What I learned and what impressed me the most at BlogTrip Oradea Workshop, 2009.06.27?

Last Saturday I took part at BlogTrip Oradea for a few hours (about four). Very engaging and in the same time, the atmosphere was relaxed.

The sessions were moderated (with quite a few interventions) by Bobby VOICU.

Here’s a photo with the bus:
blogtrip-oradea-26-28-iunie-09-333

Credits for the picture: Adrian CIUBOTARU.

Photos:
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Presentations:
1. Cristina CHIPURICI and Bobby VOICU – How to be successful with a niche blog in Romania?
– A blogger documents about an event, contacts media partners and does exclusivities – just like a journalist;
– Monden.info was sold for the highest sum for such a transaction in Romania: 40,000 Euros;
– Bobby VOICU intervention: You should become the main source for news if you’re a niche blog; Come with your own news!
– Bobby VOICU intervention: If you only talk about money, ask a lot of money (He currently asks for 1,000 Euros for an ad or blog post on his blog);
– Bobby VOICU intervention: We have tried not to optimize Monden.info for Google, but rather to create a community (at least at the beginning);
– Bobby VOICU intervention: The bloggers in Bucharest also have the handicap of location – they don’t live in New York either.

2. Laurentiu BALABAN: Hosting for your blog: what to take into account when making the decision?
– For the very first year of your blogging experience, in most cases you don’t need more than 500 Megabytes of server space and 10 Gigabytes of yearly traffic;
– Rule: You shouldn’t pay for unlimited space and unlimited traffic;
– There are some Terms of Service (ToS) that rarely are read and contain some tough restrains: you shouldn’t use more than 10% of the RAM of the server, have more than 10 to 15 SQL connections (useful to know for bloggers);
– Some hosting services don’t allow multimedia files;
– Rarely does one realize how important the technical support is until there are some problems;
– The huge majority of the clients will never use more than the offered space (so they will not reach space quota);
– You should do a full weekly back-up and a basic daily back-up;
– The following plugins are great for more than 1,000 daily visitors:
a. WP Super Cache;
b. DB Cache;
c. eAccelerator;
– Basic rule to follow regarding hosting: don’t keep all the eggs in one basket;
– It’s not all that bad do have your web site down for a day, or two; But losing a week’s worth of data is devastating;
– You can safely ask the hosting provider for a testing account;
– One or two problems with hosting provider can be solved, but if you have more than one – that’s a problem;
– Server location is of minor importance, due to Google Webmasters Tools.

3. Tudor GALOS: Communication between bloggers and corporate persons: do’s and don’ts
– You can see Tudor GALOS’s presentation on SlideShare, or you can download it as PPT or PDF.
The functions of a PR department: Media Relations, Crisis Management, Employee Communications, Online Communications, Special Events, Community Relations, Reputation Management, Product/Brand Communication, Marketing, Public Affairs/Goverment Relations, Annual/Quarterly Reports, Product/Brand Advertising Marketing, Issues Advertising, Cause-related Marketing, Financial/Investor Relations, Monitoring Blogs, Writing Blogs, Blog Relations;
– You should measure the Return of Investment for a campaign;
– Blogging can be used as a revenge method;
– Bloggers should not sell themselves cheaply;
– Bloggers should predict the negative opinions and address them;
– Use promotional strategies for a blog;
– The corporate persons should learn and read about the bloggers;
– To bloggers: Make friends within corporations, more than setting a formal connection.

4. Alexandru NEGREA: What plugins should you use on your blog and why?
– People expect to find the Search function in the upper right corner of a blog; Like it or not, you should put it in there too;
– The sidebar should be shorter in length than the content itself;
– Consider this: an average user will mostly read a mouse scroll’s worth of content; So you shouldn’t put a lot of content, that requires lots of content;
– An advertisement should be as narrow as possible; It can be wide in lateral (468×60 is a good size), but it should be narrow on vertical size;
– You can consider placing a blogroll only on the homepage, not on the individual pages;
– Place a picture in the sidebar;
– Consider having an “About” page, with picture also;
– Affiliate marketing should be:
a. Relevant to your blog main theme;
b. Accompanied by relevant blog posts (write about the products / company / fields for which you have affiliate banners);
– Recommendation for:
a. Sidebar: Recent articles and comments, Archive, Categories;
b. Footer: Tag cloud, blogroll, Top commentators, Copyright.

5. Vali PETCU – How to evaluate the price for selling blog advertising?
– Don’t settle with the very first price offered;
– The people who wish to have an ad on your blog have money;
Tudor GALOS intervention: The marketing budget is, most of the time, already set (at the beginning of the year, semester, trimester); Use this and try to get a bigger part of the pie;
– Consider getting more than money – Products, Competitions;
– If the marketer is really interested with you, he will return to you;
– You should start asking for money when you can ask 50 Euros for a 125×125 banner per month;
– Your daily traffic should better be more than 1,000 unique daily visitors.

What impressed me the most at the workshop?
1. I was stunned by Vali PETCU‘s ability to get himself into trouble by saying what he felt like; Sure, take away impolite words and impolite interruptions, and you have little things left, but still – his ability to speak so that it gives you the impression that he wants to create not friends but foes was, to me, amazing; I might start reading his blog just for that;
2. Bobby VOICU has a great way to give feed-back; Lots of things to learn from that;
3. Daniel DAMIAN (Dany) was a very polite person.

A list with the participants at the event:
Bobby Voicu (main organizer), Daniel Damian, Lilisor, Varadinum, Vlad Gidea, Adrian Mihnea, Stefan Hurezan, Paul Ircosan, Alexandra Groza, Razvan Antonescu, Sebastian Mazilu, Ovidiu Purdea, Cristian Buzlea, David, Voicu Potronita, Simona Cuibus, Mihai Muncus-Nagy, Alina Blaga, Dan Ille, George Staicu, Alexei Ciprian, Andrei Monciu, Madalina Blaga, Daniela Stoica (jurnalist), Raluca, Elena, Roxana, Pyuric, Sorin, Gabi, Bluarto, Olivian, Buddha, Adrian Ciubotaru, Tudor Galos, Laurentiu, Zoso.

The event was sponsored by Green Pixel, Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft, who sponsored my very own participation.

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2 comentarii la „What I learned and what impressed me the most at BlogTrip Oradea Workshop, 2009.06.27?”

  1. I really like the journalist, so this info is very useful for me in running my interest in the field of journalism ..
    Much obliged. :))

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