Heather Brown

Meet the Bloganistas!

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The theme for this year’s Bloganista Mini-Con presented by Laura Vincent Printing & Design, set for August 1, 2015 at Vestavia Hills Library, is BLOG LIKE A BOSS!

Here are the conference speakers and panelists who are going to help you do just that:

Eunice Elliott

TV and radio personality Eunice Elliott will be our special guest at the conference and MC for the morning half of the event.

Eunice joined Alabama’s 13 in August 2013 as the traffic reporter. A native of Bessemer, Eunice is a proud graduate of The University of Alabama, where she earned a Journalism/Theatre degree in 1997. She has enjoyed working in sports/entertainment over the years including stints at ESPN in Connecticut, The Tennessee Titans, The FedEx Orange Bowl Committee and helmed her own public relations firm for many years representing professional athletes. Eunice performs weekly as a stand-up comedian at the Stardome Comedy Club, and also enjoys acting, radio broadcasting and writing/producing new television shows. Follow Eunice on Facebook and Twitter to see where she’s performing next!

jeniese

Jeniese Hosey will be our afternoon keynote speaker.

Jeniese Hosey is a 30-something woman from Birmingham, Alabama who loves all things fashion! In 2010 she started her blog The Jenesaisquoi, to show women that style has no relevance to size or age.  Jeniese has appeared in Ebony.com, Essence.com, Plus Model Magazine, Centric TV.com and DARE Magazine. Her blog has been showcased by several of her favorite fellow plus-size bloggers. She is a monthly contributor to the Plus Model Magazine Blog and she has collaborated with several of her favorite brands. By day Jeniese works as a PR/Marketing professional.  Along with fashion Jeniese loves football, traveling and food. She received her BA in Public Relations from The University of Alabama and an MBA in Marketing from Capella University.

During her afternoon keynote address Jeniese will discuss how she landed the many opportunities she’s enjoyed to work with brands and big names and will also reveal how she deals with the not-so-glamorous side of fashion blogging. 

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Chanda Temple will be our morning keynote speaker and during the Morning Mingle will be on hand to critique your business card.

Chanda worked as a journalist for nearly 20 years before switching gears to public relations in 2012. For the past three years Temple has crafted numerous public relations campaigns that the public and media noticed. Her latest success was coauthoring the Birmingham’s Best Bites cookbook. The self-published paperback book sold out three times in late 2014 and earned an international gold medal award in 2015. Also in 2015, her public relations campaign for the book, and the Birmingham food festival it was connected to, won a first place state award in public relations. Follow her blog at chandatemplewrites.com.

During her morning keynote address, Chanda will offer tips on how bloggers can build a personal brand and get that brand noticed by media and more. 

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Our afternoon panel discussion MAGAZINE DREAMS will offer tips on how you and your blog can be featured in your favorite magazine, how you can write for your favorite magazine and how you can start a magazine of your own. Our panelists are Maacah Davis of belladonna magazine, Annie DeVries of Hoffman Media and Kaneshia Sims of Red PaSH Magazine.

Maacah

Maacah Davis is the founding editor and creator of belladonna magazine, which she started to provide an outlet for some of Birmingham’s fashion and art-minded creatives. A former biology major at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she is currently taking a gap year to figure out her future. In the meantime, in addition to being the creative director of Birmingham’s first fashion magazine, her work as a stylist has been published in B-Metro’s recurring feature segment, Birmingfamous. She has directed photoshoots for independent local makeup brand Fancy is Flawless, and she is excited to be at the helm of her first ad campaign with local cosmetics company, Hayah Beauty. As someone who has called Birmingham home for ten years now, she revels in making her twenties all about further exploring and presenting her, and her teams’, creative capacities.

ADeVries-headshot

Annie DeVries is the online editor at Hoffman Media, where she oversees web and social media content for the company’s eight magazines. After freelance writing and styling for several years, she began working as the assistant editor of fresh style magazine, and then became Southern Lady‘s associate editor before starting her current position. Working in magazine publishing was a somewhat unexpected career path. Annie holds a PhD in history from Rutgers University, and previously taught at Birmingham Southern College and the University of Alabama. The research, problem-solving, and writing skills she gained during graduate school and while teaching have proved invaluable in her work as an editor.

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Kaneshia Sims has a deep passion for Birmingham, all of its small businesses and local charities. Using her background in public relations and mass communications, Kaneshia took her passion and turned it into a business.  Kaneshia now serves as editor of  Red PaSH Magazine and head public relations coordinator of Southern PaSH.

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Bloganista defined

Our morning panel discussion BLOG LIKE A BOSS will cover best blogging practices, how to grow your blog’s audience, and how to build your blog into a business. Our panelists are Heather Brown of My Life Well Loved, Jennifer Dome King of Stellar Fashion and Fitness and yours truly!

View More: http://jettwalkerphotography.pass.us/my-life-well-loved-may

Heather Brown has been blogging for 6 years and has worked in social media since graduating from Samford University. She married her college sweetheart and they are expecting their first baby this month! Heather built her initial blog’s social media following to over 27,000 members, helped grow her employer’s Facebook page to over 150,000 followers, and currently has over 50,000 social media/newsletter subscribers to her current blog, MyLifeWellLoved.com. Heather’s passion is helping others grow their blog, brand, and social media as well as empowering women to be their best in healthy living, southern style, recipes, faith, beauty and finding balance.

