The Smart Girl's Guide to Smartphones & Apps
4. Twitter 201 - Creating True Engagement with 140 Characters
5. Strike a Pose: Taking Better Photos for Your Blog
6. How Important Are Your Stats?
7. CSS, HTML & Blog Design
8. Blogger's Toolbox: Platforms & Plugins
9. Vlogging 101
10. Good Blog Writing: A Workshop


ENTREPRENEURIAL TRACK
1. Marketing to Latinas
2. Making Your Blog Your Business
3. Bloggers as Brand Ambassadors
4. The Book Deal: A Guide for Bloggers
5. Self-Promotion: Be Your Own CEO

We also have a great and easy contest going on where you can win one free night at the Ritz Carlton, South Beach, our conference hotel! Check out the contest and rules here. Hurry, the contest ends July 1st!

Paying It Forward

Image Credit: The Research Goddess

Jonesie, Ny and I are firm believers in putting out into the universe what we hope to receive. And, we like to conduct business that way. This includes “paying it forward” by lifting up others in recognition of those who lifted us up. Do I sound sappy enough yet? I say all of this, because it’s the truth!

We were contacted awhile back by the wonderful Research Goddess, Amybeth Hale, who was writing a story about “media professionals to watch,” and we were honored and humbled to learn that Elisa Camhort-Page of BlogHer had given our names as women to be featured in the story. {I especially love how she came up with the idea in the first place.}

You can link to the original story on Mashable here and the expanded story on the Research Goddess’ site here, but that’s not the point of me posting. What I really wanted to do is acknowledge the importance of paying it forward to those around you. In this day and age, when so much of social media is clouded with negative publicity and pitting various groups against each other, it is so heartwarming to know that, at the core of the medium, community and relationships remain the driving force. So thanks (again) to Elisa and Amybeth!

Who would you lift up to pay it forward?

Download BlogaBytes # 4 - Tax Tips for Your Blog

Thanks once again to Shannon Nash for conducting last night's webinar "Tax Tips for Your Blog". It was chock-full of information that was extremely useful for anyone that blogs as a business.

If you would like to download the presentation for review, please click here.

Please make sure to contact Shannon with any questions that you may have. Visit her site at shannonnash.com or on Twitter @shannonnash

Recap from BlogaBytes Webinar #3 - How to be #1 on Google

Thank you for attending our webinar last Thursdaay with awesome instructor Adria Richards on “How to be #1 on Google without Paying a Small Fortune.”

Please take a moment to complete a short survey (here) and let us know what you thought.

Links for Attendees of this session
Google Analytics Signup - http://google.com/analytics
Wordpress.org is the self-hosted version of Wordpress requiring a domain name and hosting - http://wordpress.org
Copyblogger, resource for writing great content for the web - http://copyblogger.com
What is SEO? Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
What is Google Page Rank? Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_page_rank

Links to Adria's content
Adria's training website for blogging and SEO - http://freshworkshops.com
Original show on this topic at AskAdria, How To Be #1 On The Google Without Spending A Small Fortune - http://bit.ly/Y5liP
Adria's tech blog - http://butyoureagirl.com
Adria weekly technology show - http://askadria.com

Contact Info for Attendees
You can contact Adria via her website at http://freshworkshops.com/contact
Via Email adria.richards@freshworkshops.com
Via Twitter http://twitter.com/adriarichards
By Phone 612-246-4568

Blogalicious Bytes Webinar # 4 - Tax Tips for Your blog

April 15th is fast approaching and we all have to get it together (really, scramble) to do our taxes in time. If you make any money from your blog, then you will most definitely want to attend our Blogalicious Bytes FREE webinar "Tax Tips for Your Blog" with Tax Attorney, CPA Shannon Nash. Shannon will walk you through what you will have to do to be IRS-compliant.

We've squeezed in a webinar on March 10th @ 9:00 pm so you can be equipped with the necessary information to get it right! Please register HERE and we look forward to joining you next Wednesday night.

A little more about Shannon

Shannon King Nash is a CPA, Attorney, Author and Entrepreneur. She is the President of the Nash Management Group, an entertainment and business management firm based in Los Angeles and Atlanta that represents entertainers, producers, foundations, high net-worth individuals and companies. She is also a partner with Atlanta based, Register Lett LLP, a boutique law firm specializing in entertainment, media and intellectual property law.

Shannon was Senior Counsel for Amgen Inc., where she worked at both its US headquarters in California and its European headquarters in Switzerland. She was responsible for contracting/procurement, compliance, international tax, and federal and state income tax audits and appeals. Shannon was also counsel to the Amgen Foundation.

Prior to Amgen, Shannon was a Tax and Corporate Associate with Cooley Godward Kronish LLP (formerly Cooley Godward LLP) and K&L Gates LLP (formerly Kirkpatrick and Lockhart LLP), where she concentrated on corporate and partnership taxation, venture capital fund formation and operations, mergers and acquisitions, trusts and estates, and nonprofit organizations.

