I am looking for the t-shirt that says …
I was asked by of my great readers for tips on a blog event. I feel odd offering up tips. What do I know? I just started this blog last June. I did do my first blog event in December though and even more so, I SURVIVED.
I am thinking a blog event must be like those nutty people who loving running marathons. They finish one and their next thought is “when is the next one?” Why do I say that? I say that because that was my next thought and the planning for Beth Week is under way already. (Details here.)
So my top 10 tips for creating AND surviving a blog event are …
1. Define your theme. What is your event about? Give it a theme so the companies you are asking to participate feel like they have a connection to your event.
2. Decide on the goal of your event. Is it just giveaways? Can you offer reviews of items you already own? Can you offer tips or advice related to your them? Add this to your schedule. Personal Hint: I love the Google calendar feature for tracking my blog events!
3. Schedule your event. I would highly suggest a week. My first event was a month. While I LOVE it was a month, I thought I was going to go nuts by the end.
4. Start promoting one to two months prior to your event. Let your readers know your theme and get them excited! Your readers are the ones who will make your event successful!
5. Create a template for your event posts. I did this by happen chance for my first event. That template saved me though. It not only kept my posts consistent but made my posts faster to write.
6. Write posts ahead of time, if you can. I had weeks where I did this and weeks where I didn’t. When I was able to knock out a few posts and then schedule or just post them, life was easier but if this doesn’t happen then this is where your template saves you!
7. Build relationships with your event! The relationships aren’t only limited to the ones you will build with companies or public relation firms. You should be building relationships with your readers too!
8. Remember life happens. Your life doesn’t care you have a blog event happening. I hope you don’t need your gallbladder out like I did but it did make me remember that life happens. All I could do was rework my schedule and use my relationships I had made to let everyone know of changes.
9. Give yourself some slack and a break. The slack should be in your schedule so if life does happen you can go with the punches! The break will be needed after you event. Even those marathon runners need time to rehydrate after their long run, you will need that break too!
10. Most importantly, HAVE FUN! Yes, that should be obvious but as you get caught up in coordination, scheduling, posting, emails, tweets, etc, you might lose sight of why you are doing your event. If it isn’t fun, you will dread it. This goes back to that theme and making it a personal, fun event for YOU, your blog readers, and the companies/PR firms!
Is this top ten useful to you? Feel free to link to it or tweet about it! I didn’t know I had this knowledge to share until I was asked for it so THANKS for asking. Keep asking questions in my comments so I can give what are hopefully great answers!
Leave me a comment and let me know if you find this useful, you agree, or even if you disagree. I love your comments!
Thanks so much! This was helpful. My first event will be in a few weeks, and I'm going to work really hard to get all my posts done ahead of time!