Blog World Archives - Sonia Marsh

Are you ready to celebrate Blog Day?

Have you heard of blog day?

I had no clue what blog day was until my blogger friend, Barbara Hammond and her other blogstresses, at The Blogstress Network mentioned it last month on their blog talk radio interview.

Blog Day is held on August 31st, and it’s an opportunity to connect with new bloggers from around the world. Here’s what happens:

“Bloggers from all over the world will post recommendations of 5 new Blogs, preferably Blogs that are different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, unknown Blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers. “

But something important is happening on August 30th, one day before Blog Day, well it’s my birthday, (sorry I couldn’t resist) but it’s also the day when The Blogstress Network is having a call in show where bloggers can promote one new blog they admire, as well as mention their own blog. You can find the call-in details on The Blogstress Network website. Hope to hear your voices on the show.

Blog Day is not to be confused with Blog World, a large conference being held in Los Angeles this November, 3-5, 2011, where some blogging, social media and marketing experts will be speaking.

Since Blog World Expo is in my backyard, please let me know if you’ll be attending so I can drive up and meet you. I know three bloggers who are hoping to attend this event, and what a fantastic opportunity to finally meet them in person. Annabel Candy and Barbara Hammond are two of them. This event is packed with presentations and workshops on social media, and an opportunity to network with bloggers from all over the world.

Let’s give a boost to all bloggers, in particular bloggers from around the world. I shall try to contact new bloggers in Kenya, Cambodia, Laos, Peru and Vanuatu. I guess I need to start researching.

What about you? Do you have any new bloggers you’ve discovered you’d like to share with us?

Photo credit to woodleyonderworks

If you believe that blogging, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn is the future of media, the way we shall communicate and share information with one another from now onwards, you may want to check out BlogWorld, the largest social media conference in the world.

With over 3,000 attendees, 140 educational sessions, not to mention all the gurus of social media, accessible to talk to, so they say, this may be a perfect way to kick your blog up a notch.

You might be thinking, “I’m not interested in selling anything, or branding myself,” however, every blogger is a writer, who shares content for others to read and as such, learning to improve your content, is not such a bad thing. More and more journalists and businesses are turning towards new media.

Presenters such as Mark Burnett, (Producer of the show Survivor) talk about the importance of story-telling. I sent in a video to the Survivor Show in 2001, to become a contestant. (In the video, I bench-pressed my seven-year-old son and pretended to eat a bowl of worms, consisting of Japanese noodles in teriyaki sauce to make them look real in color.) I was so hopeful to be one of the contestants in the Marquesas islands but was not selected. Just had to tell you my story.

Darren Rowse (one of the approachable gurus of blogging) says that attending BlogWorld, helps you shift your mindset so you start taking social media seriously. There are so many bloggers who fly from all over the world to attend this conference, including Annabel Candy from Australia. I told her I’d like to meet her in L.A. in November, as she plans on attending.

Here are some statistics on the BlogWorld website I found very interesting. Especially the third one, over 57 million Americans read blogs, and spend on average 23 hours a week reading them. For all writers, almost 90% of companies say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.

* Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
* More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
* Over 57 million Americans read blogs.
* 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
* 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
* 9% of internet users say they have created blogs.
* 6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog.
* Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs.
* Over 120 thousand blogs are created every day.
* There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day.
* 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs.
* 37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006.
* 51% of blog readers shop online.
* Blog readers average 23 hours online each week.