Let’s be honest. When brands are working with bloggers, they have to have some metrics for their campaigns. (And if they don’t, they should). The metrics might be clickthroughs, page views, Facebook likes, Twitter followers, or whatever. But ultimately, they need to be able to justify their time and money to someone.

We love our numbers and we hate them at the same time. And you probably know which numbers I’m talking about because I’ve had to share mine too.

There are the obvious numbers like how many Twitter followers we have or how many Facebook friends we have. Incidentally, it irks me that no one ever asks for numbers for a Facebook page. I promote my page. My personal Facebook page is exactly that. Personal. While it is part of my circle of influence, it’s reserved for friends. I don’t want to be judged on that.

So where were we… Twitter, Facebook. And then we might get asked for things like monthly page views or unique visitors. Sometimes, we’re asked for blog subscriber numbers. And if you’re anything like me, you sometimes feel apologetic in reporting them. Or if you’re unlike me, you might fudge those numbers (which is never a good idea, by the way).

But we are more than our numbers, and I don’t mean that in a touch-feely sort of way. There are new ways in which brands should be evaluating bloggers. Here are my recommendations.

1. Instagram

With the addition of this app to the Android market, the number of Instagram users shot up literally overnight. Twitter and Facebook (who recently acquired Instagram) are flooded with pictures. Why should brands care? Because we tag the stores and restaurants where we are. We photograph a product we love. We capture some brilliant piece of marketing we see. It’s microblogging with pictures.

I’ve seen some people build very large, very engaged audiences just on Instagram. They may be bloggers in their own right but when they post on Instagram, they’ll get immediate feedback and engagement.

2. Pinterest

I have my own thoughts about Pinterest as a social sharing network (and they’re not all good) but for bloggers especially in the craft, food, and/or design space, it’s been a goldmine for traffic. To a Pinterest novice, it may seem like everyone is simply repinning pictures of really cool stuff. But Pinterest actually ranks more highly those photos that are pinned from the context of something like a blog post.

Users don’t just repin. They click through. They make the craft or cook the dish and then they blog about what they’ve done complete with links to the original blogs. It’s an extremely powerful tool and one that brands seems to be shying away from. Perhaps they don’t understand it well or they haven’t quite figured out the value. Trust me. It’s there.

3. Facebook Activity

It’s not about numbers alone. This newsflash came to me courtesy of my mother. She often asks me if I’ve seen her status update. Usually I haven’t unless I’ve specific gone to her profile to look. Often, if it doesn’t show up in my newsfeed or timeline, I’m not likely to see it. And typically, that is determined by Facebook by how active and interactive you are on Facebook.

For example, I can have a photo on my wall that’s over a year old. If someone is highly interactive on Facebook and happens to make a comment on the photo, I’ll start getting a slew of comments. On my old photo.

4. Facebook Friends

As I already mentioned, I’m not campaigning for friends on Facebook. I look for people I have genuinely connected with in come way. To that end, I recently decided to go through my list of 672 friends. Yes, they are actually friends. I probably wouldn’t invite them all over for dinner but I know them all in some capacity.

Many people are on Facebook. But many of those people never use Facebook. Some haven’t updated since last year. So should they even count in my numbers? Will I really have the intended reach? To that point, the same is true of Twitter followers.

I tossed in some good and some bad but really they are all examples of how a blogger isn’t the measure of all of their numbers. I like the idea of Klout. I like the idea of not just looking at numbers but looking at influence and reach. It’s a great idea, just not very well executed.

So what’s the answer?

Look at the whole picture. Look at the numbers. Look at the interactions. Look at the engagement. And think about what you’re really trying to accomplish before you assume that those top 100 mom blogs are what you need for your brand. (Not that there’s anything wrong with them either).

You’ve been approached by a brand to do a review and giveaway. Now what?

There are a couple of rules I use when setting up a giveaway keeping two things in mind: how does it benefit me (the blogger) and how does it benefit the brand I’m working with.

Benefitting the Blogger

Let’s be honest – a giveaway is work. To make it worthwhile, I always require that I receive and review the item that I plan to giveaway. Believe it or not, there are plenty of companies that will ask you to facilitate a giveaway with high resolution images to promote the product in question. I don’t believe in giving away anything that I haven’t personally experienced and that I feel I can endorse in some way.

Some bloggers also ask for compensation. This is not the same as doing a paid review, which most people consider unethical. This is an administrative fee that bloggers use to cover the time it takes to craft the giveaway, promote it, and facilitate it. Some companies are willing to pay the fees if the blogger has a large enough audience to make the giveaway worthwhile.

