Black Blog Media

Do Brands Support Bloggers Of Color?

2010-11-17T19:08:00.000-05:00

Late last night, I was reading Cocoandcreme.com, (yes, Zillers read) and an interesting topic was brought up about fashion and beauty bloggers and brand sponsorship. I took a look at the comments and a lot feel that brands overlook women fashion and beauty bloggers of color.

But why aren’t advertisers in this market showing the love back?

When the support is reciprocated, it’s usually the same five or so Black websites that ad campaigns go to. The other (and arguably more relevant) Black beauty and fashion blogs that are driving them just as much business get tossed to the sidelines.

Editors across the Web are speaking out and taking a stand. “If you are not supporting the very women who give you buzz daily then why should we support you?” asks a publisher of a popular fashion and beauty website. “If the online community doesn’t let them [the brands] know that we matter as a trusted medium, bloggers and online publishers that want to transition to a profitable website or profession will never be successful.” -- [ SOURCE ]

So I asked a friend of mine who is an Advertising and Marketing executive for AOL, Eunique Jones Gibson. And she says...

I think it's two-fold.

As an Advertising Executive, it all depends on what the goals of the campaign and brand are... If the target audience is to predominately while women, they won't even look in the direction of a blog geared towards women of color because it doesn't tie into their goals. Comscore, Quantcast and similar data providers are useful here because they can provide insight into the demographics of the site. Either way, it all boils down to the goals of the campaign and the focus of the brand. If there is an initiative to appeal to women of color, than blogs with an engaged audience and strong demographics will be selected. If there is no focus on women of color, those sites will be over looked. Campaign/Brand goals + Target Audience + Site Demographics = A Decision for or against...

It takes time for any website / blog that's ran as a business to make any headway. Especially in a saturated niche market. And it makes sense that businesses will go after the avenue that gives them their best reach within the parameters of what their goals are. Perhaps a solution would be to link up with other bloggers within your niche and leverage that combined metrics and be aggressive in garnering the type of sponsorship that you are looking for.

Something to think about: We spend a lot of time nurturing our social network accounts. But if that social network (Twitter/Facebook) is taking away from your traffic rather than building it, then it doesn't matter how many people are following you in that network, in regards to your website's numbers.

I run Pumpsicle, a womens fashion and beauty blog. I've never had any issues with advertising with any of my blogs because I don't focus on it. That doesn't mean I have no advertisement or my sites aren't generating revenue. I learned a long time ago when you focus on nurturing the site towards its goals, then all of that extra stuff falls into place.

DoubleClick for Publishers Small Businesss Mobile Interface

2010-09-22T18:34:00.001-04:00

Check your account performances and operations fast and easy on your Android, iPhone or Palm Pre's with DoubleClick for Publishers Small Businesss Mobile Interface by pointing your mobile browser to www.google.com/dfp

"With an activity stream that’s constantly updated, you can monitor all of the trafficking changes made to your account even when you’re away from the office. If you discover a problem that needs immediate attention, you can pause the line item or even contact the trafficker or salesperson - all directly from your phone." - [ SOURCE ]

Blogads New Ad Units

2010-08-25T10:15:00.000-04:00

Blogads has added more ways for bloggers to gain revenue. You can also integrate your Google Adsense or whatever monetization codes so that wherever you're not serving blogads, you're atleast monetizing that spot.

Classic Adverpost - A sponsored post that can be sold between posts. Customizable and marked as an advertisement, it will remain stationary throughout the day.
Large Adverpost - The same as the classic, but with a larger post image available.
728x270 - Turn your leaderboard position into a billboard position with this enticing ad unit.
300x250 - This size is popular and versatile, and it fits in the sidebar, at the top right of most site templates, and also between posts.
300x600 - A giant ad to grab the attention of the big fish - this is the kind of exposure an agency can really sell to their client.
728x90 - The foundation for many campaigns, this leaderboard unit can be placed under the masthead of your site, or between posts.

Doubleclick DARTIframe.html Workaround?

2010-05-10T14:27:00.001-04:00

Are you getting errors (404, performance or otherwise) referencing "doubleclick Dartiframe.html"? Are you losing traffic due to this same error?

Check your error logs or tools.

Doubleclick DARTiframe.html is used by Google Adsense and they are aware of this issue. And working on the issue. But for the time being, what do you do?

