Earlier this year, I joined our lovely publisher, Betsy Eves from the blog JavaCupcake, in teaching a class for the Dog Tag Inc. Fellowship.

Betsy is an alumna of this Fellowship program, so hearing firsthand her experience at creating an online business is exceptionally powerful.

We set out with the goal of teaching a mindset – thinking of yourself as a brand before you’ve even bought a domain name or figured out a product you want to sell.

Fellows in this program are tasked with learning all about becoming entrepreneurs. And whether you use a blog as your main business focus, or use it as a tool to augment another product or service, blogging the right way to support your goals can be an important skill to learn.

We wanted the Fellows to know how to build a blog with intention. How to find your voice so that you can build a brand that is authentic and engaging for your potential customers.

I’ve been blogging for more than 11 years now, and it’s easy to forget that a lot of the world doesn’t realize that blogging can be a business of its own.

Having the opportunity to illuminate these Fellows on what is possible, how you can make an entire business online that is easy to take with you wherever you may be stationed in the world, was a huge and exciting task.

What did Betsy and I mean when we said, “blogging the right way”? For me personally, it means zooming out a little bit and recognizing that from the moment you decide to start a business, you are a brand.

Brands create content with the intention of driving awareness and encouragement to use the products they are creating, and the most successful brands do that using their unique voice.

Do you want to drive awareness to your business? Explain the methods that set you apart from your competitors?

A blog is the perfect way to do that. We even do it right here on the Mediavine blog. A place where we definitely have a distinctive voice that sets us apart from anyone else in the space.

Introducing the idea that a blog can also simply be the business was another eye-opener for these industrious learners.

That’s the case for our almost 6,000 publishers. Instead of selling physical products, the daily focus is on driving traffic to your unique site through great content and effective marketing strategies.

Betsy and I came together to teach these Fellows what it looks like to build a blog from the ground up, and how you can turn that into a business of its own, all by finding your voice and what is important to your brand.

Of course, we talked about the mechanics of blogging that set you up for success too; look to start on WordPress, the most used and best-for-SEO platform.

How to consider your topic focus, and plan content around it. How to make sure your content is well optimized for web reading, whether you plan to put ads on it or not. All the things that make a reader stick around and engage with your content.

Then there are the even more granular details – what does a blog post look like, and how to successfully market it.

But it always comes back to finding your voice so that you can find your people in the vast world wide web.

While the idea of an online business can be overwhelming, with the right tools and knowledge, it can also be incredibly lucrative.

Betsy and I worked together to create a course of instruction for this team of students that reflected all the things they’d need to consider as they move forward with their business plans.

Joining Betsy to give back to the community was such an honor, and the fantastic Dog Tag Bakery cookies were definitely a major bonus.

Thank you, Dog Tag Inc., for having us, and for allowing Mediavine the chance to talk all things blogging with your Fellows.

We’re sharing here a video about our trip, and also the slides that Betsy and I created together. Let us know if you have any questions, we’d love to help you find your voice too.

Here are the slides:

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Working remotely definitely has its perks, but even more exciting is getting out and traveling to attend a variety of conferences and events.

One of our favorite parts of work travel is meeting our amazing publishers in real life. It’s also wonderful to connect and spend time with some of the fully remote Mediavine team in person.

Conferences are the perfect time to learn from awesome speakers, meet new people, explore different places and of course, eat lots of delicious food.

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That’s what we’ll be singing every day from June 3–5, 2020 when we’re in town for the FIFTH Mediavine conference!

We’ve already been to Charleston, San Jose and Chicago, and soon we will be in Austin for our second event of 2019. We’re extremely excited to add the Charm City to the growing list.

Why Baltimore?

We picked Baltimore for the fifth Mediavine Conference because it is a thriving, bustling city. It’s home to great food (hello, crabcakes!), a creative hub and lots of history.

Both conference lodging and learning will take place at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, located in the heart of the Baltimore harbor.

The hotel is just a 7-minute walk from the National Aquarium and just around the corner from attractions like historic Fells Point and Camden Yards.

What is the Mediavine Influencers Conference?

Our annual Mediavine conferences are a chance for publishers — whether they’re with Mediavine for full-service ad management or not — to connect with each other, with sponsors, with Mediavine team members, and so much more.

With tracks for both beginner and advanced bloggers, the 2020 Mediavine Influencers Conference will continue to leverage those connections to help publishers take their blogs to the next level in sales, marketing, videography and more.

At #MVCON20, we will continue our mission to help our publishers and content creators build sustainable businesses.

Here’s a recap of our latest conference in Chicago:

Check out our YouTube Channel to see some of our past sessions and speakers. We have announced some speakers already and even more will be announced soon!

When do tickets go on sale?

You can expect early bird tickets to go on sale in November 2019, and regular price tickets to go on sale in December 2019. Check out our Eventbrite page for more details on ticket sales.

We will offer several types of tickets:

• 2-Day Passes
  Includes two full days of sessions June 4 & 5, Wednesday opening reception, Friday closing party and daytime meals.
• 3-Day Passes
  Three full days of learning! Includes access to a full day of hands-on workshops with the Mediavine team on Wednesday, June 3; two days of sessions June 4 & 5; Wednesday opening reception; Friday closing party; and daytime meals.
• Brand tickets
  For brands, marketers, & agencies. Ticket includes all conference sessions June 4 & 5, parties and daytime meals.

And yes, there will be a waitlist in the event tickets sell out!

