Pep talk to a blogger - The comment phenonmenon

 
As much as I enjoy Food blogging which entails:

1) Making food
2) photography it

PEP TALK to a Blogger

I made this from one of my instagram pics - don't ever forget it ;)

 
Sometimes I just sit down and write - for myself. Then I realised I must not be alone.

Pep Talk to a Blogger:

1) Your blog does not define you - outside of cyberspace and the internet world you are still a million

10 THINGS EVERY FOOD BLOGGER SHOULD KNOW.. (OTHER BLOGGERS TOO)

I am not a major food blogger, I haven't won any awards and I don't think I am the BEST! but I do feel after blogging for a few years that I have noticed a few things and this blog post is a pep talk to me for the days I feel like Im just not cutting it! 


1) Your Blog matters
Even if you only reach one person it IS OK! (If I only effect the life of one person then my blog has done its job...) Your writing mattered to someone out there

2) You are cool enough
There will ALWAYS be someone bigger than you. Suck it up. And Always be kind to someone smaller than you (blog wise or twitter wise) you were once there too.

3) Stats suck but look how far you've come
Don't judge yourself against Mr or Mrs big blogger, take a step back and go look at your stats from a year ago - really do it!

4) Pictures are worth a thousand words...
ALWAYS work on your picture taking. We live in a media based world where graphics and photos are throw at us daily.. just think of blogs, facebook, twitter, pinterest... etc... photos, photos - this is what people judge your blog in seconds flat so make it pretty for them. This includes your layout *(note to self - declutter blog layout)


5) Sometimes you post won't be perfect
Sometimes they just won't be - and thats ok. We all have creative slumps - its about the keeping at it! GO GO GO - you can do. Go for a walk and go photograph something... It WILL help.

6) Not everyone will be kind...
People will steal your photos or your content or both! fight for your stuff - YOU ARE WORTH IT!
and likewise don't steal people stuff - ITS NOT COOL!

7) Your regular readers count
Its not only about  getting new readers and more numbers. Think on the kind readers that keep coming back. They are sometimes more important than some fly by night follow and unfollowers.

8) Don't over tweet or facebook your links
Its not cool to keep repeatedly tweeting or updating your time line saying look at my post! its ok to remind people but air on the side of caution. You will put them off and they may even unfollow you

9) Comment
This goes both ways: comment on the blogs that you visit = Every blogger loves to know there is someone on the other end reading.
Comments on your blog: Reply to peoples comments = its polite and lets your readers know you care that they read your work and took the time to write something to you.

10) Copyright
Don't steal people recipes or content (even magazines) EVER - it doesn't matter if others are doing it. Clearly give credit where credit is due. Link, state and thank your source and even drop them an email or comment on their blog stating you would like to use their work with credit etc...

Hope this has made you feel a little better about your blog... I shall be back to read this again next week when I need a pep talk ;)

Remember YOU ARE SPECIAL AND YOUR BLOG MATTERS!

Would you add anything to this?

EAT-IN Best Local Food Blog Awards

So this blog is in the running for an EAT-IN DStv BEST LOCAL FOOD BLOG AWARD.

I am 1 of 10 bloggers who are up for the prize/title of Best *LOCAL food blog. So that means I have 1 in 10 chance - YAY! If you help me *wink*  

Its this voting process that allows you to pick who has the best blog and tell the Judges who you like.

You visiting this blog and reading this so I'm gathering you probably like this blog - or better yet you know me and think I'm nice *happy dance*
SO then please vote here http://www.eat-in.co.za/Awards/Blogger-Awards

IT EASY PROMISE
->SELECT BETTY BAKE from the list and use your name and  email address to vote.

Its these kind of happy awards that make blogging a happy place and make you feel you have a little noddy badge of "hey, you're doing good"

Thanks for helping me out

*Local being South Africa (but you can vote from any where in the world with your email address)

SA BLOG AWARDS

So the SA Blog awards is upon us again. I would so appreciate (like A LOT) if you would vote for me. *pretty please with a cherry on top*

please go here to VOTE and then when they email you please confirm the link in the email for your vote to COUNT!

I need your help – the winning blogs are chosen through a combination of judges and public votes. I need your votes to win!

note: You can only vote once per category and the voting is only open for 10 days.
*ALSO: if you vote for someone else in the same category -your last vote will override your previous vote!

I wander to what lengths bloggers will go to get votes... bribing, begging, pleading, paying... ;)

 Thanks darlings
*sprinkles and rainbows* from me for your kindness :)

Organising a Bloggers Get Together

So on Thursday I am looking forward to being part of organizing the Cape Town bloggers get together (with the helping hand of Being Brazen). Now we have utilized Twitter and Facebook as well as some very kind bloggers who have re-posted our invites.
We have been offered wine by Zandvliet Wines and changed venues...It was quite a search.
Thankfully the Grand Daddy Hotel will have us with no venue hire fee = we don't have to charge for people to come - YAY!  So I'm hoping people will support their bar and buy a drink or two (fingers crossed)
Ofcourse the FREE wine isn't going to help this - so we have decided to limit the wine to 1 welcome glass of wine per person to hopefully start things off and then hopefully everyone will order from the bar - after all we would like to be invited back again or be on good terms with the Grand Daddy Hotel for other events ...(if there are any) .... I maybe CRAZY at that POINT!!! (insanity here we come).
We just realized we don't have any snacks for everyone and were hoping to get some donated (good luck on that!!!!) so far no takers. If you are a nice kind soul (read - company) who would like to give us some food for roughly 140 (yes you read right) we would love you FOREVER!!! and of course tweet about it on Thursday night.