I also look for mutual promotion. In other words, I promote my giveaway and your brand and in return you help publicize my post on my blog. It’s a win-win but one where brands often fall short.

Finally, I make sure the product in question is a good fit for my blog.

Benefitting the Brand

Every piece of brand work you do is something that goes on your professional blogging resume. Make sure it’s something that you would be happy to reference and share with a future brand should you be asked.

And make sure it’s something you would be proud of. Copying and pasting web content from a brand’s site? Copying and pasting the promotional content that’s in the pitch? Neither one of these cut it in my book.

I can usually tell what a brand is after. Sometimes they want linkbacks to their site, in addition to the review. Sometimes they simply want their product name on as many websites as possible. And some simply want to take a risk with bloggers for some possible product promotion.

None of these are wrong motives but I’m working as a writer. I’m not a marketer for that brand so it’s not my job to write their marketing copy. It’s my job to give an honest opinion (even if I don’t like the product) and to write about it in a compelling way.

As for the giveaway portion of the review, I do my best to drive traffic to the brand’s site. If it’s simply about like ME, follow ME, subscribe to ME, and you’re doing it on the back of a brand, they don’t always appreciate that. Trust me. They’ve told me.

In my personal experience, I’ve found that the best ways to keep your voice flowing is to write in your own style and craft ways to enter the giveaway that encourage engagement. For example…

• Giving away shoes? Tell me what color you’d pick and where you would wear them.

Forces the reader to visit the brand site and put thought into how the product would fit into their life.

• Giving away a DVD? Tell me your favorite romantic comedy.

Readers love to share opinion and creates conversation.

• Giving away food? Share a memory from one of your favorite Thanksgiving dinners.

Helps the reader connect something personal to the product.

So here’s my advice…

If you’re a blogger and you want to do giveaways, make it a mutually beneficial relationship with your brand and never be afraid to surprise and delight.

If you’re in PR, make sure you offer something worthwhile and seek out bloggers that know how to help you. In turn, you should be prepared to help them as well.

Have you ever used Picnik.com? It’s a free picture editing software available through the web. It’s free. Did I mention that?

When I first started blogging a few years ago, I gave it a try at a friend’s insistence. I loved how she was able to create stylized photos with rounded edges and watermarks. I wanted to do that too. But I had Photoshop. I didn’t need some simple little web program that had intolerably slow performance.

Then I remembered that Photoshop requires a lot of knowledge and while I’m good at getting by, I wasn’t good enough to have it do what I needed it to do in a timely manner. So I started using Picnik here and there. And I actually started to like it. And I actually decided to pay for the premium features.

That was a big decision for a do-it-yourself blogger like myself that hates to pay for anything unnecessarily. And then a few short weeks later, I was notified that Picnik was going away. For good.

Through what I am sure was a random Twitter stream, I found out about the impending launch of PicMonkey.com, a supposed alternative to Picnik, and I signed up to be notified when it launched.

That day finally came and I even had the good fortune to interview the brains behind the monkey over at ShePosts.

But what good would a photo editing service be if it didn’t meet or exceeds the needs of its users?

I decided to put some of its photo features to the test. I took three original photos from three different mediums: my iPhone, my webcam, and my DSLR. Then I created modified versions in both Picnik and PicMonkey.

Whether your concern is to be able to duplicate the features found in Picnik or to simply have a rad photo editing tool, PicMonkey seems to make it’s case.

Photo #1: The Webcam

I started with a picture of myself taken with my webcam. It’s not the greatest picture. No hairstyling. No makeup. No contact lenses. And my age was showing. I knew my picture could use a little help.

The Original

Since I wanted to put features to the test, I went ahead and changed my eyes to green, put on my favorite shade of purple lipstick, applied a spray tan, and reduce just a few of those wrinkles. I then completed my look with a lovely orange flower in my hair and a Polaroid-style frame.

The PicMonkey Version

The Picnik Version

Is your opinion the same as mine? Yes. Spray tans are awful and purple doesn’t belong on lips.

Photo #2: The iPhone

I wanted to play around with the features a little more and decided to switch to a nature shot. Namely, a recently bloomed Camellia in my yard. As bloggers, we use a lot of mobile photography and making shots like these look good is important.

The Original

Normally, I wouldn’t do any sort of photo editing to a shot like this except to maybe make the colors a bit more brilliant and add a little clarity to the image. I did exactly that but had a little fun with some additional features.

The PicMonkey Version

The Picnik Version

Conclusions on this one? The functionality is great but sometimes nature is best left alone.