Shannon is the author of the award winning book, "For the Love of Money: The 411 to Taking Control of Your Taxes and Building Your Net Worth.” This practical financial empowerment book uses popular songs (from Marvin Gaye to Snoop Dog) to teach valuable finance and tax lessons. She also wrote the "Vault Guide to Tax Law Careers," and "Helping the Nonprofit Client."

Shannon received her BS in Accounting from the University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce and her JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. Her website is www.nashgroup-usa.com and you can find her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/shannonnash.

BET Study: "African Americans Revealed"

MediaPost recently reported that BET published the results of a study finding that African Americans posses major influence in tech, media and buying power.

The "African Americans Revealed" study of more than 80,000 African-American consumers on multi-media engagement and digital applications, shows African Americans are very tech savvy, with roughly 31% of African American discretionary spending dollars, or $39 billion, going toward the purchase of computers, cell phones and electronics - a proportionally higher percentage when compared to non-African Americans.

Some additional findings...

African Americans:

- Spend more weekly time online (18 hours) than watching television (15 hours)
- 93% go online traditionally via their PCs, while 76% access the web via their cell phones
- 60% have downloaded music, a TV show, movie or ringtone in the previous month
- 50% regularly update and access a social networking account

What I found most interesting about that study was the seven groups that African Americans were broken down into:

◦ The Strivers are mostly in their late 20's to early 40's and are adventurous, fashionable, social mavens and opinion leaders who have their eyes on climbing the executive ladder

◦ Conscious Sisters are selfless women that are spiritually connected and highly conscious of their culture

◦ Tech-Fluentials are digitally savvy and travel in globally conscious circles

◦ Bright Horizons are young adults in high school and college that are aware of all available technology and electronic gadgets

◦ Inner Circle Elites are working women rich in their cultural, ancestral and spiritual roots

◦ Urban Dreamers are young, urban adults who are social magnets and trend setters intent on and focused on living life to the fullest

◦ Survivors are a group of risk-taking teen and young adult males who are hustling to keep their existence in check

According to the article, Matthew Barnhill, Senior VP of Corporate Research at BET Networks, says "African Americans Revealed shows us that the black community should never be referred to as one homogeneous population... We hope this report will help organizations better connect with an audience and intimately recognize all of its complexities.

We couldn't agree more!

Blogalicious Bytes #2: How to be #1 on Google without Paying a Small Fortune

Our next webinar is scheduled for March 4th at 9pm EST and we have been lucky enough to get Adria Richards to host another session on "How to be Number One on Google without spending a Small Fortune." Click HERE to reserve your spot for this informative session.

If you're a new blogger or an experienced one, a blogger trying to build a business, blogging for fun or blogging for work, you'll find this webinar crucial to understanding what you need to do to become #1 on Google.

If you're curious about which blogging platform is better for SEO, whether SEO rules still apply when using Wordpress for a blog and CMS, whether page rank is lessened by uploading too much content within a short time, what exactly page rank is and how to get it (these were a few questions asked at the previous webinar) -- then this webinar is for you.

Don't be afraid that this will be too technical for you because Adria will break it down in simple terms for us all to understand.

Please submit your questions beforehand so Adria can expand on the content of the presentation.

Hope you'll join us!

More about Adria

Adria Richards is an organic technology consultant, trainer and speaker. She is dedicated to empowering people through technology. Adria started her career at Geek Squad in 1999 and has 11 years of experience in the IT industry. She launched her own consulting company in 2006. She blogs at ButYoureAGirl, offers online training at Freshworkshops, does a weekly tech show at AskAdria and strives to raise awareness for open source, cloud/SASS applications and equality in technology.

Adria will be speaking at this year’s SXSW and BlogHer. She enjoyed last year's inaugural Blogalicious conference, was able to reconnect with many other women she had met at other events and had time at this event to have deeper discussions with many new people! She plans to return to the Blogalicious 2010 conference in Miami this October.

Recap from BlogaBytes Webinar # 2

Thank you for attending our webinar today with awesome instructor Adria Richards on “How to be #1 on Google without Paying a Small Fortune.”

Please take a moment to complete a short survey (here) and let us know what you thought.

If you missed it, Adria has graciously agreed to host this webinar again on March 4th, and you can register here.

How To Be Number One On Google Blogalicious


Here are a few links from today’s session for your reference:

Google Analytics Signup - http://google.com/analytics

Wordpress.org is the self-hosted version of Wordpress requiring a domain name and hosting – http://wordpress.org/

Great examples of Wordpress websites for Inspiration – http://welovewp.com/

Copyblogger, resource for writing great content for the web - http://copyblogger.com/

What is SEO? Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

What is Google Page Rank? Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_page_rank


Links to Adria’s content

Adria’s training website for blogging and SEO – http://freshworkshops.com/

Original show on this topic at AskAdria, How To Be #1 On The Google Without Spending A Small Fortune - http://bit.ly/Y5liP

Adria’s tech blog – http://butyoureagirl.com/

Adria weekly technology show – http://askadria.com/

More about tomorrow's FREE webinar

Our Blogalicious Bytes: Lessons in Social Media series continues with Session # 2 tomorrow, February 11th at 2 p.m. Please join instructor Adria Richards of butyoureagirl.com and freshworkshops.com as she presents on the topic How to be Number One On Google without paying a Small Fortune.

