Anyone who thinks bloggers aren’t apart of the tech community are sorely wrong, according to Gina McCauley, 37, an attorney who traverses the blogosphere as the Blogmother, Godmother to one of the country’s largest and most influential Black blogging conferences, Blogging While Brown.
“Black bloggers are the on-ramps to the information superhighway for their families, friends, and communities,†says McCauley, who teaches a blogging 101 course at a local university in Austin, Texas, where she lives. “They are this vital connection between the Black community and the digital age. Blogging While Brown’s goal is to be a strategic social partner providing the networking, education, and professional development that Black bloggers need.â€
McCauley began blogging in 2007, launching “What About Our Daughters,†a blog she describes on the site as “unapologetic, uncompromising and unbowed in defense of Black women and girls.†From there she went on to launch “Michele Obama Watch,†a blog dedicated to reporting and celebrating news surrounding the first lady; her daughters, Malia and Sasha; and her mother, Marian Lois Robinson.
The BWB founder grew tired of seeing Black bloggers’ voices overlooked and taken for granted, so she used her own money to fund the first conference, which was held in Atlanta.
This week, as she prepares for the sixth annual Blogging While Brown Conference in New York, we honor McCauley for committing her time to creating a supportive network for bloggers. McCauley’s team expects over 200 bloggers to attend this year’s conference. Speakers include Angel Laws, founder of Concrete Loop.com, Elisa Camahort Page, co-founder of BlogHer, several corporate executives from TV Land Communications and AT&T, and a keynote address delivered by pioneering blogger Markus Robinson, co-founder of Black Web Media, the parent company of BlackWeb 2.0. Robinson now leads the Innovation Team at Interactive One, the nation’s largest network of sites targeting African Americans and Latinos.
Black Enterprise caught up with McCauley to talk about BWB, navigating the black blogosphere and the key to securing relationships with corporate sponsors.
What can we expect at Blogging While Brown this year?
This year we’ve gotten major support from Colgate-Palmolive and AT&T. They are hosting our opening and closing parties. TV Land is providing subject matter-expertise in strategic partnerships between bloggers and brands by having three of their executives speak. In addition, TV Land is offering our attendees an opportunity to become paid ambassadors. We worked really closely with them to develop the criteria and expectations for their inaugural ambassador program to promote The Soul Man. The John S. Knight [Journalism] Fellowships continually recruit applicants to their program from Blogging While Brown, and I’m excited that several attendees and speakers, such as Latoya Perterson of Racialicious.com, have gone on to be fellows. And of course BlogHer is back again to provide guidance to our attendees about how to carve out a path as a professional blogger.
Why are the voices of black bloggers important?
Black bloggers are a new generation of media owners. Not only that, but they are the on-ramps to the information superhighway for their families, friends, and communities. They are the early adopters. They are the ones who embrace the latest gadget. They are this vital connection between the black community and the digital age. Not only are they using the technology, but they are producing as opposed to merely consuming. They are image makers and there is nothing more powerful than the ability to tell people what to dream.
In 2013, what are some issues that black bloggers need to be concerned with or informed about?
There are some major policy debates taking place related to media ownership, and black bloggers are almost never mentioned in those debates. These bloggers have much larger audiences than many black newspapers, television networks, and magazines. Yet, none of the initiatives coming out of the advocacy groups in Washington, DC –related to black media ownership–appear to acknowledge that. Bloggers have a vested stake in some of these policy debates surrounding media ownership. They should start paying attention and thinking long term.
What problems affect the survival of the black blogosphere?
Sustainability and scalability. That is our unofficial theme this year. I’ve seen so many brilliant blogs go by the wayside. Black Web 2.0 was one of my favorite blogs and had an important voice. They have not posted since December 2012. I know many bloggers who’ve gone silent; brilliant voices that we need in the digital space.
Sustainability is probably the most important issue. It cost nothing to start a blog. Starting is the easy part, but many bloggers soon learn that the hardest part is to keep blogging when life happens. We have to figure out a way to keep their voices alive. Passion will only take you so far, so bloggers have to develop some type of self-governance to make sure that they can continue creating. This includes how to get access to revenue and capital.
Explain how bloggers need to manage their relationships with corporate sponsorship?
Though Black bloggers are interacting with brands and corporations, they need to remember that what makes them special–what differentiates them from traditional media and connects them with their audiences is authenticity. Too many people think that blogging is some type of get-rich-quick scheme and spend more time creating media kits to impress agencies than building genuine, authentic relationships with their audiences. If you take care of your audience, they will take care of you. The real currency in social media isn’t money, it is relationships, and bloggers can never ignore their relationships with their audiences in search of a pocket of gold at the end of the branding rainbow.
What do you hope the audience will glean from their presence at BWB?
Clearly we want our attendees to use the opportunity to use in-person interaction to strengthen their network. We also want them to maintain their technical mastery in social media and technology. The technology is constantly changing. There are constant updates and a constant evolution of the available tools. This is one time a year when bloggers can pause and step back from the day-to-day grind of blogging and look at the entire social media landscape and see what’s changed. I, personally, use the conference as an opportunity for what I call CBE, Continuing Blogger Education.
BWB’s speaker roster is very estrogen heavy. What can black male bloggers gain from attending the conference?
Computers don’t care about gender. Twitter is Twitter, Facebook is Facebook. If you’re uncomfortable being in a room full of women at a technology conference, welcome to our world! But don’t worry, you won’t be the only Black male
in the room. We have a nice contingent of some of your favorite Black male bloggers who have already registered, but we are incredibly proud of our speaker lineup and especially proud that in a world that claims to not be able to locate women in technology, we have an abundant display of technical prowess.Why did you feel like BWB was needed?
Because back when we started, Black bloggers were complaining about being treated as invisible by the largest social media conferences in existence at the time. Despite all evidence to the contrary, there is still this “myth” that Black people aren’t experts in social media and technology. Of course we are. As a practical matter, it gives us the ability to be visible. But more importantly, we help to insure that people who look like us maintain the technical mastery required to create and distribute their voice and vision online. We also make sure they have the connections.
Explain your relationship with BlogHer.
BlogHer has been a sponsor of Blogging While Brown since the very first conference in 2008 in Atlanta. I’m proud that many of our attendees go on to attend BlogHer conferences. Many of our speakers are recruited and apply to speak at BlogHer conferences. I consider their founders to be mentors and a tremendous resource for Blogging While Brown and our attendees. They’ve done a considerable amount of work to help professionalize blogging because they realize that their future viability rests in bloggers being paid for their work.
What advice would you give to bloggers about introducing new technologies, software, and analytics into their blogging process?
You have to stay up to date with the latest technology and tools as a blogger. One of the great things about the digital space is that you can provide concrete numbers. You don’t have to wonder or speculate, analytics tell you exactly what is going on, whether you’ve been successful, and whether you’re converting and being effective.
Blogging While Brown takes place from June 21-22, 2013 in New York City at The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Black Enterprise’s Alfred Edmond, Jr. will be a moderator at the Blogging While Brown closing keynote session; Janel Martinez will moderate, “Crowdfunding Your Creative Project.”