Vintage store window by Karen Horton, used under CC.

Welcome to our second monthly Nuffnang Blogger Challenge! Each month we’ll try to inspire you to get your creative freak on with our Blogger Challenge topics – which will hopefully result in great blog post ideas for YOU and sometimes cool prizes too!

So, without further delay, here’s the challenge for this month! Create a blog post in response to this question:

September Blogger Challenge: What are your shopping secrets? Take us on your favourite shopping trip!

How to participate:

All you need to do is create a blog post in response to the challenge question. The whole point of it is to encourage you to get creative and do a great post revealing your secret shopping loves. Be as creative as possible! Include photos to really illustrate why this is your favourite shopping experience –  maybe photos of yourself trying on clothes, the gorgeous window display of your favourite shop, or even your favourite cafe for a post shopping tea break!

Acland St Art by Bernard Oh, used under CC.

Your post should bring to life your favourite shopping experience – whether it’s hunting through your local market for second hand or vintage lovelies, disappearing down one of your city’s little back alleys into a little known shopping strip, or even visiting a farmers market to buy your favourite locally produced cheese, or produce (or cake, mmm cake). Whatever your passion, we know you have some shopping secrets to share!

Sugardough window display by avlxyz, used under CC.

If you want to be in the running to win one of the Blogger Challenge prizes, you’ll need to do a couple of extra things to enter the competition (see the Rules, below). Of course, if you just want to write a post for the challenge, and don’t want to enter the competition, that’s fine.

The Prize: The best, most creative entry will win $250 cash to make your dream shopping experience come true!

The most creative entry in this month’s challenge will get the chance to turn their shopping dream into a reality! We’re offering $250 cash for the Nuffnang blogger who comes up with the most creative blog post in response to this challenge.

The Rules:

Create a blog post any day between now and September 30, and make sure that you include the words “Nuffnang September Blogger Challenge” and a link to this post. Then come back to this post and leave a comment with a link to your post, to let us know you’re entering! The most creative entry (as judged by the Nuffnang team) will win the $250 cash prize!

This competition is open to Nuffnang bloggers only – so if you haven’t joined yet, sign up to Nuffnang now! :)

Shopping Laneway by Jon & Alison, used under CC.

Here are some blog posts to inspire you!

Whether you blog about food, fashion, beauty, even tech gadgets, we know you get a thrill from finding a treasure or a bargain from your favourite secret shopping place. Here are some examples sent through by our bloggers just for this post (thanks guys!):

Accessories & more - ASOS Haul + Purple Paradise FOTD V2 from Through Beauty Eyes

Fresh herbs - A Little Lamb for my Mint Sauce – from Dirty Ice Cream in Your Lunchbox

Grocery shopping - Spending money wisely – buying in bulk from Hear Mum Roar

Accessories - Not just any headbands from Cecilia Yong

Good luck and enjoy your September!

Guest post by Celeste from Berry Travels.

Image by linda cronin via flickr

I’m sure blogging tips are dime a dozen these days, and everybody’s a ‘blogging expert’ at some point or another. I don’t claim to have any expertise in this field, but having been an active blogger on numerous blogs for quite a few years now, I have collected a selection of my observations below from the point of view of both a blogger and a blog reader.

Another point to note: this article was written with craft bloggers in mind. Not that it stops the rest of you from reading it, right?

Judging by how far back my archives go, you might think I’m new to the blogging world. On the contrary, I have been blogging since 2003. Not quite as long as some others, but not exactly a new blogger either. I started blogging on Livejournal.com and in fact, I still blog there. As of current, my personal blog on Livejournal has a total of 2,187 journal entries, with a total of 8,005 comments made on the blog either by myself or by my readers. Impressive? Not really. But it definitely proves that I have been blogging for awhile.

There are many handmade crafters out there today. Many trying to sell their humble wares, myself included. As a new seller, especially on Etsy.com, you are often told to ‘start a blog’ to promote traffic and interest to your store. And while starting a blog can be as simple as clicking a few buttons and filling in a few blanks on the signup page over at Blogger.com, what comes next? If you spend all your blogging time just talking about your products and promoting your store, people are not going to read it for the simple reason that it’s boring!