A quick search of the help files yielded this:

This solution only works for ads served using DoubleClick Rich Media.

The default location for the DARTIframe.html file is a directory called "doubleclick" at the root directory of a your web server. For example, for the publisher domain www.mysite.com, the URL to the DARTIframe file would be:

http://www.mysite.com/doubleclick/DARTIframe.html -- [ SOURCE ]

In the root directory of your hosting, create a folder called /doubleclick.
Create an .html file within that /doubleclick folder called DARTIframe.html.

See if that works for now. "Get Money!" -- Thugnificent

But uh ruh ummm...what does that say for Blogger users who don't have FTP access to their hosting? hmmm...

Get More Money: Eliminate The Middle Man

2010-02-16T10:00:00.002-05:00

We let competition get in the way a lot. You do realize that don't you?
There are some ad companies that actually work. I guess that's relative. Because they will all work if you pulling the right amount of traffic right? Well everybody isn't running a facebook...or a twitter. And you shouldn't. Every site, like every person has it's own place. But let's make the best of it, and cut out the middle man.

Now correct me if I'm wrong. But if your ad company takes 30% off top. And if you are claiming the Ad money as income...that's another 30%. So you're only taking about 1/3rd of what you made home! What the...

We're not in a recession anymore. I mean it still feels like it. But I don't believe it can be called a recession. It's REAL LIFE. You have to deal with the circumstances that we have everyday in reality. And you GOT to make it through. So you need to get creative. Even if that means that some individuals have to get cut out of the plan.

I mean somebody isn't getting their 30%. And you should ALWAYS pay your taxes so, eliminate the middle man. A blogger friend of mine, and probably yours as well, recently told me that she has been doing just that.

She's part of a network that takes a chunk out of her earnings. To get the most that she can, she cuts off the deal that's happening on the network and renegotiates terms, price, duration, all of that. Morals, ethics, I'll leave that up to you to discuss. But you have to agree, 30% is a lot to give anybody. The trade off is, you have to put in more work. Chase down more offers. Call around more. In other words you'd most likely would be earning everything but the initial contact and response. I want you all to understand that eliminating the middle man isn't always a good idea! You can really destroy relationships and burn a lot of bridges doing that. So take caution.

You have to have security and be willing to lose some (or alot) of footing. Some companies may feel loyal to the ad company and now you just exposed yourself. Instead of getting 30%, you will be getting 0%. Think about it and drop me a comment below.

How To Get Advertisers For Your Blog

2009-12-01T23:30:00.005-05:00

Happy World AIDS Day! I hope everybody is and has got tested. Make sure you get educated and share the knowledge with your loved ones and peers about staying safe.

Marketing is the cornerstone in getting the word out about your site / blog. It requires patience, diligence, and analysis. In other words, work. Hard work. Often, I'm asked about advertising, how does it work with blogging, and how to go about acquiring advertisers for your blog. I will always preface that ads shouldn't ever be the primary thought.

We have gone over some items about advertising, when we talked a little bit about using Google Adsense. We're not going to focus solely on contextual ads. So I asked a friend of mine, Eunique from KidConvos, to share some of her tips in reaching out to advertisers. Eunique has lots of experience working with Fortune 500 companies in advertising and marketing. Here is what she advises:

Do
Create a 1 to 2 page high level media kit (pdf) that provides information on your site, demographics, traffic and content. Be sure to include what your value add is.

Your research! Know what advertisers target your audience. Also, know the behavior of your audience. What will/won't they gravitate towards?

Know and develop your niche. This will allow you to appeal directly to advertisers who would much rather eliminate the middle man. It will also enable you to create sponsorship opportunities that are unique to your site.

Develop relationships with editors of publishing networks and blogs (i.e. AOL MediaGlow: Asylum, ParentDish, LemonDrop...etc) that will highlight your blog or a particular post. The more exposure you receive, the more traffic. The more traffic, the better chances you'll have at locking in an advertiser.

Don't

Overstate your numbers (traffic, demo...etc)

Stalk potential advertisers. Follow up, but don't pester.

Send a heavy file or PowerPoint Presentation in an attempt to pitch your site to a potential advertiser. The file will either bounce back or be deleted.