Here’s how the waitlist works: If tickets are sold out on Eventbrite, the Waitlist option will be triggered. Fill out the waitlist form on Eventbrite. If a ticket becomes available, you will receive an email from Eventbrite. You will have 24 hours to purchase the ticket. If you do not purchase the ticket in time, it will be released to the next person in line.

We hope to see you in Baltimore next June! Learn more about our event on our Mediavine Influencers Conference Baltimore page. 

The post Announcing the 2020 Mediavine Influencers Conference in Baltimore! appeared first on Mediavine.

Why?

As a 100% remote company, we love getting together with our teammates and meeting our publishers in real life. It is always such a blast to talk about Mediavine and show off our products like Create and Trellis. (more…)

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We all get to work remotely (sometimes in our pajamas!) with some of the most creative and passionate content creators on the internet. One of the coolest aspects of this job is getting to meet these incredible publishers in person when we attend and sometimes sponsor blogging conferences (not in our pajamas).

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That’s right… First. Ever. I was blown away by the venue, decorations and delicious food. But, that doesn’t even come close to describing why Fuel Your Influence left such a lasting impact.

Every person we met, whether that be a blogger or aspiring blogger, had so much passion about their business. You could see that they were there to learn, network and grow.

The day started with a breakfast buffet while everyone listened to our very own, Jenny, speak about how to make brands want YOU.

Whether it be nailing down the About Me page or triple checking your social media links, Jenny taught us all how to ensure a brand swipes “right.”

Throughout the afternoon, we were able to listen to speakers on all sorts of topics. This truly was the perfect conference to fuel inspiration that all bloggers need! From SEO and Instagram etiquette, to marketing and networking…Fuel Your Influence was jam-packed with advice from some of the best out there!

In the blogging world, there is ALWAYS something new to learn.

The last presentation was Caroline Fausel from Mediavine publisher Olive You Whole. Not only was she engaging and hilarious, it was so encouraging to watch everyone take detailed notes and implement the changes she suggested.

As a Publisher Support Specialist at Mediavine, we specialize in site audits.

What is a site audit? It is a personalized optimization guide that gives you tips and tricks on how to best monetize your content or, essentially, increase your revenue and RPM. (Email us at publishers@mediavine.com if you would like a site audit!)

At Fuel Your Influence, we had the opportunity to give in-person site audits. I loved being able to sit down with publishers and talk through their blogs.

The day ended with raffle prizes, a cocktail hour and generous goodie bags from Safeway.

I am so excited for the future of Fuel Your Influence and look forward to what conference organizer Jenny Finke (who is also our publisher at Good For You Gluten Free) and her team are planning for next year!

Check out some of our past blogger conference recaps! This year we’ve been to Type-A Parent, TravelCon and Haven Conference just to name a few! 

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Our fall tour de conferences has seen us at TravelCon, Tastemaker, FinCon, Type-A Parent and FYI.

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From staff retreats in New Orleans and Denver to conferences like the Women In Travel Summit in Quebec City and the Mediavine Conference at Google’s Headquarters in San Jose, California, my teal passport has started to fill up!

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I’ve been able to attend our own Mediavine Conference in San Jose and Everything Food Conference in Salt Lake City so far this year which were both so fun.

This crazy conference season is coming to a close as the cold is starting to creep in, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t get to tell you about our fun weekend at the inaugural Tastemaker Conference!

In the middle of September, Jenny and I flew back out to gorgeous Salt Lake City to hang out with 200 food bloggers for a fun weekend of learning and hanging out with some great people.

Abbey Rodriguez from The Butter Half had a vision of putting together an event for like-minded food bloggers, and YOU GUYS, did that vision come to life?!

The first morning had an amazing opening speech from Tim Robinson of ThermoWorks and Susie Bulloch of Hey Grill, Hey to get everyone really excited about the coming days.

It was all set in the gorgeous main hall that I could’ve just lived in. The Tastemaker team thought of all the details and it made the weekend that much more special.

There were more than 20 speakers with different panels, breakout sessions and workshops throughout the weekend to learn from some of the best in the business.

I can’t mention ‘best in the business’ without mentioning Jenny’s talk too. She spoke about How to Get More of Your Content, which was a session packed full of great information and laughs. If you’re ever at a conference where she’s speaking, I highly suggest going to her session!

Just as a little side note, if that topic interests you, we’ve still got the Mediavine Content Upgrade Challenge going on which touches on a lot of those same things that Jenny’s talk did.

We’ve also got a ton of awesome Facebook Lives that Jenny has done that are up on our Facebook Page and YouTube Channel that you should check out too because hi, hello, yes, who doesn’t need some insanely useful information AND laughs at the same time.

We really can’t talk about a food blogging conference without talking about the food! There were gorgeous breakfast and lunch spreads each day that were the perfect opportunity to sit next to someone new and make some great new friends!

Since I am always on #TeamSnacks, I need to share with the world the cutest snack station with the Farmer’s Market Snack Bar that was setup both days.

Oh, and there were churros. Freshly made and delicious. Need I say more?

Outside of the snacks, my favorite part of going to conferences will always be getting a chance to talk to our publishers, both current and future.

Mediavine had set up a charging station which was the perfect place to get to take a beat, answer questions, and catch up with some awesome people!

It was such a fun weekend at the first Tastemaker Conference and we can’t wait to see what Abbey and her team have in store for Portland in 2019!

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So far this year we’ve been to Pinterest in The Making in San Francisco, Everything Food Conference in Salt Lake City, Blog Elevated in Houston and our own Mediavine Conference at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California — just to name a few!

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