So what then?

Image by E-magic via flickr

Why are you blogging?
When I first started blogging, I had a reason. My (then) boyfriend and I were separated and in a long distance relationship. It was my way of showing him what I was up to and letting him be part of my life in a fashion. After we broke up, I continued blogging as I had fallen in love with it. I love to, and what better way to show my love for writing than to write?

So be very clear on why you have started your blog and why you are blogging. If you are only doing it to promote traffic to your shop, I’m afraid that is not going to be enough. Blogs can be (but are not limited to being) tools to look into a blogger’s life, heart and soul. If you don’t put the human factor into your blog, your blog will never take its first breath and live.

I figured out my reasons, now what?

Once you know why you are blogging, this should be easy: start blogging!

Take a notepad around with you if you need it and jot down ideas for blog posts as they come up. I used to wish there was a way I could write blog mentally. Depending on the theme of your blog, your content need not be interrelated. You can talk about food on a craft blog, you can talk about yourself, or you can talk about other people – it really doesn’t matter! Obviously you will want a constant theme running through but don’t sweat it too much. If you are an avid blog reader like me, you will definitely know that readers love to read about quirky random things, interesting things, and other things that might have happened to you around your life. We are naturally curious beings, so we want to know!

Image via Kevin Marks via Flickr

I feel stupid writing all these: is there even anybody reading?

How are you ever going to get anywhere if you don’t keep those posts coming? It really doesn’t matter whether or not somebody is reading. If you have been dropping links and promoting your blog as you should have been, then somebody would be reading it. Think about it this way: blogging is just as much for yourself as it is for others. One day you will look back through your archives and go “I did what? ” and “Oh gee, that was dumb.” It’s like keeping a diary, a scrapbook, or even a photo album. Just in a digital format.

Furthermore, if you keep writing quality posts (this is important!) and not just “Hey, my shop is this way!” style posts, people will start catching on and passing on the link to your blog to others. Interesting posts will spread like wildfire, so concentrate on writing and not how many followers you have showing on your Google Friends Application.

I don’t want to share my life; my life is boring

Do not underestimate the power of human curiosity. Yes, I do actually want to know what you had for dinner. Yes, I do actually want to know what the weather was like in Tokyo. Yes, I do actually want to know that your cat spewed all over your laundry and you had to skip a movie so you could rescue your laundry. In these modern ages where people are just so busy working, working and doing more working, little things like these makes the day go by just that little bit quicker. Many of us read blogs at work: we just don’t admit it since our bosses won’t like it. So reading that you had a cheery day makes our days that little bit cheerier as well; reading that you had a bad day makes us sympathize and be secretly thankful that it wasn’t us.

But if you are a private or a shy person, I understand how opening up the door to your life can be intimidating. It’s not the end of the world of blogging, trust me. You can write about other things! You can share interesting links you found on the internet, you can share book reviews, you can share photos, you can share so many, so many things. You don’t need to talk about your personal life to have an interesting blog.

Just remember this: nothing, absolutely nothing is considered boring. Unless you are endlessly promoting your shop or a certain product. Because yes, that’s boring.

Thanks for reading! And I hope to see you over at my blog sometime soon!

Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Celeste from Berry Travels. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Celeste! You can also follow berrytravels on Twitter!

If you’re a Nuffnang blogger with some great blogging tips to share, why not write a guest post for our blog? Contact us with your idea for a guest post today! :)

Here are some tips for Nuffnang bloggers who’d like to maximise their advertising income through working with Nuffnang – whether you’ve just recently joined, or have been with us for a while.

Nuffnang advertisers are usually seeking two things when they advertise with our bloggers. They will want to reach a particular demographic, or niche of blog readers (for example, mums, or young women into fashion). They will also want to ensure their ad is seen by as many people as possible – so they will also want to advertise with bloggers who have a larger Australian readership.

So here are some tips for how to ensure that your blog is primed to be chosen for Nuffnang ad campaigns.