F*ck up (joke lol)

Earning Money With Google Adsense Part 1

2009-11-11T12:30:00.001-05:00

We're diving into exploring ways to make money with your sites. And unless you're doing something strange for some change then you already know that there is no magic bullet. Just work.

First you need to know what Google Adsense is and how it works:

You'll earn when users visit your website and click on or view the ads on your pages, depending on the type of ad. Learn more about earning with AdSense.

The main way of earning revenue with AdSense is by displaying Google ads on your site.

With AdSense for content, these ads you display on your site can be either cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand-impression (CPM) ads. For CPC ads, you'll generate earnings when your users click on the ads. For CPM ads, you'll generate earnings every time the ad appears to a user viewing your site. -- [ SOURCE ]

This is probably the only reason why some of you checked the site. Haha. I'm okay with that. The problem is, people are expecting magic and truthfully there's no special way to make money off ads legally.

One thing you must get in your mind is that, if anybody's telling you how much they are making from Adsense (or any network), they ARE LYING to you. Why? Because if they are making significant amounts of money with Google, they wouldn't take the chance of violating their terms of service just to brag about how much money they are now not making.

And being that I am as skeptic, I have to wonder. If this person is really trying to help you earn more money, where are the testimonials praising them that they have truly helped raise your ad revenue.

What I'm going to do at BBM is what a lot of other bloggers have done (break down the given tips into usable pieces of information for you use) and some things that some bloggers have not done (tell the truth). I'm no guru. I will tell you what I've observed and what I've seen work in a general sense.

Being that Google Adsense ads that appear on your site are contextual, a lot of the work that needs to be done will be SEO and things of that nature.

Just Pasting In Ad Codes Isn't Going To Cut It: There have been users saying since they aren't making money from Adsense, that they are going to leave the program altogether. That's one choice. But let's put this in perspective. Adsense is the premiere site for contextual ads. Google wants you to do well with their service. You've seen the reports on the news, you know Google brings in billions from ads alone. So it can only help them when you do well. If the most that you've done is paste in the ad codes and wrote a few stories, that's not enough. Just like anything else in this world, to make money, it's going to take some elbow grease and some ingenuity.

The Do Nots: As part of the Adsense TOS, you are not allowed to tell users to outright click on your ads. Also, you cannot block any of Google's branding on the ad, or mislead the reader in anyway that they think the ad is part of the content. There are other big no-no's that you should read over so you know what not to do to avoid that karate chop.

Know Your Audience: Your site's audience are the workerbees in your hive and they will be ones who need to click on your ads in order for you to gain revenue. What do they want to read about. What value can your content add? What can they use?

Niche Writing: You can write about general topics if you like, but niche topics tend to perform better. So if you're writing about an obscure topic that's not in demand by advertisers, then you'll be only hurting yourself. So do some research, see what's in demand. Hopefully the context of your site is within that. If not, fix that!

Content Should Be Keyword Rich:
Strong keywords that used in searches so that your content is easily found. And although this should go without saying, it has to be said. Proofread your work. A little slang is okay...that's human. But try not to you use a lot. Misspelled words...fix that.

That's a lot of info for newbies, so I'll create a break here and continue with Part 2 in the forums. See ya there. Be sure to leave comments or questions!

In the meantime, review your content. See if it follows what we've talked about so far. To get you focused, some get money music:

Monetizing

2009-11-06T13:00:00.000-05:00

I know...I know...I know what some of you are saying:

"About time we started talking about Monetizing!"

"We should have talked about this first!"

Even though I do a lot of business in the blogosphere, I happen to think that general focus on money has somewhat hurt the quality of content on the blogosphere. But that's a whole different discussion.

When focusing on gaining money primarily from the web, a good idea is to not overdo it with the advertisements. Some sites you'll visit, the site is crashing, loading VERY slow, pop-ups...all kinds of things. And that turns off a lot of visitors. You may want to think about consolidating the dynamic javascript loaded ads and placing their scripts near the bottom of the page.

We're going to talk much more about doing well and do things do things do bad things with ads for the next week.

But for now, I know a lot of you have asked me for a list of sites that provide such advertisement for blogs. Each company has their own criteria, so do your research.

adsense
adbrite
text-link-ads
kontera
buysellads
gorilla nation
glam
global grind
blogads
undertone
mog
valueclick
ad.com