What do you think of the London Bloggers Meetup?

I asked one of the London Bloggers Meetup regulars what he thinks of our events and this is what he said.

Why not join us at our next event and see for yourself why people love the London Bloggers Meetup.

Blogging Challenges Survey 2011

At the start of the year I ran a survey with the London Bloggers Meetup community to find out what’s on our minds for improving our blogs this year. I asked the simple question:

What is the biggest blogging challenge you want to overcome this year?

I had a total of 105 different responses which I’ve summarised into 25 different categories.

I’m fairly confident it won’t be a surprise to hear the biggest challenge we – and probably all bloggers – face is to produce more regular and frequent content. 20% of you voted this as your biggest challenge, receiving more than double the number of votes from the next biggest challenge of increasing traffic / readers (9%).

The percentages in this pie chart represent the share of vote each challange achieved within the top 50% of responses.

It’s interesting to think the second challenge may actually be overcome by performing better on the first i.e. more regular content, particularly high quality content, will almost certainly lead you to achieving more traffic.

Once we move past these two more obvious challenges, the survey started to get more interesting. 6% of respondents are challenged by finding inspiration or the right direction for their content; producing quality content consistently; gaining publicity and reach; and also actually getting started.

One of the more common questions I am asked at London Bloggers Meetups is ‘when should I start blogging?’ My answer is always the same: get started as soon as you can. There is no reason to delay. If you are worried about the quality of your content, don’t be. If you read the first posts of any blog they are generally pretty terrible, but after some practice you’ll get better, find your tone of voice, improve your writing style and there’ll be no looking back.

Once we move beyond the top three quarters of answers, there are a wide range of other challenges faced by our community. Gaining comments is a common challenge and opportunity. How can you encourage more participation on your blog? Answers in the comments below please.

Writers block was voted for a couple of times. Perhaps this could have been grouped with finding inspiration and direction with your content too, but I wonder if inspiration is the way to overcome writers block. I’d welcome any ideas for what can be done to overcome writers block in the comments.

It was only at this stage some of the more technical issues started to crop up, with people needing help integrating their blog with social media platforms and containing spam. On the second issue, I have found with WordPress a good captcha plugin helps along with of course Akismet.

It was also interesting to see which challenges were not so prominent. Making money seems to be something few of you are that interested in which I suspect is a downward trend – perhaps bloggers are starting to realise how tough it is to make money through blogging? Perhaps this goes hand in hand with sorting out your blog’s brand, something more important if you have money in mind I would imagine.

Thanks to everyone who took part in the survey. You can see the full range of answers in the chart below and of course please feel free to add your comments too if you have any thoughts, suggestions, recommendations or ideas for how we can all overcome our blogging challenges this year and beyond.

Competition: Are you Looking for Funding?

If so you might want to enter our competition for a free ticket to the London Funding Conference.

Taking place on the 9th March at the British Library, the conference is for businesses seeking investment and in particular those who would like to:

• Understand the different types of growth capital and how to secure the best one for them
• Meet funding experts and businesses that have recently raised investment
• Talk to potential investors
• Meet other exciting growth businesses

Confirmed speakers include Luke Johnson (celebrated entrepreneur and founder of Risk Capital Partners), Michael Blakey (canny angel investor and founder of Avonmore Developments) and Mark Prisk MP (Minister for Business Innovation and Skills).

The conference will feature hands-on funding support during the day and separately, high level funding strategy presentations during the evening. See the agenda.

How do you win a free ticket then?

Simples. Just tell us in the comments below why you deserve the free ticket. The most entertaining entry wins.

We’ll pick an answer and announce the winner on Friday 4th March.

What if I don’t win?

Don’t worry, we have a cheeky £25 discount code for LBM members too. Just drop a note in the comments and we’ll email it across for you.

Terms and conditions
- All entries must be submitted in the blog comments on this post
- Closing date is Friday 4th March at 5.00pm GMT.
- The winner will be announced on Friday 4th March via email.
- The competition prize is one free pass to the London Funding conference on 9th March 2011, London.
- The promoter’s decision is final and binding in all matters.
- Prize is non transferable and there is no cash alternative.
- One entry per person.

The Blogger Interviews: Cate Sevilla

This week’s blogger interview is with that all round blogging extraordinaire Cate Sevilla of Bitchbuzz.com. Cate is another face I’ve seen at London Bloggers Meetups for a number of years and certainly someone I’ve enjoyed meeting.

Cate’s one of those people who has a steely determination to get on and make things happen, at least that’s how it seems to me. If you read any of her content you’ll probably get what I mean, it’s pretty bold. Cate took part as a guest speaker at the PR Edition of LBM in 2010 and argued for PR agents to treat bloggers with a little more respect, but at the same time I seem to recall her having a fairly balanced view in that bloggers need to be a little smarter in how they work with agencies.

If you’re looking for some ideas around how to get a commercial blogging venture going, you could do a lot worse than buy Cate a drink or two at the next LBM. Well, as ever, enough from me, over to you Cate…

1.What’s your blog called and what’s the URL?
My blog is CupCate.com

2.What’s your blog all about ( in 20 words or less)?
CupCate.com is about what makes me tick.

3.When and why did you start blogging?
I first started blogging on Myspace in 2005 because I needed a way to make sense out of all of the thoughts that were swimming around my skull. But I started blogging as CupCate on Vox in 2006 because I was interested in a career in writing, and blogging seemed like a natural first step towards that as writing online is much more interactive and exciting than writing Word documents that sit on your desktop. But I suppose the main reason I started blogging is simply because I love to write.

4. Which blog platform do you use?
CupCate.com started out on VOX, and then moved over to Typepad in 2008.

5. Can you give an example of how blogging has enriched your life?
Not only has blogging essentially become my career (I launched the women’s lifestyle website BitchBuzz.com in August 2008, and worked as an editor at Shiny Media before that) but I’ve met some incredibly awesome people through my blog.

6. Are there any blogs you recommend reading and why?
The blogs I read are Mademoiselle Robot, The Clothes Horse, Dooce, and Gala Darling. Why? Because they all either make me laugh and/or inspire me.

7. What three tips would you give to someone just starting out in blogging?

• Be yourself. Don’t try to do what someone else is doing as it won’t translate the same way.
• Pay attention to the quality of your photos. No one likes blurry/scary/crappy photos. (Plus, there are plenty of camera apps that can help with that, these days!)
• Be genuine. Write about what you love, what you think, what you feel. Not what you think other people want to hear about.

8. If you could change one thing about your blog what would it be?
I love my blog the way it is.

9. What is the key to getting readers to your blog?
Writing awesome, original content and doing your own thing.

10. And finally, why do you come to the London Bloggers Meetups?
To have a couple beers with friends and to see people I speak to online In Real Life!

Photo is courtesy of Caroline Briggs Photography