1. Work on growing your Australian traffic! We suggest when people join Nuffnang that they have a minimum of 20 Australian views per day. If you want a target to aim for – we suggest 100 Australian views per day. If you don’t use your own web analystics software, you can check on your Australian traffic in your Nuffnang account by clicking on “Analytics”.
2. Choose a blog layout that gives you space for ad placements! Nuffnang has three different ad units which can be placed on your blog – leaderboard (which goes on your blog header) skyscraper (which goes on the right hand sidebar of your blog) and in-content (which can be placed in the content area of your blog, where the posts go). Most of our advertisers choose skyscraper or leaderboard ads, so we suggest that you make sure your blog layout has room for ads in those positions. If you want more information about the size and placement of these ads (or to grab a new ad code to upload to your blog), login to Nuffnang and click on the “Add ads” tool.
3. Watch the Nuffnang Twitter and Facebook for callouts when we need bloggers for campaigns. Sometimes we get enquiries from advertisers who have very particular requirements (like recently, we had to find out which of our bloggers owned dogs for a PEDIGREE campaign!). When this happens, we’ll put a call out to our bloggers to see if anyone fits the bill! So we advise you to keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook accounts if you’d like to find out about these opportunities.
4. Make sure we know what kind of blog you have! When you joined Nuffnang, you completed a brief survey which asked you to tick which categories your blog fits into. When looking for blogs for ad campaigns, we use these categories to find your blog! Why not login and check your categories – and update them if needed? Here’s how:

• • Go to the Nuffnang website and login to your account.
  • Select the Blog Manager tool, which will show your Nuffnang blog(s).
  • In the right hand column, you’ll see a link called “Update Survey”.
  • You can update any or all of the questions, but Question 5 is the one where you update what category of blog you have. You can choose up to 3 different categories (eg Entertainment, Fashion, Food, Girl Stuff).
  • Once you’re happy with your changes, hit “Submit” at the bottom of the page, and you’re done!

We hope you find these tips useful! Happy blogging!

Nuffnang and Panasonic announce a new competition for photography buffs – you can win a Panasonic Lumix G2 or  a Panasonic Lumix TZ10 camera simply by reading and commenting on the participating blogs.

Right now, 16 Nuffnang bloggers are hard at work writing about these cameras – so you’ll be able to read their posts and decide which camera is right for you.

Readers of all participating blogs can comment either on those blogs or this post on the Nuffnang blog in order to go into the draw to win the Panasonic Lumix G2 or Panasonic Lumix TZ10.

Participating Bloggers

Panasonic Lumix G2

1. Daydream Lily
2. Karen Cheng
3. Pigged Out
4. Retro Mummy
5. The Food Pornographer
6. Super Kawaii Mama

Panasonic Lumix TZ10

1. HereComesTheFood
2. Jeroxie
3. Mel: Hot Or Not
4. MyFoodTrail
5. ChocolateSuze
6. LadyMelbourne
7. Sarah-Cooks
8. IronChefShellie
9. Violet

Panasonic Lumix G2 & TZ10 Overview

1. Craving Tech

• Panasonic Lumix G2
• • Great for people who don’t know anything about taking photos but want to learn how to thanks to Intelligent Auto
  • Halfway between Point-and-Shoot and SLR, so basically you don’t need to be proficient at using a DLSR to use the Panasonic Lumix G2. Also, it is compact sized!
  • Panasonic Lumix G2 basically the training wheels to the real deal
  • 12.1 megapixels producing superior image quality thanks to interchangeable lenses
  • Automatic light, Shutter Speed, Focus etc…Just like a Point & Shoot but with great looking photos!
  • Touch screen for easy and intuitive operation
  • Targeted at budding photographers who are a little unsure of how to use a camera
  • Also shoots high quality HD Movies!

• RRP $1299 with 14-42mm or the Twin Lens Kit $1599 with both a 14-42mm & 45-200mm Zoom Lens
• Available in 3 colours
• More information for the Panasonic Lumix G2 can be found at http://lumix.panasonic.com.au/products/Lumix/Camera/DMC-G2

• Panasonic Lumix TZ10:
  • Great compact sized travel camera (12 megapixels!) as it has a built-in GPS for easy organization of the photos you took on your holidays!
  • 25mm wide-angle 12x optical zoom f/3.3-4.9 LEICA DC VARIO-ELMAR lens…allowing it to have twice the shooting area of the standard 35mm lens
  • Double hand-shake correction allowing you to take beautiful night shots at slow shutter speeds without blurring
  • Record movies in HD with no loss of image quality!

