Wow! its April Already: Spring Updates

Time Flies

Can you believe we are already in the Spring of 2012 on the second day of April? They say time waits for no man and especially when you are busy and having fun being busy!

Anyway, the purpose of this quick blog update is just to give quick run down of YEP media’s whereabouts, what we’ve been up to and where we are heading the next few months of this fast disappearing year, and we thought we would give this blog a bit of a transformation spring clean to bring in spring time.

Online Media Consulting

So as you may have noticed this blog site has seen nothing but digital tumble weed for the past month because the YEP team work part time and have also been doing bits and pieces for some clients.

We thought we would share one example of what we’ve been busy doing; the results of a Digital Media and Blogging workshop we delivered for a group of young people over at The Future Melting Pot who are working on a project investigating the reasons behind the August 2011 riots. You can check out their work here. This group will be holding an enquiry at the Council House this Thursday where the young people will have a round table discussion with senior leaders about those horrendous occurrences last year.

Unleash Your Inner Supernova

Our highlight for the month of March has to have been helping to host a pretty amazing event along with Bonafide Supernova, which is part of the collective of fashion blogs we are channelling our creative media skills into developing.

The Bonafide Supernova team held their first ever event at The Studio Birmingham in a bid to spark enthusiasm and present a new way of networking for the modern day woman of the ‘future’. Their next event will be taking place in May 2012 and will be all about the Future of Fashion PR so stay tuned for more details on that!

Bonafide Supernova's First event 'Unleash Your Inner Supernova - 21st March 2012.

Bloggers Collective

You may have noticed that we decided to postpone our 3rd  Bloggers Collective: How to Build Your Online Community Workshop until the 17th April 2012.

Bloggers Collective is our Monthly Networking Workshops for Online Media Enthusiasts. Our Topics over the next coming months in no particular order are as follows.

  • How to Build an Online Community
  • Making Money from your Blog’- Sponsored blog posts: To do or Not to do?
  • How to Promote your Brand Online/Creating a Media Kit for your online platform
  • Bloggers Surgery: A Troubleshooting Seminar
  • From Blogger to Online Journalist: Making the Transition
  • ‘It’s all in the Brief’ (Part 1) – How to get the most out of your graphic designer 
  • ‘It’s all in the Brief’ (Part 2) – How to get the most out of your web designer 
  • How to Write Online
  • Improve your Video & Photography  Blog
  • Bloggers Collective- ‘Moving beyond the blog’

We also launched a special offer to attendees of the Unleash Your Inner Supernova event to gain access to future Bloggers Collective Events. Details of this offer can be found here.

If you would like to be kept informed of our bloggers collective events then join our mailing list on the front page of our Website. http://www.yepmedia.co.uk 

The Lost Links/Here I Am Project

Last Year, Daniel from our team was awarded a Level 1 Award from Unltd, the social enterprise charity to deliver a project exploring and addressing intergenerational issues. The project is now taking shape and will kick off with an discussion/conference taking place at Aston University next week Thursday 12th April 2012. For more information about this project and the event visit http://hereiamconference.eventbrite.com.

That is all from YEP Media until Next time. Stay tuned for further updates on Bloggers Collective and other events.

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04/02
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Bloggers Collective 2 Round Up & Resources #BloggersCollective

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Last week Thursday, we held our second installment at the mac Birmingham and the wealth of information and knowledge made available was very well received by all who attended. Daniel opened up the event giving a run down of his top 10 good practices for writing effective content for the web. See his presentation here.

This was followed by a presentation from Caezar Al-Jassar founder of MobilePhoneNerd.com. He explained how he managed to optimise his search results in google and is now gaining 1000+ new visitors per month. See his presentation here.

The session was then finalised by Samantha who facilitated a very stimulating activity to get attendees thinking about how to write online.