Photo #3: The DSLR

If you’re serious about photography, especially for your blog, you’ve probably invested in a DSLR for some of your photos. I had an amazing photo I took at the North Carolina Zoo when the elder chimpanzees decided to come and sit right next to the glass. The only problem was the glass. It made a reflection in an otherwise great photo. So I decided to do a little clean up.

The Original

For a shot like this, I was hoping to balance out the color, contrast, and exposure to minimize the look of the glass in the lighter grays post of the photo. I also wanted to watermark it, or simply add text.

The PicMonkey Version

The Picnik Version

I got the font wrong in the Picnik version and I don’t think I made exactly the same edits but I got pretty close. And that monkey looks pretty darn handsome.

Now with all things being equal, which do I prefer?

I’m familiar with Picnik but I’ve always thought it lacked an intuitive flow. From a usability standpoint, I like and prefer PicMonkey. From a feature standpoint, I’m still missing a few things on PicMonkey (like collages) but I’m assured they are coming and will rock my world.

Now it’s your turn to weigh in. Do you use photo editing software? Have you or will you give PicMonkey a shot?

For more information on how PicMonkey relates to Picnik, read my interview with them over at ShePosts.

What I love about the social space is that it is what you make of it. There is no distinct career path or measure of success. Every other week, I’ll be profiling a blogger who has gone beyond the blogging space and gives insight as to how her career is evolving. If you missed any of the “What’s Your Social Dialect” profiles for bloggers and brands, I encourage you to take a look.

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This week, I’m thrilled to bring you a personal friend that I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside. Kelly Whalen (@centsiblelife) is smart, savvy, and the founder of The Centsible Life, a blog where motherhood and money meet. Her goal is to help readers live well on less. Kelly is a mom to 4, and loves that she can stay at home with her kids, and still pursue her passions for writing, personal finance, and social media. You can often find her on twitter and Facebook talking money and motherhood.

Social Dialect: How long have you been blogging and what got you started?

Kelly: I started blogging in January 2009. You can read more about how I started and why here, but in summary I started blogging because I like to share information and thought a blog would be a perfect way to share what I was learning as my family and I tried to dig our way out of debt $1 at a time.

SD: How did your LBB (life before blogging) lend to what you are doing now?

Kelly: As a child and teen my mom worked from home, and set her own hours (though she worked for Avon). Much of what she did focused on teaching women to run their own small businesses and market themselves so a lot of my knowledge base comes from her work (which I helped out with as an assistant at times). I have always had a love of books and the written word, so writing has always been an outlet for me. After having kids (which totally taught me how to juggle multiple projects) I spent a lot of time volunteering as a community moderator or manager. all those experiences help me with different facets of what I do today, but I think the thing that helps me the most is my thirst for new knowledge and experiences. Without that I wouldn’t be up to date on the latest trends and tools or know how to adapt.

SD: Do you consider yourself fully sustained by your social media career (understanding that “sustained” is an individual level of satisfaction)?

Kelly: Yes and no. Career-wise it is completely fulfilling though at times overwhelming. The saying is true that when it rains, it pours. Life-wise I find that it is one facet of leading a satisfying and rewarding life.

SD: How have you grown your presence in social media and where would you like it to take you?

Kelly: I’ve grown my presence over time. I focus on quality relationships and building my audience naturally versus tools, tricks, and gimmicks. Questions about where I would like to be in the future are tough since I feel like the space, and my goals shift depending on so many factors.  I’m always adapting and changing to meet people where they are.

SD: What would be your dream company to work with for totally personal and selfish reason?

Kelly: This is a great question, and one that is tough to answer. I have worked with and currently work with some amazing brands including Acura, Home Depot, UPromise, Udi’s Gluten Free, and Lowe’s Creative Ideas.

Some of the brands and products I love and use daily are the ones I would be most thrilled to work with. The list includes brands like Apple, Target, Method, Starbucks, Electrolux, Wegman’s, Trader Joe’s, Banana Republic, Pottery Barn, and Home Goods. They are all brands that I use literally every day.

I’d also love to partner with more causes, and non profits because there are so many causes that are close to my heart. Currently I’m working to raise funds for a local robotics team whose school board first denied and then stated they needed to raise funds to attend a World Championship. Some causes that I care deeply about are hunger in America and all over the world, encouraging STEM skills, financial literacy, and women’s and children’s issues.

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Have a question for Kelly? Leave a comment here. Otherwise, check out all the amazing things she’s doing through her blog, The Centsible Life.

