Mocking Bird l Vancouver Film Photographer » Blogging

Blogging Awards

Amanda — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:10:37 +0000

It’s award season in the world of entertainment and it seems that blogging awards are popping up all over the internets too.

Along with Apartment Therapy’s ‘Homies‘ and the now 10 year old Bloggies, two other fabulous award events are taking place this year. Poppytalk is hosting ‘The Poppies‘ and Lovely Clusters have started ‘The Lovelies‘.

The Poppies are all about people and things handmade, while the Lovelies focus on blogs and online shops.

This isn’t the kind of thing I would normally write about however these are the people who do all those creative things we love reading about, whose blogs inspire us to do more with our normal every day. There are quite a few of my favourite blogs and people nominated in both awards, so I know I’ll be nominating some others and voting for a few. The hard part is deciding which ones!

The Poppies have closed nominations and you can now vote in the various categories until January 30th, while Lovely Clusters is still having nominations and voting has also commenced.

It’s all a bit of fun, but it’s also a really nice way to show the people who write creative blogs and who share their work with us, that we appreciate what they do. Go vote!

EDIT: I’ve now been nominated LOL. Vote for Mocking Bird here. Not the point of this post! But thanks :)

Bloggers Unite

Amanda — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:22:46 +0000

Hello kiddos!

I hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was full of fun and hilarity. The Canadian and I hosted the last ever games night in our apartment as we will be moving out of here in about 3 weeks. Our little group of friends are big board game fans, so we do regular ‘games nights’ on the weekends. Very dorky but lots of fun. Sunday was spent at a friend’s baby shower. I am trying to spend as much time with Sydney friends as possible before we take off for Canada.

On my way home from a great weekend.

Now, it was great to see such a wonderful response to the blogging goals post.

You all talked about having goals like:

needing more time to blog more regularly, what to do after you get readers (how to keep them), keeping notes on blogging ideas, taking better photos, having more people reading your blog, getting more subscribers or followers (blogspot), interacting more with your readers, trying to keep up with emails, redecorating your blog design, making your blog more professional, and to give your posts more direction and purpose.

It was great to read that other bloggers (you) are all experiencing the same sorts of thoughts on your blogging that I am.

I think if blogging is something that you are consciously thinking about, it can be really rewarding. Despite the young age of this blog, I have been blogging for over 6 years now and have tried different types of blogging in that time.

I think the idea of getting readers but then keeping them is something to really work on. I think if you create a friendly, helpful atmosphere on your blog, by talking to your readers and responding to their emails, they will want to come back. I always think about what I think of blogs and their owners when I visit them myself. Think about what keeps you coming back to blogs and what annoys you about them too. I don’t like having to search around a blog for the owner’s email or their about page.

A lot of the goals you talked about are the same goals that I am aiming for. Apart from having Icelandic visitors (Marc from Iceland commented in that post! ) my goals are as follows:

to blog about things that I enjoy but that are useful and relevant to readers – I mean this is why we blog, right? So people will read it!
to blog more regularly (I want to get 5 posts a week).
to find more time to blog during the week.
to write more how to features on photography.
to get more subscribers…subscribe here!

I keep these goals on a post it widget on my Macbook dashboard, so I can refer to them easily. It’s a good idea to write your goals down. Thanks for all the great responses to Blogging Goals. Let me know how you’re going on your goals!

Blogging Goals

Amanda — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:08:54 +0000

Emiliana Torrini image found on Google Images.

It sounds so geeky, but I love reading blogging blogs. Yes, blogs about blogging. It’s got geekfest written all over it, but I actually find them really interesting to read. One of the big things awesome people like Darren Rowse talk about is setting goals for yourself and what you want to achieve with your blog.

I have a little diary where I write down ideas and inspirations but I also have one ridiculous goal. For my stats I’ve started using the awesome and free Google Analytics. You should check it out if you don’t use it already. It’s got too much information that I don’t need but one cool feature is the Map Overlay. It basically tells you where people reading your blog, are in the world. I have discovered that I have readers in the US, Canada, UK, Sweden, France, The Netherlands, Singapore, Germany, Norway (Hello, Norway!), The Phillipines, Japan, Finland, NZ, Estonia, Ireland, Bulgaria, China and the list goes on and on. One country that is not on my list however is Iceland.

So this is my goal. I want a visitor from Iceland! Maybe I should start talking more about my love for Icelandic princesses and princes. They are in fact my favourite kinds of musicians. I know you know Bjork and she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I do implore you to listen to some Sigur Ros and if that’s even a bit out there for your liking, then try some Emiliana Torrini. She is quite the songstress…then of course, there is Amina and múm.

Watch gorgeous Emiliana’s Jungle Drum! It’s crazy and fun.

Iceland, come find me!!!

Do you have any blogging goals? Even just silly ones like my Icelandic dream? I do have more than having an Icelandic visitor but it’s pretty high on my list.

p.s. Hello to all my visitors from all over the world! Comment and tell me where you are blogging from…I’d love to know which towns you are in.