• RRP $650

• More information for the Panasonic Lumix TZ10 can be found at http://lumix.panasonic.com.au/products/Lumix/Camera/DMC-tz10

How to enter the competition:

To enter, you need to choose which draw you’d like to go into (Panasonic Lumix G2 or Panasonic Lumix TZ10) and then answer one of the questions below for the camera you want. Leave your answer in a comment on one of the participating blogs (listed above) or as a comment on this Nuffnang blog post.

Please read the full Terms and Conditions Panasonic Lumix G2 or Panasonic Lumix TZ10 – PDF download which include the full instructions on how to enter. [EDITED 18 August - please note we had different dates listed in the blog and Ts & Cs - we've updated the Ts&Cs today with the proper dates for the competition.]

The competition closing date is Friday, 3 September at 11.59pm (AEST) so make sure you’ve got your entry in by then!

1)   Panasonic Lumix G2: How will the Panasonic Lumix G2 make you a better photographer?

2)   Panasonic Lumix TZ10: Where in the world would you take the Panasonic Lumix TZ10 and what photo would you take?

Which camera is right for you?

Photo Credit:  Photo by Courtney Carmody. Used under CC license. Please note that the photo above does not show a Panasonic camera – we just picked it because it’s a cute photo. Click through to the official Panasonic website if you’d like to see the Panasonic Lumix G2 or Panasonic Lumix TZ10 cameras. :)

Guest post by Corrine from Frock & Roll.

”But your name isn’t Perez Hilton or anything, what could YOU possibly have to teach ME about blogging?!” an imaginary person might ask. At which point I would smile, shrug and say hey, pipe down, imaginary person! Sure, Perez Hilton my name might not be, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t collected my own thoughts on blogging and the inevitable hustling, networking and promoting process that’s so closely tied into it all if you actually DO want to get your blog or website out there, no, no, no!

How To Build An Audience, No, We’ve-Established-That-My-Name-Isn’t-Perez-,But-Hey,-I’ve-Still-Learned-Stuff Style!

Create A Facebook Page For Your Blog/Website

And send invitations to your real life friends to join it! Now, I know that this is scary. It is. Because regardless of how comfortable you are with putting yourself out there or not worrying about what other people think, sharing your writing with people you know is a completely different ball game because it’s just so personal! But don’t let that deter you – why not just invite your closest friends, family members or anyone else that you think could be interested? (For example, if your website is largely written for females, then why not send it to all of the females that you know?) You don’t have to inform Bill from Accounts about it!

Have Business Cards Designed

”What? BUSINESS cards?!”

Oh, jeez – there’s that indignant imaginary person again! But seriously, having a set of business cards with your name and website information on a piece of cardboard isn’t a ridiculous practice, because as soon as you start telling people about what you’re working on (and it will come up in more conversations than you might think!), they will usually ask for the name of your project so that they can look it up at a later date; which is lovely! But, being only human, it’s natural that they will probably forget what it’s called or to do so. Not with a business card, they won’t!

Written About A Product/Restaurant/Cafe`/Clothing Brand? TELL Them!

While studying Media & Communications last year, my Marketing teacher asked if he could take a peek at my website, and after reading this post, his immediate response was ”have you contacted any of these companies to tell them about what you’ve written?” My reply was eloquent and intelligent: ”Um, uh.. wha – no?” ‘‘But WHY?” He asked. ”If somebody wrote about you or your website, wouldn’t you want to know? You should definitely contact them, they’d be thrilled to see that you’re talking about their products, and it will help to get the word out there about your blog!” Well thank-you, Mr. Mera. While for some reason I didn’t end up contacting the companies behind the products featured in that particular post, I did while writing about this product, and the outcome proved that he had definitely known what he was talking about: after e-mailing Trilogy, a woman contacted me from their head office saying how DELIGHTED she was to see what I had written, and that she had promptly e-mailed everybody in her office a link to the post to show them and that also, if I ever needed any products from them or anything, would I please let her know? (Now how sweet is that?!) EXCELLENT. The bottom line? Typed up a piece about a great mascara? Eaten a delicious meal somewhere? Get in touch with the company, and let them know. Who knows where it could take you?! (A potential advertising campaign? A lifetime discount at their stores?!)