Elizabeth Norton has a fire in her belly. I’ve known that about her quite some time. But what I didn’t know is that the fire in her guest post would be about the real or imagined social hierarchy out there on the web. These types of issues always tend to rear their ugly heads right after a major conference, like SXSW. She gives some great food for thought and I’d love it if you shared your thoughts at the end of her post.

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I have had this post mulling over in my head. Having the words flow through my fingers is long overdue. Nothing shall ever make any progress, nor will any point be made if it is perpetually in my head. So out it goes and into the inner workings of the web will it flow.

Recently, I have felt some spite between the communities of the web. Perhaps it’s the latest platform making its debut and the older platforms trying to keep up. It’s an endless horserace where the finish line is nowhere in sight, yet we are all in a hurry to get there. It could be that, or it could be the fact that everyone on the web seems to feel they rule it.

It is their web.

True, they may have a slice of space: a “.com” perhaps, a Webby app they created, a patent, a web profile, even a highly vocal blog, or their own server. This space is theirs. But it’s not. It is ours to share.

We have the content providers who think content is King and all else are what, the Jokers? To an extent I see this as a valid point, but in reality King of what? King of Google?

I think not.

Even Google has its faults. It can be assimilated to big government on the web where the little people can be locked out of their emails and have nowhere to turn. No number to call and no shoulder to cry on. But Google is not the ruler of this online world we all seem to live in. This, I am sure of.

The developers, although intelligent, are nothing without the web personalities that provide value to them. Yes they can create, but who will use? Without these personalities, they would be pointless, dusty from no use. Their brilliance would be wasted.

On the other hand, the web personalities, those that have thousands of followers and can wreak havoc on Fortune 500 companies in the name of poor service, have nothing on those that provide content and write about them, or the shameless writing they do of themselves. And, those content portals where their popularity feeds (aka blogs), are nothing without a search engine to find them. They would be pointless. Limp. Their social medieval personalities would have nowhere to shine.

Google and such would be nothing if there was nothing to search. If there were no blogs or Tweets or Webpages, there would be nothing to index. The search engines would be pointless, empty… showing nothing of use. The way I look at it, the web is an agnostic place. There is no God over the Internet. We are all equal.

The web has become less of a web and more of a revolving circle with nothing at its core. There is no God of the Internet. There is no ruler of the Web. There is no king.

Developers: check your ego at the door of your bedrooms, your basements, or your high rise corporate workplaces. You may have an office, but you certainly do not have it all.

Social Media personalities: you are an integral part of the Web as others follow suit. But besides the person in front of you in the Starbucks line, the man next to you at the press event or the blogger that just commented on your blog, you are just a being like everyone else. You certainly do not have it all.

And Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Bing and the latest search engine motors that help us connect: you play an integral part as well, but so did the radio and look where that is now. Last time I saw one was on “The Brave Little Toaster” when my son asked me what it was and why it was being saved from a trash dump. You certainly are not it all.

Don’t you see the web is an agnostic place?

There is no leader. There is no corner of the web where web developers, webmasters, community leaders, social media managers, and/or web crawlers can meet, because the Web is round and has no corners. Contrary to an actual web, there is no beginning or end. We are all equal and dependent on each other. Without that dependency, the revolving motion would be faulted and the sphere would be broken.

Although competition is healthy, realize the web is one of its own. Together we will spin and make a better today for a more connected tomorrow. Separate, with no respect for the other web equations, we do a disservice to not only each other, but our own divisions of labor. We do a disservice to the revolution for tomorrow.

Check your egos at the power buttons to your computing devices. We are all in this together. Face it. You are nothing without my typing and my typing is nothing without you.

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Elizabeth Norton is an online personality that collaborates with companies that have products and services that she believes in. A blogger since 2004, Elizabeth Norton has nurtured numerous relationships that make up an online community by sharing and being personable. Elizabeth detests cold calling and believes in marketing by relating and knowing the community. Elizabeth works with numerous companies, usually ones unrelated, traveling, story telling, and meeting many. The more humans she meets the more she discourages hard selling and instead helps companies find their target audience and a deeper success rate for finding loyal customers that return again and again! Elizabeth truly believes that life is a lesson as much as it is a story! Live it. Learn from it. Share your findings.

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If you’re interesting in contributing a guest post on Social Dialect on the subject of brands, blogging, or social media, in general, drop me a line at fadra@socialdialect.com.

Where do I begin…

At first glance, being invited to participate in a contest doesn’t really sound like a bad deal. I’ve actually applied for and sometimes participated in contests. But that was before I knew better.

