Natalie will be guest mentoring for the evening as Oh My Blog undertakes its first workshop.

Comprised of two 45 minute sessions, the first, “Stellar Content”, will centre around – you’ve guessed it – content. This session will essentially provide ways in which to bring focus, direction and ingenious creativity to your blog; all of this whilst giving vital information on how to “keep it professional”, without losing your voice.

Natalie will be speaking in the second session, entitled “The Dark Side of Blogging” *DUM DUM DUM* in which ways to deal with competitors will be discussed, as well as addressing those pesky Internet Trolls and would-be IP thieves.  Apart from Troll management, Natalie will also discuss the steps that need to be taken to deal with cyber  harassment, and share how to protect your Intellectual Property and deal with copy cats.

When: Thursday, September 23, 2010, 19:00 – 20:45

Where: TechHub, Ground Floor, 76-80 City Road, EC1Y 2BJ

Closest Tube: Old Street, exit 5

Tickets: £15, includes refreshments, 25 spots available – nab ‘em quick!

Tickets can be booked from the Oh My Blog website

Baggage Reclaim has been shortlisted in Cosmo’s inaugural blog awards in the ‘Sex and Relationships’ category . Baggage Reclaim is an empowering guide to dating, relationships and self esteem where Natalie uses her own experiences (good and bad) and those of others to help offload their baggage and rediscover themselves. With over 150k unique users a month from around the world, Baggage Reclaim has grown to one of the foremost blogs in its field and this has been recognised by Cosmopolitan.

Visit Cosmopolitan to see the nomination and cast your vote!

The group of blogs written and published by Natalie Lue have reached their highest unique users ever in July 2010 -  Bambino Goodies, a blog that tracks down all things funky for the first five years of family life; Baggage Reclaim, an empowering guide to dating relationships and self esteem and Nest Goodies, a blog created to help style-conscious people who are passionate about their homes furnish a ‘nest’ that they love. Such growth is unusual for the summer period – numbers usually go in the other direction! Here’s to a (hopefully) great run up to Christmas!

Photo Credit - Kat Housewife Confidential

This past weekend at the UK’s first conference for blogging mums, Cybermummy, I took to the stage to share with a crowded room of mum bloggers my thoughts on working with brands and how to make money from your blog. I had great fun and even though it was only for five minutes, in those five minutes I made sure that the crowd knew that a career in blogging is a very possibility.

Here are some highlights which I snatched from my round-up:

Identity is paramount in blogging. Knowledge, understanding and the application of your values and beliefs opens the door to authenticity, as well as allowing you to work with brands to generate income in an authentic manner. Your online reputation is a major part of this authenticity and you need to ensure that it is congruent with your values and your blog values.

Blogging boundaries are also essential, because as boundaries do in relationships, they provide you with comfort as they outline what you are and are not prepared to. Research the ways in which people work with brands and find out what you’re comfortable with. Be assertive; communicate your boundaries – a ‘How I want to be contacted and what about’ page for example works wonders and puts you in charge of making your boundaries clear. Such a page also  states your interest and makes the process of working with brands easier.

Whilst good things may come to those who wait, you cannot sit and wait to be discovered by some divine intervention. You need to create your own individual opportunities by locating brands who have a mutual passion for what you do; working with such brands reflects your genuine interests. However, whilst you should, by all means, keep one eye on your fellow bloggers, dance to the beat of your own drum as opposed to getting lost in the crowd.

As long as you uphold and implement your values and set out clear boundaries, YOU ARE NOT SELLING OUT by working with brands to make money. There are various questions you must ask yourself to avoid being labelled with the proverbial  ’sell out’ moniker: ‘If I wasn’t getting free products for this would I still write about it?’; ‘Am I prepared to write about ‘stuff’ I’m not going to be compensated for in any way, shape form OR fashion?’ If the answer to the latter is ‘no’, the door is open to your editorial integrity being called into question.

When looking to make money from your blog, you need to get your fingers in as many pies as possible to generate an income. Explore your options and get creative about how to earn an income from your blog, write e-books, sell your creations, get involved in direct advertising – do your homework and brainstorm what you can do.

In one of the most important steps: you need to make yourself brand friendly. A pre-written e-mail that you can tweak and send off to people you’re contacting or those who are contacting you containing key information about you and your blog and/or  a media kit page can do wonders. The latter is basically a breakdown of what your blog is about, the type of content you write and the type of people who read. This should also include all the necessary bits and bobs like logos, headers etc. and also a paragraph about yourself and a photo. Bang these into Word or PowerPoint and save as a PDF and bingo – you’re good to go. Also, make sure your blog is appealing as it is very difficult for a brand to envisage their ad on a blog that looks like roadkill!

The most important thing is to believe in you! Half of the naysayers who care to offer their opinion have no clue what they are talking about and are just hoping you wont get a piece of the action they want. If I had listened to such people, you wouldn’t be reading this right now!

Value yourself, but do not assume diva status from the onset (or at all) as this can attract negativity. Likewise, you shouldn’t be prepared to go to the ends of the earth for a packet of biscuits; this brings your values and, indeed, your blogging values, into question plus is likely to turn off your readers.

You can see the full recap on my posterous

After numerous requests Natalie’s ‘gently’ breaking her way into video blogging (the first video took about 150 takes…) and has started putting her no holds barred dating and relationship advice on her You Tube channel.

View more of Natalie’s video’s at http://www.youtube.com/baggagereclaim

Nat’s latest appearance on Sky news where she talks about Twitter, a Middle aged Bin Laden hunter and a camera’s 1000 mile journey.

I’m going to be on the panel at PR & The Media as an ‘Independent Blogger’. It’s a one-day conference produced by Haymarket’s PR Week, the industry B2B magazine for public relations professionals. Billed as an opportunity to learn how to ‘adapt and survive in today’s flooded and changing media landscape’, there’ll be delegates from major brands like Nintendo, Barclaycard, and Cadbury as well as senior representatives from the likes of The Guardian, Sky News, The Sun, The Mirror, ITV etc.

The big question of the day is: What makes different media professionals tick?

I’ll be talking about how bloggers want to be pitched, to including trying to explain how I’d ideally like to be worked with. From painting a picture of what a day looks like for a blogger and what some of our challenges may be, to stuff that they can do to make our lives easier, how to grab our attention with relevant stories and why some pitches don’t cut it, I’ll be the representative for blogging as a ‘media channel’ and other reps from other channels will provide their own insight, and then we’ll also deal with Q&As.

I’ve been talking to PRs and bloggers from all sorts of backgrounds over the past few weeks in the run up to the event and I’ve had some really interesting and at times, somewhat controversial feedback from both sides. I’ll certainly be in the hot seat and will be finding ways to share this feedback and suggestions.

Another appearance. Some how, I managed to keep a straight face talking about ‘rude stuff’ whilst people like my dad were no doubt watching…