Can you really make a million dollars from blogging? Yes. It turns out that’s indeed possible, and participants at the 8th annual Blogging While Brown Conference, which took place June 19 & 20, 2015 in Austin, Texas, were sitting on the edge of their seats to find out how.
The schedule was packed with information on how to monetize platforms and grow audiences without subverting messages. Comcast/NBC Universal, AT&T, BlogHer, Shea Moisture and the John F. Knight Foundation returned as sponsors, while Kapor Center for Social Impact arranged a one-mile wellness walk. In addition, NBC News wanted to recruit content producers for NBCBlck, its new African American news portal. “The managing editor for NBCBlck explained how bloggers can contribute to NBCBlck and how they can create content partnerships between their blogs and the news hub,†explained BWB founder Gina McCauley.
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If you couldn’t make it to BWB this year, don’t worry. While the sessions weren’t streamed live, McCauley pledged to record and upload every single session to BloggingWhileBrown.com.
McCauley took some time out to discuss schedule highlights, the new obstacles bloggers face, what her goals for the conference were, and how she’ll know if it was a success.
What did this year’s conference offer that was different from prior years?
In the past we had a lot more people who were curious about blogging. But now people are a lot more focused on business, and creating systems and processes so that they can scale their platforms in a sustainable way. For me, this year was much more focused on getting bloggers to adopt business models that are not advertising-based.
Why is that?
The 2015 BWB conference happened at an interesting time because many of the social media platforms have completely changed the rules of the game. We are responding to some of the most substantial changes in social media that I’ve seen happen in a single year. Facebook changed their algorithm. It’s pretty much pay to play now. Google changed their algorithm. It impacted people who weren’t mobile-ready. Pinterest eliminated affiliate links and also added a “buy” button. And Twitter is getting ready to roll out its own changes.
I think most of our attendees run single author platforms. So if they are going to leverage their platforms in the most effective and efficient way, advertising might not be the model for them because they might not have the traffic for that. But there are some tremendous opportunities to provide services to their audiences in ways other than advertising.
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What were some of the highlights of the conference?
Video is hot right now. There was a session teaching [attendees] how to leverage video. We also had an entire schedule for creating online courses. Online courses are a $50 billion business. The panels moved beyond ‘How do I connect with brands?’ and ‘How do I write sponsored posts?’ to getting people to think about ‘How do I build a business?’
So was the actual blogging part put on the backburner?
I still think blogging is important. We have had so many black folks in the news in the last year, and it is really
important that we tell our own stories. Even now, with what we have just experienced in Charleston, South Carolina, with a gunman killing nine people at a black church—bloggers were flying into Austin just as this major Civil Rights and hate crime is erupting. It is definitely going to be something that people are going to be thinking about.It underscores the fact that now, more than ever, we need to control our own narratives. Because mainstream media is going to move on from this in 72 hours. It is going to be black bloggers who keep these people alive through their family members and ask critical questions about what happened. We have definitely seen the power of social media to build movements and tell stories that aren’t being told, and tell our stories in different ways.
As for the million-dollar question, what will Lamar and Ronnie Tyler creators of BlackandMarriedwithKids.com have to offer in their keynote address titled ‘The Million Dollar Blog Formula?’
Well, last year was about six figures. Now it’s about seven figures. The Tylers were panelists
last year, but this year they hit their first seven figure year. Their keynote focused on the mistakes they made and how they could have gotten to seven figures faster. BWB has grown with them. The Tylers are the quintessential example of how you can take a blogging platform and build it into an empire. And they are always so generous with their information, time, and knowledge, which is why I asked them to come back and why we presented them with the Blogger of the Year award.How do you determine if this year was a success?
My biggest goal leaving out of this conference is implementation. We are going to start online training to help people execute the stuff that they learned. And also we are working to produce monthly webinars and conduct retreats in small groups. I will measure our success by the progress that our attendees make over the next 12 months doing the work, launching new products, building new platforms, expanding their audiences, and executing best practices in social media.