Now, not all contests are bad or wrong. Sometimes, the opportunity is too great to pass up (I’m talking to you, SAM-e Good Mood Blogger). Sometimes, the prizes are simply amazing (hello, Mercedes-Benz Tweet Race). But more often than not, the contest doesn’t have a whole lot to offer a blogger except for a lot of free PR work.

If you are being pitched a contest, you better make sure you read all the fine print and then think about whether or not the opportunity is really a good one for the amount of work (and sometimes begging and pleading for votes) that goes along with it.

Here’s a recent pitch that someone forwarded to me along with my thoughts, as always:

The Pitch

Email subject line: Congratulations – You’ve Been Nominated for the (Website Promotion) Blogger Competition!

Hi (blogger name),

My name is (company rep name) and I’m reaching out to share the good news – you’ve been selected for (website’s) first annual (Website Promotion) blogger showdown!

As you may already know, (website) is the internet’s premier source for (things that aren’t relevant to the pitch). For the first time, we’re putting bloggers head to head in a March Madness style tournament to compete to find the best (things) and win some pretty amazing prizes. We’ve been busy scouting out some top bloggers to participate in this event and we think (blog name) is a great fit!

What’s in it for you?

1st Place Prize – A trip for two to LAS VEGAS, including $500 towards your stay at (Hotel), 2 free tickets to a show of your choice, 3 guest blogging spots on our blog, and bragging rights!

2nd Place Prize – A brand new iPad 3.

All Participants – A minimum of $25 to shop with and a (website) t-shirt.

For the full details on this contest, please consult our (Website Promotion) guidelines, which can be found here: (link removed).

Only 16 bloggers can participate in this event and we will fill our slots on a first-come, first serve basis, so please respond to me quickly if you are interested in competing or if you have any questions.

I hope to hear from you soon!

Thanks,

(company rep name) & the (website) team

The Good

• The pitch is personalized with the blogger’s name and the name of the blog.
• Everybody gets something just for playing along.
• The rep is definitely enthusiastic about the promotion.
• It feels like an award even before you agree to do anything!

The Bad

• Formatting!! This may be my pet peeve but when you’re working in an electronic environment, using an underline usually implies a link, which is not the case here. And using bold, italics, and underline in the same email is overkill and just looks a little too Word document-ish.
• The blogger’s name was spelled wrong. While the pitch was personalized, if you leave a letter off the end of someone’s name, we’re left to wonder if it was a sloppy cut and paste or if you didn’t really pay attention.
• Overselling the payoff. The idea of “pretty amazing prizes” is subjective. More on that below.

The Ugly

• The biggest problem with this pitch is, hands down, the lack of consistency in language:
  • “You’ve Been Nominated”
  • “you’ve been selected”
  • “first-come, first serve”
  • Which is it?
• The prizes, while nice in value, sound a little condescending in nature:
  • A trip to Las Vegas with money towards your stay? $500 might be plenty but a real prize would simply include the associated travel expenses.
  • Blogging guest spots? For large traffic sites, this can be huge to a blogger but offering it as a prize seems a little cheesy.
  • Bragging rights? That probably didn’t need to be spelled out.
  • A brand new iPad3? Can’t I assume that it’s brand new? And the smiley face seems a little too look-what-we-got-you.
• It’s a contest.

I saved the worst for last. Yes, the biggest problem here is that it’s a contest.

Not only can there be legal issues arising from contests involving blogging but pitting bloggers against one another is probably not going to end well. Bloggers should be valued for the skill, talent, and influence and not treated like the next contestant on The Price is Right.

I’m sure that many bloggers that received the nomination/selection/invitation will dash off their response in hopes of being selected. But many of us are sitting behind the scenes wondering when we might be treated more like professionals.

In the past, I’ve read and written some great posts about how to keep the fires of inspiration burning bright. But lately, I’ve seen less and less of them. I suspect I know why.

Many of us, including myself, took a hard look at our blogging over the past year and found that we were moving away from inventive writing and into more and more brand-related posts. In doing so, I think we lost some of our creativity.

I also think a creativity killer can be the pervasive meme. People feel the need to post and so they join up with Muffin Tin Monday, and Wordless Wednesday, and so on. It’s a nice way to drive up your traffic but I have to question if it’s truly growing your blog in a meaningful way.

When I often participate in Mack Collier’s #blogchat, I find that people are often asking and answering questions about inspiration and capturing ideas.

I once wrote that I could write a post about the paint on the walls. It’s not the most interesting topic but I can generally find a story in anything.

Here are some of my top tips for finding inspiration and capturing your ideas.

1. When something happens to make your brain think, it’s a potential moment of inspiration.

Examples: a song from your high school days comes on the radio, a bird gets in your garage, you burn the meatloaf for dinner

Where’s the inspiration?