The next workshop will take place on 27th March 2012 at the mac Birmingham 6.30pm-8.30pm. Registration details will be made available very soon. For more information about Bloggers Collective or if you are interested in having a consultation with YEP Media about Online Media. Email info@yepmedia.co.uk.

2012
02/22
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‘Oh Darling…..I am Part of the Bloggerati’ #BloggersCollective

Unfortunately, there are some bloggers who turn into big headed ego trips, somee who love themselves a little too much, no one or nothing else seems to matter because ‘oh well darling, I am a well-known blogger’. It’s unfortunate because this seems to be the route many bloggers are taking- especially if they feel their own online persona has become bigger than they would have ever thought.

With the likes of the ‘super bloggers’ taking centre stage, for example; Bryanboy, Style by Kling, Susie Bubble and more the world has become orientated by creating celebrity style bloggers who get photographed in all the fashion magazines, get provided with free clothes, tickets to all the big fashion shows, etc- exciting I hear you say; yes it’s exciting and most of us would love to be in their shoes but at what price, that’s the question?

As with majority of the international blogging success stories, these well known bloggers worked really hard to get there – really hard and have started blogging a few years back when it was still the new thing. The problem is when every blogger believes that they are the next Bryanboy. Hate to be the bearer of bad news but we all can’t be.

Yes, you can enjoy the limelight and the perks of creating a fantastic blog but don’t let it become a way for you to close the doors for other up and coming bloggers, who just want a bit of the action. Instead of just thinking about how you can make it, why not consider joining forces with other local bloggers and creating something special? Though there can never be two of the same people, there can however be ‘Collectives’ or ‘Bloggerati’s’- love this word J which endeavour to strive for creative collaboration.

It’s all about supporting each other and creating valuable, yet interesting and inspiring content that can be read by the world and appreciated. Let’s not let the freebies and entry to exclusive events create negative personas of bloggers, especially those who talk about fashion and beauty can be labelled in this way and it’s unfair as not all fashion or beauty bloggers are like this.

That’s why at YEP Media we feel it’s important to understand how this phenomenon contributes to the way we interact with content online but also how it helps leverage new relationships and collectives within the blogging arena.

Feel free to discuss any of the points mentioned in this blog post by commenting below or using our hashtag on Twitter #BloggersCollective.

Our Next Bloggers Collective Event entitled ‘How to Write Online’ will take place on Thursday 16th February 2012, 6.30pm at mac Birmingham. For more information and to Register, visit http://bc2yepmedia.eventbrite.com

2012
02/13
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Cool Tool: Themeefy Blogzine Beta #BloggersCollective

We came across this rather interesting tool for those of you who blog on wordpress. It basically allows you to curate all your blog posts around a particular subject into a magazine style theme that you can then share with others.

In a time where nearly every man and his dog has a blog or some sort of social media platform they use to talk about what they are interested in, part and parcel of expressing yourself and standing out above the crowd is how you package your content. This is why we think that this Themeefy Blogzine package could be a cool tool to package  parts of your content.

Check out the Blogzine we created packaging some of the commentary we posted about Online Media last year.

http://www.themeefy.com/YEP_Media_59219/59222

Bloggers’ Collective is all about helping you move your online media platform to the next level. Join the discussion using #BloggersCollective on twitter or leave us a comment below.

The next Bloggers’ Collective Event – entitled ‘How to Write Online’ will take place on Thursday 16th February 2011, 6.30pm at mac Birmingham. For more information please visit http://bc2yepmedia.eventbrite.com

2012
02/10
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Upping the Levels: 3 Questions to ask yourself #BloggersCollective

If you are thinking about how you can bring your online media platform the next level and begin to work with brands or businesses, first ask yourself the following 3 questions:

1.       Am I just building a Blog?

Perhaps you are just interested in publishing content about a topic of your interest and you are wary of ruling out the possibility that your blog could possibly move into different direction and begin to explore other themes and topics.  If this is the case, you should probably deal with any commercial interests as sporadic on a particular project by project basis. Make this clear with any project you take on as any business or brand that you may work with.

