One of the biggest conversations on Twitter, in blogger communities and at Blissdom Canada is monetization - how do moms who blog make a buck?
When I started YMC I had no idea how to turn my passion into a business. Through trial and error and going with my gut, we've developed what I think is a successful solution for all parties.
The end result - unique, playful ways of integrating content into our site, allowing our awesome team of bloggers to generate income and our readers to have great stuff to read and interact with.
We don't accept every advertising opportunity. Some products just don't fit. And I'm cool with that. But, even when I like the brand, the bloggers may not. And I'm cool with that too, right Julie?
Each time a sponsorship opportunity crosses my desk, I invite one of our writers to create the content. But, in order to do it - they have to believe in the product and come up with a blog that transcends a traditional review of the product into a compelling story and/or a learning opportunity.
The results, IMHO, are quite spectacular.
Here's one blog from Sharon that tells the hilarious tale of what happened when she was sponsored by Global Pet Foods but her cat wouldn't eat the product.
Lisa came up with a crazy idea to test Healthy Choice Steamers with her friends in a way that I'd never seen before.
Scrubbing Bubbles were totally cool with never actually showing their product in action; instead spending their advertising dollars to come up with a way to help exhausted moms take care of themselves.
And finally, there's our Holiday Shopping Guide presented by Walmart that's giving our resident shopaholic Loukia a chance to get paid to write about her passion while helping moms. The guide has everything from tips on how to shop efficiently while staying within budget, how to keep track of christmas presents and all the information you need to get through the holidays with as little stress as possible.
Worried about transparency? We are incredibly proud of our relationships with these brands and ALWAYS indicate when our content is sponsored. And even more importantly, the words are ours. We would never write something we don't believe in nor do we let our clients put words in our mouths.
If you want to use this as a working model for your blog, it's key to have conversations with potential advertisers and work WITH them to create fantastic content for your site. It's a win/win situation as long as you GET PAID for your work.
Finally, we want to thank all our fantastic sponsors for believing in us - a group of mostly work at home moms who have a dream of empowering women with kids - for funding our website so we can continue to revolutionize motherhood one blog at a time.
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