Sch-Sch-Sch-mooze!

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned recently about blogging, it’s that you can’t really be all shy and reclusive about what you’re doing, yet secretly hopeful that your website’s traffic is going to explode and your name’s going to start popping up left, right and centre everywhere: you have to get out there! Search for social opportunities in your city by typing ‘‘____ (for example, Sydney) blogger meet-ups” or ”Sydney networking events”, and attend them! ”But I’m shy!” You might say. Well hey, guess what? At some stage we ALL are, and that’s okay! Unless your blog is titled ‘I Never Get Shy’ or ‘Confidence Is My Middle Name After Anne’, don’t fret: a slight case of butterflies-in-the-stomach is to be expected, and there’s nothing wrong with that!\!

Create A Twitter Account, & USE IT

(And while you’re there, add me!)

I feel like I could devote an entire post to the magnificence that is Twitter alone, because honestly, it has helped me ENORMOUSLY. From finding work experience last year as a part of passing my studies to hearing about a stack of interesting events, Twitter has allowed me to connect with other people and companies that I otherwise might not have been able to: the spectrum of people that are on Twitter is truly incredible!

What’s that? You’re ALREADY using Twitter, but feel as though no extraordinary occurrences have transpired for you? Try a different approach to your interactions! Seek out the people, brands or companies that you admire or would like to be involved with and aim to communicate with them regularly, whether that’s by simply replying to something that they’ve written, sending them a link to something that you think that they could be interested in, or re-tweeting their ”tweets” (140 character or less statements).

To read the final installment of The Blogger’s Guide To Hustling: Networking, Promoting & Getting Your Blog OUT THERE! , please click here, or read the full version of Parts One and Two! Thanks for reading!

About the author:

Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Corrine from Frock & Roll. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Corrine!

If you’re a Nuffnang blogger with some great blogging tips to share, why not write a guest post for our blog? Contact us with your idea for a guest post today! :)

A couple of us from Nuffnang were lucky enough to attend the Problogger Training Day in Melbourne this week, so we thought we’d share some of the great tips which were shared by Darren Rowse (@problogger) and Chris Garrett (@chrisgarrett – his co-author on the Problogger book).

There were a number of great sessions, but this post will focus on Darren’s presentation, Tips on Building Community on Your Blog.

One of the really impressive stats of the day came when Darren revealed that he gets ten times the page views from the comment pages of his blog than from the blog itself. A pretty compelling reason to start nurturing your commenters, don’t you think?

He gave a number of reasons WHY you should grow the community side of your blog:

• it makes your site more useful because you’re getting input, tips and questions from readers – you can draw on their questions AND answers to inspire new posts!
• your community activity (ie comments, posts on a forum, number of retweets, number of RSS subscribers, number of members of an online community) provide social proof, or credibility for your site and for you.
• it gives you increased page views (see above)
• if you’re thinking of one day selling your blog, it is more valuable with an active community attached to it.
• the community can become a source of user generated content.

Then he gave a number of ideas for HOW to grow community:

• “Be the community you wish to have” – readers take your lead with regard to tone, conversation, etc
• Invite interaction – pose questions in your blog, run surveys (and then write posts about the results)
• Reader-centred posts – give people an opportunity to show off what they can do. For example, if you run a photo blog, ask people to share a link to their best photo, then showcase all the great photos taken by your community members.
• You can help kick off comments on question posts or surveys by being the first person to comment. Darren starts these comments by saying “I’ll kick things off…”
• Write in a personal and engaging tone, and use “you” and “we” to make your posts personal and ensure readers feel included. Darren said that at first commenters on DPS used to contact him talking about “Your site” but that over time commenters would refer to “our site” and “our community” – sign of a successful community when members claim ownership of it!