A song from your high school days comes on the radio…

and that song, “Invisible Sun” from The Police immediately takes you back to 9th grade when you were the tagalong sister riding in Jeff Barnes’ green Toyota truck. And now you want to write about the innocence of high school crushes.

A bird gets in your garage…

and after getting over being angry at your husband leaving the garage door open, you wonder how the bird is going to get out. Its instinct is to fly up, not down, to get out. And suddenly you want to write about how you’ve been trying to solve a major problem in your life in one way and now you’re going to try to look at it another way.

You burn the meatloaf for dinner…

and you start wondering how you got to be so lousy in the kitchen and why your husband married you when he grew up in an Italian family that equated food with love. And you feel like writing about how the requirements for domestic skills have changed over the course of your lifetime.

2. Photographs that speak to you are amazing pieces of inspiration.

Be careful. If it’s a licensed photo, you most likely won’t be able to use it on your blog. But maybe it’s your own photo. Those are easy to write about.

Here are some examples:

A photo, old or new, where you look beyond the subject and take note of the background. If it was Christmas, do you remember the toys you got that year? What was the story behind that tree in the picture?

An accidental photo. Before I started blogging, my son would grab the digital camera every chance he got and snap ridiculous pictures. I ended up publishing an entire album of his photos and it painted a really interesting look at life through a three year old’s eyes.

3. Stories of your life are the inspiration, not the post.

Sometimes, bloggers get caught up in the mundane details of their lives. Try to push the details aside and extract the meat of your story.

For example, I recently had a flight with really bad turbulence. I was petrified and the 70-something year old woman beside me could clearly tell. She distracted me with a story of an encased tarantula that her son-in-law gave her for Christmas one year.

The flight was scary but nothing remarkable. An old woman with a stuffed tarantula? That’s a better story.

As you get these bits and pieces of inspiration, capture the moment.

Let me repeat that.

CAPTURE THE MOMENT.

If you don’t capture the moment of inspiration pretty close to the time that you have it, you will forget. Trust me on this. Carry your phone with you at all times. Capture the moment with a photograph. Take notes on Evernote. Or my personal favorite (especially while I’m driving), record a voice memo.
Finally, write your inspired piece as soon as you can after inspiration. Generally, once a few days go by, your inspiring moment won’t feel as inspiring because you’ve lost the moment.

I hope you’re feeling a little more inspired now. So go capture it!

I started the “What’s Your Social Dialect” series last year to feature companies that work with bloggers and learn some of the secrets to their successes. This year, I’ve shifted the focus to women who are active and thriving in social media. Many of them ventured into social media as a result of their blogging but where they’ve gone from there is so wide and varied. Clearly, success in social media is not a clearly defined path but most of these women would probably prefer it that way.

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Kicking off the series is my friend, Kate Canterbury, commonly known by her Twitter handle @guavalicious (it just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?). Kate and I have crossed paths at many conferences but really connected at last year’s Type-A Parent Conference. I’m thrilled with where she’s going in social media and more thrilled that she chose to share it here.

Social Dialect: Let me start with the obvious. How did you get involved in social media? Was it through blogging? If so, how did that evolve?

Kate: When I moved to Columbia, Missouri for my husband’s job I was, frankly, bored. I didn’t know anyone and my girls were too wild for the moms at the playground. I had been on Twitter for awhile but hadn’t really used it. So I started playing around on it just to have someone to talk to during the day. Soon after I won a trip to Hawaii via Marriott’s Tweet Yourself to Hawaii and became a Twitter evangelist.

In the next couple of months I found a few other people in Columbia and started talking with them. Soon I met up with several local tweeters at Twestival.  The more I became part of the local community the more I noticed that there wasn’t a central group so I started Social Media Club Mid-Missouri. Through the group, we’ve been able to do free social media classes for small businesses, raise money for local charities, and generally have a good time online and off.

SD: As you started to realize that blogging and social media let to possible career options, what direction did you originally think you might head in?

Kate: I took an unusual path to working in social media. I actually started blogging as a result of being active in social media instead of the other way around. As I spent more time in the local social media scene I noticed a void in hyper-local blogging. There was a site for kids activities but not a general site. I started a personal blog about living in a college town when you don’t have any association with the college.

As I became better known in my city, I started getting asked for advice on blogging and social media. I knew becoming a consultant would be an easy way to make some extra income but it was important to me that Social Media Club remain a truly impartial resource so I made a vow not to monetize social media locally for the first year. I co-founded a group blog about Columbia, Missouri called The COMO Collective with a view towards monetizing it but I have found that the independent voice I value in hyper-local blogging doesn’t lend itself to advertising.