2.       Am I creating a web magazine/online media entity?

You may find that your style of blogging is more journalistic in its style and you like to curate and share information around your topic from other sources-sharing your opinion. Perhaps you tend to be more reactive with your community of followers in the type of content you produce, giving the people what they want.  If this is you, have a good think about how you can retain commercial interest and develop your platform through mutually beneficial relationships.

3.       Am I blogging for business?

If you are blogging for business your objective is more likely to be about retaining interested customers or clients by producing or sharing content that will be interesting to them. Your approach to developing online media content will be more about building your brand and becoming the authority in whatever industry you operate in. Obviously any commercial activity in business is good but if you are using your blog to build your brand then you don’t want any mixed messages that take away from your overall communications strategy. At the same time, it pays to be collaborative so weigh up the opportunity.

Once you have figured out which of the following three categories you fall into, you will be better able to strategise and move your online media platform forward. Over the next coming weeks we will be sharing information, ideas and strategies on moving your blog forward according to how which of these 3 categories you fall into.

Image from nemesismedia.blogspot.com

Feel free to discuss any of the points mentioned in this blog post by commenting below or using our hashtag on Twitter #BloggersCollective.

Our Next Bloggers Collective Event entitled ‘How to Write Online’ will take place on Thursday 16th February 2012, 6.30pm at mac Birmingham. For more information and to Register, visit http://bc2yepmedia.eventbrite.com

2012
02/08
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How do YOU Deal with Commercial/Sponsored Blog Posts? #BloggersCollective

Bloggers Collective emblem

At the end of November 2011 on YEP Media’s first Birthday, we hosted our first Bloggers’ Collective Workshop featuring  two local fashion bloggers; one ethical fashion blogger and the other a street style blogger. Each blogger explained  to the audience  exactly how they started their own Online Persona. It was a great session for those individuals who are in the early stages of developing their own online media platform.

One of the questions that was asked to our guest speakers, in a very roundabout way was how do you deal with sponsored blog posts or commercial activity within your web platform? Our speakers responded by saying that they would be happy to accept sponsored blog posts or any commercial collaboration providing it fits within their remit or values as bloggers.

From this discussion topic, we just thought we would pick up this conversation again as we think it’s important to understand  how to deal with any commercial opportunities that might arise through blogging and how this all depends on having a strong understanding of what you are developing and where you want it to go but we will explore this in more depth in our next blog few articles. In the mean time we would like to hear your thoughts, how do you personally deal with commercial/sponsored blog posts?

Post your thoughts in the comment box below or tweet them at #BloggersCollective.

2012
02/06
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New Year, New Ways to Refresh Your Media Platform #BloggersCollective

Sometimes it can all be a little too much, keeping up with all the latest news and trends can at times….well be impossible. On occasion most bloggers or media content producers can become bored by what they do and run out of creativity, new ideas and concepts to be able to write or produce something new especially when it comes to online platforms.

Therefore, it’s very important for you as a blogger/content producer to evaluate and think to yourself, how could I refresh what I do and still ‘love it’- as you can start to stop loving what you do. We are only one month in to 2012, so it’s time to reflect on your blog and make changes; so here are some tips on ways to start maintain the ‘hype’:

  1. Target Audience: make sure you are still clear on who your target audience is i.e. 18-30 year old, males, sport lovers- football etc. You can be as specific as you like. To be honest the more specific you are the easier it is to understand your audience and be clear on what they want to hear/read. It’s sometimes a good way to have a quick brainstorm/idea map about exactly who you’d like to target.
  2. Archive material: it’s good to archive old material, so that your blog posts don’t get clogged up. Treat every year as a refresher and put aside some of the stories from the previous year. It is also good practice to hyperlink back to old blog posts from your archives for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) purposes as Google likes blogs that do this.
  3. Keep Up: try and get out there, keep up with the trends and key news within your area of interest otherwise you’ll get left behind. If you start becoming boring, lack knowledge and interest in your field then your audience will know and stop reading your blog. This is such a difficult thing as it can be hard ‘keeping up’ with all that’s happening.
  4. Visit other blogs/media platforms regularly: key point here, visit other blogs for inspiration- not visit other blogs and steal their content, lol! Getting inspiration from other bloggers keeps your mind ticking and stimulates your thought processes making sure you stay on the ball.