Darren also shared a couple of anecdotes from the early days of his Digital Photography School blog which I thought were helpful reminders that even big blogs start out small:

• When he first started the Digital Photography School blog, Darren did two things to start encouraging his (then small) audience to come back – he emailed them in response to their comments on his blog, and he would visit their blogs and leave helpful comments for them. LESSON – nurture & respond to your commenters so they become loyal readers and hopefully bring their friends too!

• Another important audience-growing tactic he used was ‘leaving his own turf’ – and establishing a presence on Flickr, because he knew that a lot of amateur photographers hang out there. He participated, commented and started a group there – knowing that if he was helpful, he’d get people following him back to DPS to check things out. LESSON – leave your own turf if you want to build your blog’s profile and attract new readers.

Thanks to Darren & the rest of the presenters for such an information packed day! We’ve also found a number of other blog writesups from the training day, so please follow the links below for more.

Blog writeups of the Problogger training day:

The Blog Stylist – 15 useful blogging resources and tools discussed as a result of the Problogger event

Brendan Marsh –  Part 1 & Part 2

The Value-Add – Roundup (links to each of her posts on the event)

Connecting Librarian – Part 1 & Part 2

(Photo of Darren Rowse from Problogger and used with permission)

Welcome to a brand new Nuffnang experiment – the monthly Blogger Challenge! Each month we’ll try to inspire you to get your creative freak on with our Blogger Challenge topics – which will hopefully result in great blog post ideas for YOU and sometimes cool prizes too!

So, without further delay, here’s the challenge for this month! Create a blog post in response to this question:

August Blogger Challenge: If the old saying is true, and everyone has one book in them, what would YOUR book be?

How to participate:

All you need to do is create a blog post in response to the challenge question. The whole point of it is to encourage you to get creative and do a great post on whatever it is YOU love to blog about. Be as creative as possible! Include photos which would appear in your book – the best meal you ever ate, the craft project you’re most proud of making. Or your book could be full of tutorials – how to create the ultimate vintage fashion ensemble, or how to create a particular look if you like to work with makeup. Or you can create a book to celebrate something special for your family – a wedding, or a birthday.

If you want to be in the running to win one of the Blogger Challenge prizes, you’ll need to do a couple of extra things to enter the competition (see the Rules, below). Of course, if you just want to write a post for the challenge, and don’t want to enter the competition, that’s fine.

The Prizes: A chance to create and print your book for free, courtesy of Blurb

The top three most creative entries will get the chance to turn their book idea into a reality! There is an old adage that everybody has at least one book in them. Until recently though, the means to making those books were pretty limited. That has all changed with Blurb, a quality print-on-demand publisher, that wants to make your book a reality. So Blurb is offering three prizes of a free book for those in the Nuffnang bloggers community who come up with the best idea for their book.

One cool thing about Blurb books is they can be personal (a book of your own photography, or favourite recipes, or your crafty creations) which you turn into a book for yourself or your family. Or you can create a book and sell it through Blurb. So if you’re looking for a new way to monetise your blog, you could potentially create a book based on your blog posts (or with all new content) and then sell copies to your readers.

The Rules:

Create a blog post any day between now and August 31, and make sure that you include the words “Nuffnang August Blogger Challenge” and a link to this post. Then come back to this post and leave a comment with a link to your post, to let us know you’re entering! The three most creative entries (as judged by the Nuffnang team) will each get to make a free Blurb book!

What do Blurb books look like?

To inspire you to share your story, take a look at some of the books people have created using Blurb:

Fashion:

LOVE IS LIKE A DREAMLAND by MISS UNKON | Make Your Own Book

Food & Raising Money for A Good Cause:

Blog Aid – Recipes for Haiti (Hardcover) by Twenty-seven food bloggers | Make Your Own Book

Memories from the Kitchen (3rd edition) by LeAnn Bennett | Make Your Own Book

Bloggers turned authors:

First Thoughts by Marie-Chantale Turgeon | Make Your Own Book

Guest post by Michael Aulia of Craving Tech.

I remember a few months ago there were a few discussions on Twitter with some Nuffnang bloggers (including myself) about the Windows Live Writer. I’ve been using the Windows Live Writer application myself to write my blog posts and still recommend it as a primary tool to blog. If you are still using your browser to write your blog posts then you are missing a lot!

