CT Bloggers MeetUp and A Fab Mr Price GiveAway…

I have said it before and I will say it again, I firmly believe that bloggers need to meet up with other bloggers to blog their best. They need to mingle with folk that understand that they will stop mid-sentence to photograph their breakfast, the need to mingle with folk that understand that in every moment their is a blog post lurking. Folk may blog about the same topics or different topics, whatever, they will definitely have different viewpoints… but friendships are made and supporters are found and you can’t beat the encouragement.

So Saturday past, the Cape Town Mom Bloggers got together to meet and learn more about blogging and to feast of course.

So here we go, we met at Graze in Kenilworth… I’ve never been there before, but I will have to remedy that with a few more visits because: I love their green wall, their hardworking chefs and their beautiful food. The breakfast was beyond stunning and I have to say we lingered a fair while and some folk were coming in for lunch, and my gang would definitely like to stop by here for burgers one evening. The kiddie menu is cute and functional and for moms of tots a bit of a dream come true.

Moving on… the point of a meet up is to meet the people…

So here are the Cape Town Mom Bloggers that attended: Caffeine and Fairydust; Haley’s Joys; Acidice; Rumtumtiggs; A Thing of Beauty; What Happened to My Body; Surviving the Madness; The Milk Memoirs; Perfectly Normal Life; Between Daydreams; Nikki and Nicholas; Red Lips and Daring Adventures; Life and Times of the Fireflies; Cupcake Mummy and Fysh; Elle Kay – Living with Boys; Cass Lee and Chasing Dreams.

Meet the very talented Cindy Alfino, from 3 Kids, 2 Dogs and 1 Old House, who not only likes organising blogger meet ups, but she is brilliant at it.

And our speaker, Nikki Lincoln, who is the Digital Food Editor at Woolworths Online… what happy to share all sorts of valuable tips about blogging, SEO and Google Analytics in a very understandable way…

You could have heard a pin drop as notes were taken, clearly bloggers are eager to know more about the art of blogging… and our very eloquent speaker had heaps of excellent tips and ideas…

Se7en+1 Topical Tips, that I jotted down while listening:

1. Get yourself a Working Editorial Calendar: It will help you blog more efficiently and remove the stress of “What’s to do next?”
2. How to Create a Working Editorial Plan: Print out a calendar and make a list of posts you want to write… your favourite celebrations and special occasions; a list of curated content (pulling older posts back up to the fore-front); a list of created content. Fill up your calendar with potential posts.
3. There are Four Types of Post: Inspiring, educating, persuading and entertaining. The more of these components that you can add to a post the better.
4. A Post Needs to Be: Findable, readable, actionable and shareable.
5. What Are People Looking For: Searchable, Interesting Titles… with relevant keywords. Layer your post with {H1}, {H2} headers.
6. Google Analytics: The important ones – visitors, sessions and uniques. Your bounce rate is the % of visitors that drop off your site… things that affect are links to a subdomain, always open them n a new window because navigating with the back button effects your bounce rate. In other words, in-page navigation is important to google.
7. Device Metrics: How are folk reading your blog and what does it look like on that device… hmmm that is something I should look up… never ever thought of it before.
8. Reader’s Like Longer Posts: If they arrived because they are looking for something, then they are looking for details. You can’t know where your readers are entering the topic from, so provide background.

Another great aspect of blogger metopes and why they may well be the best thing for bloggers to attend is the hidden in the goodie bag… heaps of lovely sponsors and an introduction to brands that you may not have come across before.

Huge thank you to all the sponsors, including the main sponsor of the event, Gumtree. Our goodie bag was packed with products from: Wakaberry; Kin Shop; Oh So Heavenly; Ella’s Kitchen; Reusable Pouches; Tangled Tree; Baby Group; Optiphi; Wellness Warehouse; Almay; Mitchum; Beautiful Earth; Adventure Bootcamp; and The Galileo Cinema. Not to mention GiveAway Prizes from Ella’s Kitchen; Lauren Pretorius Photography; Sticky Fudge; Adventure Bootcamp; Wellness Warehouse; and the Windsor Hotel.

And then the sponsor that took us by storm… because everybody loves Mr Price, and turns out Mr Price loves us right back. A Last minute call for our children’s clothing sizes and each mother attending was surprised with a personal gift for each of their children. And some mothers had quite a few more children than others, I have to say I was blown away. Beautifully selected and gift wrapped gifts for each child…

Vouchers for our teens:

And complete outfits for everyone else.

You can safely say that my gang were simply over the moon with excitement…

We were given a voucher to share with you all… and we have a R250 voucher for one of our readers to spend at Mr Price Fashion. All you have to do is leave a comment, tell us about your kids’ favourite clothes, before the end of play on Saturday the 7 March 2015. You can use this voucher to shop online (Hoorah!!!) and deliver to a South African Delivery Address.

Huge Thank you to Cindy for organising this fabulous event and Nikki for her great presentation. And of course, thank you to Mr Price for the fabulous gifts and GiveAway Voucher for our readers. This is not a sponsored post, we were not paid to write it, and the opinions expressed are as usual our own.