C.C, Chapman will be presenting a hangout session on Monday April 16th.

April is shaping up to be an awesome month for the BlogWorld community. We have lots planned, and hope you’ll set your calendars accordingly.

Here’s a look at what the members of the BlogWorld community can look forward to in April 2012.

Community Driven Content

 BlogWorld is about content. Your content. Our conferences are dedicated to helping everyone who wants to create, distribute and monetize content so it only makes sense that your content is front and center on our social networking channels as well. This will be especially true on Facebook where we’ll be introducing ways for the BlogWorld community to highlight your content on our Timeline. This will go beyond our regular “brag your blog” days.

Look for the BlogWorld community to share photos for our Facebook Timeline cover and to share their BlogWorld-related content on our historical Timeline.  We’re also going to have themed days where you’re welcome to share your blog posts, videos, photographs, or podcast that fit in with that theme. We won’t tolerate spamming, but we do want to highlight our community – and your content.

Also, our Facebook community is your community. We’d like to encourage everyone to visit our Facebook page and share your tips, questions and discussion topics in regard to content creation and social media on our wall. As long as you’re not spamming, you don’t have to wait for us to ask questions or share.

#BWEChat

We love our new day and time for #BWEChat,and the community is responding well. Hosted Thursday afternoons at 2:00 p.m EST, our weekly Twitter chats are a way to highlight our conference speakers. However, we know not everyone can attend. So #BWEChat is a way to preview  scheduled topics and share with the community, even if you can’t make it to BlogWorld.

Here is what you can look forward to for #BWEChat in April:

• April 5: Lauren Vargas will talk about her community manager toolbox
• April 12: Ali Luke will talk about steps to take to edit your own writing.
• April 19: Bob Dunn will discuss common mistakes to avoid when setting up a WordPress blog.
• April 26: To be announced.

Google+ Hangout Educational Sessions

We see an amazing opportunity with Google+.  We’re especially exciting about hangouts and exploring the possibilities. Our first Google+ event takes place on Monday, April 16th at 1:00 p.m. EST, when C.C. Chapman will give an interactive educational session about leveraging your online content to become a published author. This is our first Google+ hangout session, and if all goes well it won’t be our last. We’re also in contact with Google+ in hopes of making this a full fledged hangout on the air. In any event,we will record the session for those who can’t attend.

Your Participation is Important to Us

We recognize that community doesn’t mean a brand pontificating at a bunch of people. A community is a collaborative of people sharing together. We have someone (Yours Truly) here to guide community efforts, but it’s not my community and it’s not BlogWorld’s community, it’s your community and your participation is vital to our collective success. We want to hear from you and we want to learn from you and with you.  We hope you’re enjoying our community programs and content and look forward to bringing you more ways to interact with us.

Here are the different ways you can participate within the BlogWorld community:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google+
• Pinterest
• LinkedIn
• The BlogWorld blog
• The BlogWorld Newsletter
• At BlogWorld & New Media Expo

As always, we welcome your comments, questions and feedback. Feel free to contact me any time via one of the above networks or via email at deb@blogworldexpo.com or on Twitter, at @blogworldexpo and at @debng.

It’s a pleasure interacting with you all,

Deb Ng
Director of Community

The BlogWorld community is growing by leaps and bounds. Every day, more people “like” us on Facebook, “follow” us on Twitter and “circle” us on Google+.  Still, our work isn’t done. We enjoy a big, vibrant and lively community of folks interacting and sharing ideas.

Sometimes when we invite folks to join us on one of our social channels, we’re asked why or what’s in it for our community.  It’s one thing to say “join us on Facebook,” but that’s not much enticement. So to cover the “why” part,  I’m going to share the top reasons to join our Facebook community.

10. Brag your blog day

Community isn’t us, it’s you. The collective you. We want to know everything about you, who you are, what you do and what you’re about. At the beginning of each month we feature “Brag Your Blog” day when our entire community is allowed to legally spam our Facebook wall.  Let’s face it, there are  a lot of people producing a lot of content  and none of us can possibly know about it all. But on “Brag Your Blog Day,” we can help our community to promote their content to over 6,000 friends.  Hopefully by participating you can gain  some new community members of your own.

9. Picture Day

We love sharing images from the BlogWorld Flickr account and other channels and picture day is our day of doing so. When we post our images, we tag community members who are in the photos whenever possible. We also invite our Facebook community to share their own images from our events. The perks are in the tags and the shares, a great way to see and be seen.

8. Participating is encouraged and rewarded

Facebook isn’t about us. It’s about you. Our goal is to have pages and pages of questions and comments from the members of our community. Still, we have an active community and enjoy lively conversation every day. We even reward our best comments by calling out our community member of the week, month and year. We won’t lie. One of the reasons for building our online community is to help promote our own stuff and we won’t pretend otherwise. However, we really want to hear from you more. Our community pages are places for you to interact and enjoy each others’ company. The more the merrier.

7. Ask questions

Do you have questions about BlogWorld, content creation, or new media? Our Facebook page is a great place to ask those questions. As the person who is leading your community, I’m monitoring all our social networks every day and if I’m not there, another member of the team is on standby. So please feel encouraged to ask questions about our events, content creation and the latest tools and techniques. If we don’t have the answer, someone in our community is sure to help.

6. You never know who will stop by

The BlogWorld Facebook community features a variety of personality types and you never know who is going to stop by on any given day. Some people are quick with a quip and others master the art of intelligent discussion. Plus, many of the influencers and big names in the New Media space stop by on a regular basis. We have an open door policy and you never know who will stop by.

5. Keep the conversation flowing long after BlogWorld is over

All those important connections and conversations don’t have to end because BlogWorld is over.  Keep the good vibe going long after our live events end.  Continue to hang out with our speakers, attendees, and team, as well as those who hope to attend a future BlogWorld event. Just because we’re not at a convention center doesn’t mean we have to stop enjoying each others’ company.

4. Make connections

Members of the BlogWorld community include content creators, business people, influencers and folks from all walks of life.  The connections you make by joining our Facebook page are just as important as the connections one makes in person while attending BlogWorld.  There’s no need to be shy, either. Everyone is participating for the same reason – to make connections, build relationships, and have a conversation about the things that matter most.

3. Promote your brand

Though we discourage spamming, we still offer many ways to build a personal or professional brand. In addition to Brag Your Blog and Picture days, we offer opportunities to share Twitter Handles, Google+ circles, Pinterest boards, blog posts and so much more.  We know our community has so much to offer and we invite you all to share on a regular basis.

2. BlogWorld news and updates

There has to be something in it for us too, right?  Our social networking channels are a terrific opportunity for us to share  news and updates about BlogWorld events.  If there’s a call for speakers, a special date to announce or something interesting happening for us, we’ll make the announcements here. We’ll also take the time to answer any questions you may have and gather feedback to help keep us on the right track.

1. Learn something

The BlogWorld blog is an important resource for content creation tips and news, and we carry the feed on Facebook. We also share informative posts from other content creators.  Also, we invite our community to share tips and ideas on our Facebook page.  We know conversation is important and we want to keep you informed of what’s going on with, but it’s important for us all to learn and share what we learn – and that’s the best reason to stop by the BlogWorld Facebook page.

We shared reasons why you should join our Facebook page, now share reasons why we should join yours! Tell us about you, what you do, and what your Facebook page or group is all about.  Invite members of our community into your community and let us all know what rewards membership will bring.