So I decided to go back to my first love, interactive media, and started reaching out to contacts I had made through Twitter, etc. and letting them now I was available for consulting and business coaching. I was recruited by a local company through a contact I had made through SMCMidMo, and though that job didn’t work out, the contact moved on and brought me on at his new company.

My success in new media is due to the communities I have built on social media platforms. Those connections are the reason I have a job. The piece of advice I offer is to play to your strengths. My professional background is project management, analysis, and customer service so working directly with companies as a consultant was a natural fit for me than being something like a brand ambassador. And it allows me to keep my blogging irreverant which is more “me.”

SD: What are your roles in social media today (blogger, corporate job, consultant, etc.)?

Kate: Currently I co-own an interactive marketing firm called Penguin Spark. It’s a collaboration with Scott Wendling who was instrumental in starting Social Media Club with me. Scott and I met on Twitter and have spoken together at two 140 conferences about using social media to build micro-communities and then taking those communities offline. Scott is an expert in the mechanics of interactive media so it’s the perfect marriage to my expertise in the social side.  We wanted there to be a smarter social media firm that was about integrating new platforms into business strategy, not just starting a Facebook page for a business.

I also just signed on as a brand manager with a new printing company called Print Ninja. The owner lives in China for his job and he was impressed by how they were able to print high quality items for his company. So he had the idea of starting a company that would bring the low cost, high quality printing to graphic design firms and agencies in the United States. Unlike a company like say Vistaprint that is able to provide low costs by offering set designs, Print Ninja allows people to print their custom projects for an even lower price. It makes it possible for anyone to have a “in-house” printing department like large companies do. I am especially excited about their press kits which can cost as little as $2. It’s just another example of how the web continues to change the face of business.

SD: What do you like best about working in social media and what advice would you give to those seeking to making a career out of it?

Kate: Working in social media is fantastic because there is always something new to explore. Nothing gets my juices flowing like a new platform. Plus I love that I am able to help small businesses utilize the power of social media to market themselves. I really feel like interactive marketing is the secret weapon of small businesses.

One of the biggest benefits is that I am able to integrate my passions into my work. For example, this year I am speaking at SXSW Interactive about uniting the special needs community through technology (both of my twins have special needs.) I also write a personal blog about life as working mom called The Guavalicious Life. The tagline is Doing it All, Some of it Well and I use it as a platform to talk about everything from a cool new app to a five minute recipe that goes well with craft beer.

And of course, having my own business allows me to set my own hours and work from anyone. I often work with clients while my daughters are receiving therapy. And I have been know to Skype to China from bed.

SD: What’s your favorite website (personal, professional, ridiculously hilarious, WHATEVER)?

Kate: I have to admit that Pinterest is still an obsession. Honestly I spend most of my time online on sites that I use in my work: LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. For fun, I like to vlog and upload my videos to my YouTube Channel. I also like to read the parenting site Babble.com and would love to write for them.

***

Want more Kate? She makes it easy to connect.

Kate Canterbury/Guavalicious
Connect: Linked In Twitter Facebook
President of Social Media Club Mid-Missouri
lifestyle blogging : The Guavalicious Life
hyper local blogging : The COMO Collective

Sometimes I’m a bit of a classic overachiever. I’ll admit it. But it’s certainly not my angle when it comes to blogging.

However, looking at a lot of the writing I do, I get asked by people frequently, “How do you keep up with all of it?”

Let’s look at a typical week for me…

I try to write at least four posts per week on my personal blog, all.things.fadra. To be fair, every Sunday, I host a meme for a 5 minute stream of consciousness writing post. The 5 minutes of writing are the easiest 5 minutes I spend all week but it’s still work.

In addition to my personal blog, I write here two times per week, generally Tuesday and Thursday.

I’ve also recently started as a weekly contributor at ShePosts.

And finally, I’ve been known to take a stab at other contributor sites or guest posts here and there.

Sounds like a lot, right?

It is. Especially since some of the posts require research or interviews or photos and content for sponsored posts.

Now imagine trying to respond to comments and emails and then visiting other blogs (I try to go to 30-40 per week).

I’ve learned a couple of ways to keep myself organized and maybe some of the shortcuts will help you if you already manage multiple blogs or have thought about it.

1. Prepare to sleep less.

While I don’t recommend this strategy, it’s one that I often employ to get everything done. Usually after my son goes to bed, I spend a good two hours catching up. The downside? I’d like to use more of that time to spend with my husband. I’m working on that.