Only 14 days until out next Bloggers’ Collective Event – Come join us and pick up some tips on ‘How to Write Online,’ Thursday 16th February 2011, 6.30pm at mac Birmingham. For more information please visit http://bc2yepmedia.eventbrite.com

2012
02/02
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#BloggersCollective & Other YEP Media Updates

Hello again folks. We hope that you all had a splendid holiday and new year and you are well into the swing of 2012. We at YEP Media are easing slowly into 2012 pacing ourselves as we know that we have a packed year ahead full of plans. So here is a bit about what’s happening at our end.

Blogger’s Collective Volume 2

We have just put out an announcement that we will be hosting our next Blogger’s Collective event on 16th February 2012 at the MAC Birmingham and due to popular demand the next topic will be ‘How to Write Online & other Content Production Secrets.’ If you are an online media producer, particularly a blogger, you don’t want to miss this workshop as it will be packed with all sorts of useful information to inform your work and stimulate your mind.

Upcoming Bloggers Collective topics will include:

  • Keeping it Niche: Developing your own Online community
  • Time for an Upgrade Part One: How to get the best from your Graphic Designer
  • Time for an Upgrade Part Two: How to get the best from you Web Designer
  • The Collective: What does it mean?

and more…

Registration for the next Blogger’s Collective will go live on Monday Morning 16th January 2012.

Creative Studio

Our Creative Studio team has been busy helping sorting out a few clients with some video content for their online media platforms. We have been working with Corporate Livewire to create a promotional introductory video for their new section on their website ‘Wired. We have also been working with E-ngage Consultancy to Produce videos for their upcoming month video blog campaign. We have also been working on some smaller graphic design jobs and consulting.

If you are thinking about developing an online marketing strategy or want to drive traffic to your website for whatever reason, come and speak to us, we can help. Check out our website at http://www.yepmedia.co.uk to see some of our work and get in touch.

Bye for now

YEP Media team

2012
01/12
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Future Bloggers Collective workshops #BloggersCollective

If you have been following our social networks or you are on our company mailing list, you will have received the latest news on the success of our first Bloggers Collective Workshop.

You will also know that we are trying to find out from our followers what they think the topic of the next event should be.  So we are holding a quick poll.

Please cast your vote, the next event will take place in January 2012.

Thanks

2011
12/05
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Live Magazine: Opportunity to be a YouTube Star

Live magazine has partnered with YouTube and are looking for 12 YouTube Stars who will take the Live channel to the next level!

We want to create a video platform to showcase the talent of young people, whether it’s in front of or behind the camera. We are looking for a range of talents, so if you are an aspiring filmmaker, presenter, actor, comedian, editor or online content creators, we want to hear from you!

The project will start with 12 YouTube Stars – dedicated, enthusiastic young people, with the passion and desire to be content creators, meaning you have no trouble tapping into your creative side with a given agenda.

You will take part in a two-week training boot camp in December, which will include guest speakers, YouTube stars, video creators and social media experts to help improve your skills and inspire you. All you need to bring is your talent and willingness to learn.

To apply send your CV and a short cover letter (just one or two paragraphs) telling us why you want to be on the Live YouTube team and why you think you’d be the best person to have on board.

Applications should be sent to becca@livity.co.uk by 5pm on Friday 2nd December. Successful candidates will be invited for a short interview within the following week. Applicants must be aged 16-22 years old and London based.

2011
12/01
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