Jennifer Dome3

Jennifer Dome King is the assistant editor of Bassmaster Magazine and also works as a freelance writer and copy editor. She blogs about fashion, health and fitness and body positivity at StellarFashionandFitness.com where she hopes to encourage women to lead a stellar life. Originally from New Jersey, she has adopted Birmingham has her new home for the past 8 years and loves exploring it with her husband of one year, Jermaine.

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Javacia Harris Bowser is the founder and CEO of See Jane Write LLC, a membership organization and website designed to empower and enrich women who write and blog. Before returning to her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama in 2009 to teach at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, Javacia worked as a features reporter in Louisville, Kentucky. Today she continues her journalism career as a freelance writer for a number of media outlets including USA Today, Birmingham magazine and WBHM90.3 FM, Birmingham’s NPR affiliate. Javacia also writes a monthly column for B-Metro magazine on women’s issues. Javacia holds a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley and is a proud graduate of the University of Alabama. Follow her blogs at WriteousBabe.com and Javacia.com.

 

Get your tickets to this year’s Bloganista Mini-Con at bloganista2015.eventbrite.com now! Ticket sales end July 30 and no tickets will be sold the day of the event. 

 

Four Lessons I’ve Learned About Social Media

social media tips for writers

Social media can offer wonderful ways to build buzz for your blog, book, or brand. And that’s why See Jane Write hosted a social media workshop for writers and bloggers on Saturday, March 21.

The workshop kicked off with Bertha Hidalgo of the fashion blog Chic In Academia sharing her tips on how to grow your Instagram following. Bertha has over 14,000 followers on Instagram and has been very successful at using this platform to build her brand. In fact, she was recently invited to speak at a conference in Los Angeles because of her Instagram popularity. Visit Bertha’s blog for a recap of the tips she shared Saturday.

Next, Heather Brown of the popular lifestyle blog My Life Well Loved shared tips on how to use Pinterest and Facebook to build your blog’s readership. Heather has over 13,000 Facebook fans and nearly 27,000 followers on Pinterest. Yesterday, Heather started at series on social media tips on her blog. Visit My Life Well Loved today to check out her tips on how bloggers can get the most out of Facebook.

I ended the workshop by offering attendees four lessons I’ve learned about social media as a writer, blogger, and entrepreneur.

  1. You don’t have to be everywhere all the time.

Pinterest is not my jam. Twitter might not be yours and that’s OK. Instead of trying to be everywhere all the time, choose two or three social media platforms and crush ‘em! How do you choose? Pick the platforms your ideal reader frequents and the platforms you actually enjoy. It’s OK to have an account on all platforms, but you only need to focus on a few and you can use the other platforms to direct people to where you spend most of your time. For example, Hilary Rushford, the style and business coach behind DeanStreetSociety.com is an Instagram guru. And so her Twitter bio includes this statement: “My party is on Instagram @HilaryRushford.” And her Twitter feed has a pinned tweet that reads: “Twitter, you’re nice. But I go steady with Instagram. Come join the daily party: Instagram.com/hilaryrushford.”

That said, I do urge writers to not be afraid of image-focused platforms. You can easily turn your favorite quotes or even words of wisdom from your own writing into an image for Instagram or Pinterest. Use tools like Canva, Pinterest, or Word Swag to create beautiful backdrops for your words.

Take for example BossBabe Inc., an online network for millennial businesswomen. BossBabe’s Instagram account only shares snarky, witty and inspiring sayings for girlbosses and has a over 81,000 followers.

BossBabe

  1. Get into the group thing.

Participating in Facebook groups is a great way to network with potential readers and even find friends who understand the creative work that you do. The Southern Girl Blog Building Group is a good one to join as is, of course, the See Jane Write Birmingham Facebook group. Starting a group of your own could be a great way to build your brand. Interest in See Jane Write grew exponentially after I started the Facebook group. One way to cultivate community is by offering the group a challenge. When I launched the annual #bloglikecrazy challenge group members were eager to share their daily posts in the group and read the posts of others. And they used the Facebook forum as a space to cheer on their fellow Janes and even form friendships.

  1. You can tweet your way to your next writing gig.

I landed a paid freelance gig with one of my favorite online publications through Twitter. Twitter is a great place to build relationships with editors or agents you want to work with. But be genuine. The first communication you have with them shouldn’t be asking for information or a favor. Chat about common interests and build a rapport. When the time is right for you to bring up business, you’ll know.

  1. Writers need to get “LinkedIn.”

I’ve been fortunate enough to have many editors approach me about freelance writing opportunities and, believe it or not, most of those editors have found me through LinkedIn. The first time this happened I was shocked. Back then I posted updates on LinkedIn so infrequently I’d forgotten I had an account! But once an editor said she had learned of my work through that platform I began to wonder how many editors had stumbled upon my LinkedIn account and decided – due to my lame profile – that I wasn’t the right woman for the job. I then decided to make sure that my profile was current, complete, and fresh. I also try to post updates more. All users can now post articles to the LinkedIn network as well. For more on LinkedIn check out the post You Need to Get “LinkedIn.”

Do you need one-on-one help with social media, blogging, freelance writing or building a brand? Then you need Java with Javacia — a one hour session with me, See Jane Write founder Javacia Harris Bowser. Email me at javacia@seejanewritebham.com for more details.