Let see if 140 people really pitch? - if half pitch thats 70 people - still not bad for a get together in Cape Town when people tend to hibernate when the weather is cold!

;)

Hugs
 

FYI

If you are attending the Cape Town bloggers Get together on the 30th of June we just need to make sure that you don't go to the wrong venue>>>> Because so many of you fabulous people wanted to join us we have had to change to a bigger venue (YAY!) so please do turn up at THE GRAND DADDY HOTEL in Long Street and not at El Burro.

If you knew this already - sorry. But if you didn't know that means others don't know either so spread the word for us please. The beauty of social media. Oh and talking of social media - did you know it is World Social Media Day on the 30th of June? - the very night we are having our bloggers and tweeters get together. Happy coincidence and so fitting! YAY!

don't forget to RSVP here

BLOGGERS GET TOGETHER

Hey Lovely Bloggers and Tweeters
Its been a while since anyone has hosted  a get together. Lets just meet and say hi - possibly a drink :)
The lovely Zandvliet Wines has offered us some wine for the evening and El burro said we are welcome to have it at their Restaurant. So we picked a date and a time and hope you will ALL pop in for a hello :)

It would be so nice to meet you or say hi again.

*please post this invite on your blog page so more bloggers will know about the event :) It would be so appreciated!

ALSO Don't forget to RSVP on the Facebook Events Page so we can let El burro know how much seats/space we need.  (And feel free to invite your fellow blogger friends on the events page too)

EVERYONE is welcome

hugs
 

MY BUCKET LIST

 

Today "My Bucket List"was posted on Being Brazen :) 

 If you would like to have a look at it you can go here.

BLOG LOVIN

 IM GOING TO TRY OUT BLOG LOVIN

Follow my blog with bloglovin

 THAT IS ALL!

WHAT NEXT?

I've been going round and round in my head if I should write posts on this blog even if they are not food related. Now I don't mean about my family eg aww sweet my daughter lost her tooth posts. posts about stuff that interests me etc.... I know I write a post called "things that make me smile" every now and then and that is as far as i have gone to be un-foodie in a post.... You see I've have been trying not to fill my blog up with non food related matter as I feel I would make my blog change from a "foodie"blog to a "personal"blog.  And as much as I like reading other peoples personal blogs - I want my blog to be a niche blog. But turning out recipe posts is hard sometimes. Finding time to write out the recipes without missing anything out (or the recipe may flop!) and taking the pics and editing them ALL takes a lot of time and that means I post not as regularly as I would like. So I am hoping to have a mix of blogging stuff and see how it goes. I will post stuff and see the development... I like Pioneer Woman as she posts food, photography, home schooling, life on her ranch and other stuff but her website/blog is compartmentalized so if you like cooking you can just subscribe to cooking and if you like photography you can just subscribe to that. Not sure how to do that but I'm going to try posting various stuff and see.  So it may or may not contain things like: Food, Style & Decor, Photography, Health, Lists, Jewelry and Pretty things.

Thanks for understanding and I hope not to lose to many strict foodie recipe only blog followers (fingers crossed)


 Any thoughts about how I should do it? or what you would do??

Pay It Forward - Kind Bloggers

For those of you interested in the Free Advertising and Pay if Forward idea I am still busy working on pairing you up. Trying to get everyone's email addresses together and see who belongs with who - I may just draw you name out of a hat if I can't pair you successfully. So now you know -  that I haven't forgotten about it. and if you have no clue about what I'm talking about - you can find the Pay it Forward idea here

Happy Tuesday




ps Also busy editting ice cream photos and trying not to lick the screen :)

FREE ADVERTISING, BLOGGER LINK UP >>>> PAY IT FORWARD

picture from here

So I was thinking about all you lovely bloggers out there who maybe looking for more traffic - i mean who wouldn't? I certainly do and I know there must be others out there who would like to be seen and heard. So I've been thinking - how do you get more traffic to your site without forking out money? There is google ad words or advertising but they cost money and until my blog makes money I'm not sure sure if I want to pay up yet - there has to be another way.
So this is what I've come up with so far - if you have a blog like me who would like to see if other people may find you and like you and possibly want to read you daily or weekly then I am proposing lets do some sort of link up or refering to each others blogs :) I would really like to show off South African bloggers but everyone is welcome. 
So 1 in the comment section below give me : 

• the name of your blog  
• address of the blog
• catergory of your blog - eg fashion, food, family etc...
• country your blog is from
• your email address (so I can email you about who you reccomending and who is recommending you)

then the 2nd thing I thought  I would do is take all the blogs I got - (even if there is just a few of us it doesn't matter) I would compile a list and give each person 2 or 3 blogs that they need to highlight on their blog to their readers (wether it be a post or a button link) and inturn some one will highlight your blog and hopefully it will spread around the internet. Even if we gain a few more followers or readers it would have been worth the post/link of reccomending someone else.
It is like that movie Pay It Forward - do to others what you would like to happen to you :)
so if you are interested leave the info in the comment section below.

Happy Blogging




ps maybe you'll find a blog below you like and want to read - that would be cool to :)

pps would you like me to group related or non re-lated blogs together? eg: if you have a fashion blog would you like to recommend on your blog another fashion blog or something different like a food or family blog? - thoughts?