Keeping Your Kids Safe Online, Building Your Personal Brand & Meeting Bloggers at the #JoziMeetup

A group of around forty bloggers gathered at the IStore in Sandton, Johannesburg  for a fabulous get together and learning experience. For me the #JoziMeetup was not only learning new things from the two informative speakers, but also meeting bloggers in real life whom we are so used to connecting with online. It really adds that extra human dimension.

The venue was the IStore in Sandton drive, and the spread was fabulous. How healthy are these fruit sticks?

Many of us really needed the caffeine fix and we were not disappointed by the Nescafe Dolce Gusto machine. There was a competition running to win one of the machines if you took a selfie with your coffee, so we took lots of pics.

Organiser Laura le Roux from Harassed Mom did a fabulous job setting up the venue and bringing the speakers to us. I also loved the name tags where she used our twitter handles to further identify us.

 

Hayley Owen: Keeping Your Kids Safe Online

Hayley Owen is an actress (remember Angie on “The Wild”), presenter on Ballz Radio & Director of Actorvate! Take a look at her site: Digital You.This was a very informative talk. I think we all know about the dangers of being online, but Hayley presented it in a very practical manner. The one thing that she said that has stayed with me is to think about everything that you post: remember that when your child needs to go for a job interview or apply for something the employer will Google them, and you need to make sure that whatever they find online will not embarrass them. I think it certainly gave me food for thought (Is what I write going to shame Nicky one day?) I think the important point was made that we need to distinguish what will build our brand (e.g. as a parenting blog) versus sharing too much information. Moms around the room shared how they had to delete or make private certain posts as their kids got older.

Hayley shared three basic rules: 1) Don’t talk to strangers 2) Don’t share personal details (e.g. I’m at Milky Lane going to this movie) 3) Don’t meet up with strangers. She shared how a Facebook rapist had created a fake profile and lured girls to his house on the pretext of giving them a role in a hot TV show.

She gave tips on how to deal with cyber bullying. Take a screenshot of the offensive comment as proof. Block the person. Set your privacy settings are not public. Make sure that Google and YouTube have settings for safety on so that they cannot access porn. Tell your child not to share their password with anyone (Hayley recounts a story where someone gave a “friend” their password and their account was hacked and abused).

It is also very important to share with your child that a compromising or naked picture of themselves will very rarely be kept private. These things can not only be shared like wildfire but may also be used as blackmail.

Hayley did agree there are many positive aspects and opportunities involved with being online, but she also cautioned about the risks and that we need to protect our kids from those.

 

Stacey Vee: Building Your Personal Brand

I’d already had the privilege of listening to Stacey, the blogger behind Living Lionheart, at the LadyBloggers event where she took us through some useful writing skills. This time she shared how to build your brand.

1) What is your product? Decide what you are selling. For us, I guess it’s parenting information.

2) Who’s picking up what you’re putting down? Who are your readers? Moms? Are you making sure that you are producing well written posts if you are trying to break into writing and want clients to sit up and take notice?

3) Never underestimate the power of a name. You may want to re-brand your blog if you are unhappy with your name. Your blog may change over the years and you may not always have the “mom” as the focus. When my blog got hacked I changed from “Survive and Thrive” (which was more about surviving infertility) to “One Step at a Time” which can be used for anything really. The nice thing about this site  that it really fits the “mom blog” mold and is coming up well in Google as well.

Stacey changed her brand from Copy Candy to Content Candy as content marketing seems to be more the rage these days.

4) Build your brand pillars. Know what you stand for so that you don’t get sidetracked. I know that my focus is parenting and not fashion or beauty. Knowing what your blog is about can also help you decide which events to accept.

5) Arm yourself with a punchy tagline. For instance, Stacey has DigiKids which is “where parenting and technology collide”.

6)What’s the story, morning glory? Stacey shared how her IPads for Lionhearts project earned her a billboard for FNB because it had a heart warming story. (It is a charity where she distributes IPads to learners with special needs). I also have an infertility story which I share on my blog.

7) When it starts to feel stale, reinvent yourself. A good example is how Madonna has changed her brand over the years. We feel good watching Sharon’s transformation on the Blessed Barrenness.

After the speakers we hung around and chatted for a while. So good to meetup with bloggers like Karen from MomAgain@40, Mrs FF, Marcia from the 123 Blog, Melanie from Zombie Mom, Belinda Mountain, Cat@jugglingact, Peanuts Journey, Samantha Curly-Young, Femme gypsy, Amy and many others. In fact many moms brought their kids with and they all congregated on the floor. Tanya from Rattle and Mum was the designated baby sitter during the workshops and I think she deserves a medal!

All that’s left now is to say a big thank you to the sponsors. Thank you to IStore for the food. Dulce Gusto, we loved the coffee. Thanks Macaroon for the voucher – you guys always support us bloggers. Thanks Walk for Life for the voucher, no excuses now for me to get fit! Thanks KidsBookClub for the book, Nicky grabbed it as soon as I got home (by the way he did not sleep until I got back! He had a bonding session with dad that day!) Thanks McNabs Energy for the boost. Thanks to Paula’s Choice for the cream. Mr Price Home we sure need that candle what with all the load shedding these days. Typo, I love your stationery, and what a nice notebook.

And thanks my fellow bloggers for all the pics I took from you! Most of all to Laura for organising this event – hats off to your first paid event – how awesome to meet those we have been blog stalking for ages and also having the bonus of listening to two awesome speakers. Totally worth every cent!!!