Read the rest of this page »

Photos are a really important part of blogging and blog reading for many of us. Unless you’re a photographer yourself, you face a regular challenge of finding interesting and relevant photos to jazz up your blog posts (or illustrate concepts or ideas you are trying to explain).

It’s quite common for many bloggers to source images from the Web, by just copying and pasting photos they like into their own blog posts. This is a gamble. Sometimes the photographer won’t notice, or will be happy for the exposure if you’re including their name in the photo credit, and a link back to their site. But you’re not guaranteed a good reaction – using photos without permission can get you in trouble and generate ill-will towards you and your blog. Because of the time and effort photographers put into their work, they can react very badly if you reproduce their photos without permission – even if you do put a photo credit or link to them. (This makes sense – bloggers hate it when they see their blog posts copied and pasted elsewhere without permission!)

If you love the work of a photographer or visual blogger, and especially if you use a lot of photography on your blog, it is worth thinking about how you can source photograph in a way that works harmoniously with photographers and gives them both acknowledgement and control of how their photography is used. Daydream Lily made a great post about this recently: Some downfalls on visual blogging.

In the past I have done a combination of asking for permission to feature an artist/photographer and other times I go ahead and post the image (more so this) and then link to the person’s flickr or website (linking to weheartit or ffffound is not correct crediting). General blogging etiquette has so far seen this to be perfectly fine. But I’ve decided that I could be doing more, so I’ve made some new rules for myself….

1. Name the file with the creator of the image, this way if the image is re-posted the name of the person will go with the file. Other large profile art blogs do this and I feel I should be doing it too.

2. Try to email people a bit more and ask for permission to blog about them or only blogging people who send a submission to me. Although I’ll have to find a balance on this, as emailing all the time could be pointless (if not very annoying) as well as slow down the spontaneity and pace of a blog.

My #1 tip for using people’s photos is to simply contact them and ask for permission. You’d be surprised how often you get a quick YES, and a thank you for asking. Daydream Lily makes the point that she often wants to use a photo at short notice – which can certainly be a challenge. If you have a blog post coming up on a particular topic or theme, try to put some thought and planning into the images you’ll need, so you have time to contact people for photo permissions if needed.

Why is using photos important for your blog?

There’s a great post over at Famous Bloggers about why you should use great photos to support your blog – Why stunning images are important for your blog and how to find them for free. Photos can help your blog by:

• grabbing attention
• making reading the page easier by giving people a rest from text
• sharing or illustrating the meaning of your post
• promoting SEO (because search engines also look at photo file names)

Using Creative Commons licensed photos

Creative Commons licences are an alternative to the traditional copyright, and are often used by photographers, musicians and other content creators who want to allow people to use, republish and sometimes even remix their work. You may have noticed that we’ve been using lots of great Creative Commons-licensed images for the Nuffnang blog lately!

There are six different Creative Commons licenses, so make sure you check to see which one the photographer has chosen – usually they require attribution (that you include their name as the photographer) – and they sometimes specify that you can only use their photo for non-commercial work. You can read about the different licenses on the Creative Commons Licences about page.

Finding Creative Commons licensed photos

The great news is that Flickr allows you to search their whole archive for Creative Commons licensed photos! Get started over at the Flickr Creative Commons page – you can even narrow your search by the type of license required (ie if you need to find a photo that’s authorised for use by a business).

Check out the Famous Bloggers post linked above for other ideas on where you can find great free photos.

Have you got any tips for sourcing great images for your blog? Please share them in comments!

We had a great response to last week’s post about ‘How to host a Nuffnang meetup’ and the first result is our next Melbourne meetup, which is happening on Saturday, 24 July at Koko Black in Collins Street. Read the full invitation and RSVP here: A bit of chocolate heaven. The meetup starts at 1.30pm, and all are welcome.

Many thanks to Penny from Jeroxie (Addictive & Consuming) and Violet from Violet Le Beaux for volunteering to run the meetup – and to everyone who said they are keen to attend or help out. We hope to see as many of you as possible on the day! :)

Not in Melbourne? Remember, if you’d like to organise a meetup in your town – read our recent post “How to host a Nuffnang meetup“.