2. Get help.

I don’t mean that kind of help although I feel like I need that sometimes. My husband tries to be flexible with his work schedule when I need him to be. I also send my son to morning preschool three days a week. And on another day, he goes to a sitter for the full day. That’s my work time and it’s worth the investment.

3. Create a work environment.

This might be more of a case of “do as I say, not as I do,” but I find that when I sit in a designated work area I’m more productive. Sometimes, it’s the public library while my son is at school. Sometimes it’s at the local Starbucks. Or sometimes, I actually sit at my IKEA desk in my IKEA chair and pretend like I have a real office. It helps.

4. Take shortcuts.

For my 5 minute Sunday meme, it can take a lot more than 5 minutes. I have to have a badge, a linky, embed code, rules, etc. My 5 minutes of writing could easily turn into 30 minutes worth of set up.

Instead, I take the HTML for my standard Sunday post and save it in TextEdit (or Notepad). All formatting is removed and I add in notes like start writing here or add new linky script. I cut and paste the HTML, write my content, and publish away. I take shortcuts and I’m always looking for more.

5. Use a calendar.

Everyone is different but pick some method of planning to help you out. I typically use a spreadsheet and the iMac calendar to keep a rough plan of posts coming up. It helps me keep up with deadlines and lightens my load when I’ve already thought about what I want to write.

Some people prefer a formal editorial calendar while others use pen and paper (imagine that!). Just pick a method and do some sort of planning.

All in all, in order to keep up with multiple blogs and not be driven entirely insane, you have to treat it like a job, even if no one is paying you.

I’m a little off in my timing of this pitch. I received this one in my email on February 9th, right before Valentine’s Day with the subject “Stopping by to say hi and offer Valentines material!” It was actually a nice little infographic on the origins of Valentine’s Day and some funny little tidbits. But after that, it all goes horribly wrong.

The Pitch

Hello Fadra!

I read through a couple of your posts, and thought I would introduce myself! I’m also working with a blog called Frugal Dad, and by way of introduction, I thought I would send over an infographic that we just released on amazing, astonishing, and strange Valentines Day traditions that you and your readers might like.

The Heart of Valentines Day
(link removed)

While giving chocolates on the 14th of February is also common in Japan, men who receive chocolates on Valentines Day respond with gifts for the girls they like on White Day, March 14th. And in Korea, men and women who receive nothing on either day observe Black Day on April 14th, mourning their loneliness over black noodles. Please check out our graphic for more little-known facts about Valentines, and feel free to share!

Keep in touch!
(name withheld)

The Good

• As I mentioned above, it’s actually a really nice infographic with lots of little interesting information.
• The infographic is pretty and visually appealing. Sometimes that’s hard to come by.
• The pitch seemed to be about nothing other than wanting to share interesting content.
• It was personalized and enthusiastically so (Hi Fadra!)

The Bad

• This pitch came from a site for dads but was signed by a woman. Perhaps they are big enough that they have staff or it’s simply a woman-owned site geared towards dads. I still thought it was odd.
• The author stated she would like to introduce herself and then never does. Yet her next sentence is “I’m also working with…” I’m not sure who she was working with in the first place!
• There was no introduction as to what the site is all about and why it might be a good link back for my readers (because you knew there would be a link back, right?)
• It’s actually Valentine’s Day. Not Valentines Day.

The Ugly

• I need to clarify that this content was not pitched at my personal blog, all.things.fadra, where I write about just about everything. I could understand a pitch being sent my way over there. This was sent to me at Social Dialect. I write about brands, blogging, social media, and bad pitches. They definitely should have put more thought into sending this.
• Something about the link really bothered me. It linked to their site but the end of the URL had a /proflowers which is the name of a well known floral business. I smelled link bait.
• They offered a nice display of the infographic in question and conveniently offered embed code at the bottom.
• The alt-text for the entire graphic was “flowers.”
• The actual image, according to the embed code, was located on an Amazon server (http://fdcdn.s3.amazonaws.com…) which again, made me a little nervous.
• Finally, when I went to the About page for the site, I couldn’t find a picture about the site founder ANYWHERE. I could find a link to his other blog about starting a blog called sidehustleblogging.com. If the name isn’t enough to turn you off, perhaps the “Server Not Found” message is.

This pitch was totally different than others because it was simply offering content for me to share. I know many other bloggers received this and perhaps even used it on their blog. I’m not chastising or criticizing them for making that choice. It is a pretty infographic. This one just felt shady (and irrelevant) to me so I steered clear.