If you own a business and you’re on the internet, you have probably heard about your “Google rank”. Maybe someone has called or emailed you promising if you pay them a monthly fee, they can get you to the very top of Google.

A study by JupiterResearch and iProspect revealed that 68% of search engine users click a search result on the first page and a full 92% select one of the first three results!

Adria will show you how you can:
- Increase your search engine traffic
- Improve the quality of the traffic so that you have visitors interested in your product, services, conversation
- Use tools from Google to understand what people are searching for
- Install Google Analytics on your blog to measure your traffic
- Evaluate your visitor traffic to make sound decisions on your blogging strategy
- Steer clear of fake offers to artificially boost your ranking

Adria will also discuss what SEO is and what it isn’t using an example of good SEO content development.

Please RSVP today and tell your friends.

Social Media Advice for Brands

Yesterday the State of the Net conference took place in Washington, DC. The focus of the event is on technology policy in the U.S. and covers an array of topics related to the Internet. One of the sessions this year was entitled “Social Media in Tech Policy” (hooray to government for even recognizing the issue!) and the panel addressed their concerns with government agencies and companies diving into the social media waters headfirst, without the deep-sea gear.

On the one hand, it’s great that big agencies and brands are recognizing the potential to connect with the people that they serve, and their consumer base, by taking to the social media streets; on the other hand these entities need to make sure that they know what they’re getting into. The panel expressed that effective social media interaction requires a sustained effort on their part. It’s one thing to have access to the media, but it’s another thing entirely to actually be social. Companies take heed: you must engage your audience. It’s not enough to just have a Twitter account or a Facebook fanpage. You need to actively use it; listen to the conversations and add value to them. That’s the way to effect change, gain consumer feedback and develop goodwill.

The best advice? Hire someone that understands the space. You’ll be glad that you did. Another great place to start is to attend a workshop on the subject. When used properly, the fruits of social media engagement can be plentiful.

Download webinar #1 - "Monetizing Your Blogs"

Our first webinar held on Monday January 18th, 2010, with instructor Ken Gibbs, Jr., former Site Development/Real Black Network Director on Essence.com, on the topic of "Money Matters: Monetizing Your Blogs" is now available for download here!

Using Social Media for Good

For anyone on Twitter today, the message is clear: #HELPHAITI.

I logged in expecting to see a few tweets about the tragic earthquake and was immediately taken aback that #HelpHaiti and #TextYele and #Port-Au-Prince and #RedCross are all trending topics. This, this, is where the power of social media really shines through. My heart was warmed to see the support that Yele Haiti, Wyclef Jean's Haitian Relief Organization, is receiving. Mamalaw has long been a supporter of Wyclef and this great organization and we keep the Yele button on our blog to spread the word to all of our visitors. His plea for everyone to donate $5 by simply sending a text is being re-tweeted like wildfire.


The country of Haiti is near and dear to our hearts. Justice Jonesie's family comes from Haiti and she still has several family members that live there. In fact, she just returned from visiting Haiti for the holidays less than 2 weeks ago. My mother volunteers with Project Medishare for Haiti and frequently makes trip to the island to help the poorest of people. I often hang up the phone after our conversations in tears after listening to her describe the sad scenes and unthinkable conditions that she'd witnessed. In short, Haiti is special to us.

And how amazing to see that Haiti is important to the Twitter community too. Our very own Blogalicious supporter @LuvvieIG has rallied her blogging community to generate support for Haiti by challenging everyone to place the Yele Haiti banner on their blogs and to donate both money and clothing to Haitians in need.


Blogalicious Weekend will be donating $.25 to the people of Haiti for each Twitter follower that we have. The mobilization and charitable support for Haiti on Twitter and the blogs today is amazing. And really embodies the essence of social media: Community.


We encourage our community to spread the word about the various ways to donate and to keep the earthquake victims in their thoughts and hearts.


A word to the wise: Don't take your social media influence lightly. With a quick re-tweet on Twitter, a short status update on Facebook or a meaningful post on your blog, you can make a difference in the lives of people hundreds of thousands of miles away. That's the real beauty of social media.

Sign up for a FREE webinar

As we mentioned in our newsletter we are launching a new series - Blogalicious Bytes: Lessons in Social Media. Blogalicious will host monthly webinars on topics of interest to our social media community. These hour-long webinars will be taught by well known and respected instructors in their respective areas of expertise.

The first webinar will be held on Monday January 18th, 2010, at 8:00 P.M. EST, join Ken Gibbs, Jr., former Site Development/Real Black Network Director on Essence.com, as he presents on the topic of Money Matters: Monetizing Your Blogs.

Please rsvp here to reserve your spot in this session. The webinar is free, so in the spirit of the season, please share this tip with your friends:)