Hello Everyone!

I sent out a PM to blogging challenge group members with an introduction and a few ideas I'd like to implement. If you have not received this message, I will copy this below.

I'll keep everyone updated on my progress with booking a blogging expert chat guest. I'm still in the early stages of making a presentation. I wish to thank JoCarole, our Events Coordinator for giving me the scoop on booking speakers and offering a few contact names.

When I have more info on the badges, I'll post that here as well.

If you have any expert blogger contacts you'd like to share with me, please let me know either PM or through the discussion site. I'd be pleased to look into this.

I'd like to roll out a challenge after the chat. In the meantime, I'll post a quick question and see if we can start a discussion.

Janine
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Hello Everyone,

My name is Janine Gregor and I'm the owner and VA of Your Virtual Wizard. I'm on the VAF boards quite frequently, so you may have chatted with me here. I've been asked to moderate the Blogging Challenge Group so I'd like to fill you on a few ideas I've had to increase blogging activity on this site.

You may be interested in knowing I was the first winner of the February 2009 Blogging Challenge and won a very nice book entitled, 'Twitter Means Business'. The prize selection is extensive so I'd like to see everyone win this challenge! This is a great opportunity to get your blog posts 'out there' as I used this win as a means to promote my work when I submitted RFPs and when I chatted with my clients.

I've read some of the prior posts and although everyone is at varying stages of blogging, I feel that a good discussion on Blogging Basics 101 would be a good place to start. With that said, I'd like to book a guest blogging expert speaker for a chat here on VAF. I'll keep you posted regarding that event.

I've chatted with Tess about creating a Blogging Challenge Badge. This graphic can be posted on your blog and used on your VAF profile. It is still in the works but the premise is that if you post 10 times (that number is still under discussion) you will receive a Blogging Challenge group badge. If you are the winner of the Blog Challenge for that month, you will receive another badge denoting your win for the month. This will be linked back to your post here on VAF.

I'd also like to post a weekly or bi-monthly question. One blog post can have a thousand lives…so repurposing a post would be one discussion. How to create topics for our blogs would be another topic for discussion. I'd like to discuss reasons for blogging and how to manage a blog. Please feel free to PM me with questions or ideas.

Regards,

Janine