I have three BIG announcements for #Blogchat in July! The first is that Club Med will be the official sponsor for #Blogchat in July! Club Med offers vacation resorts in several locations around the world! Club Med is also considered the original all-inclusive resort, and one of the most recognizable brands in the world!
So I know what you’re thinking, ‘So Mack, does this mean Club Med is going to give away a trip to one of its resorts? ;)’
Uh yeah, that’s exactly what it means! As part of Club Med’s sponsorship of #Blogchat in July, they will give away a 7-night stay at a resort for 4 people! ONE lucky winner will receive a stay at their choice of two different Club Med resorts:
Sandpiper Bay, Florida – This resort is located in Florida and perfect for families and offers plenty of sports and family-related activities. It also has the only L’occitane Spa in North America.
Turkoise in the Caribbean – This resort is for singles and couples and located on the island of Providenciales, in the Caribbean Sea. It is known for its beautiful beaches and snorkeling.
The winner will be responsible for travel, and can claim the prize for up to one year, or till July 31st, 2013. In order to be eligible to win the trip, you need to do two things:
1 – Follow Club Med on Twitter
2 – Participate in #Blogchat from 8pm-9pm Central each Sunday in July.
That’s it! On July 29th shortly after the OPEN MIC #Blogchat ends, we’ll announce the winner! So please follow @ClubMedOfficial on Twitter and participate in #Blogchat in July, and you’re in the running to win a trip to either Turkoise or Sandpiper Bay!
And now it’s time to cue the cheezy cable informercial guy voice: But wait, there’s MORE!
In July we will have not one but TWO special co-hosts!
The July 1st #Blogchat will kick off Club Med’s sponsorship, but it is also the night we will welcome Alexis Grant as co-host to help us learn how to Get Your Guest Posts Accepted! This is a topic that y’all have been asking about for a while, and I said I wanted to wait till I found the perfect co-host for us! Alexis fits the bill, as she is a digital strategist, but also the editor of Brazen Careerist! Alexis gets pitched constantly from bloggers that want to write guest posts for Brazen Careerist, so she’ll walk us through how to craft the perfect pitch for our guest post submissions, plus how to decide what to write about!
Then on July15th, we welcome back C.C. Chapman as co-host! Our topic on July 15th will be How to Create Content During Your Family Vacation. I think this will be a very interesting topic as C.C. does a lot of traveling with his family, and he’ll give us some tips for not only creating content during our vacations, but also how to balance our time between recording our memories, and making those memories! Of course, C.C. wrote THE book on content creation along with the fantabulous Ann Handley, The Content Rules!
The topics for July 8th and 22nd haven’t been set yet, but I’ll post them on Twitter and #Blogchat’s Facebook page as soon as they are! I’m so grateful to have Club Med on as sponsor and so excited that Alexis and C.C. can join us PLUS for the topics they’ll be teaching us about! And very happy that one of you will win a very kickass vacation!
So it looks like we are in for a big July with #Blogchat, and guess what, there’s more big #Blogchat announcements coming soon 😉
WOW! Better make sure I get my Sunday schedule cleared up! Don’t want to miss these events!
I will be there AS ALWAYS in July…August is my tough month!
Congrats Mack – well done, well deserved and amazing prizes!
Thank YOU! ClubMed will be an excellent sponsor! Plus, the co-hosts are awesome! Thanks for all you do for the blogging community! Really appreciate your consistent learning platform, #blogchat!
That’s exciting! Can’t wait for the topics, too!
Creating content for guest posts while on vacation in the Caribbean! #blogchat
Congratulations, Mack. #Blogchat is going places, it seems. Who knows, maybe I’ll be taking a Club Med Vacation!
Guys thanks for the comments, please remember that YOUR support of #Blogchat makes this possible! Without y’all helping to build the community every Sunday, we couldn’t have amazing sponsors like Club Med agree to give away amazing vacations & smarties like Alexis and C.C. agree to co-host. Y’all have helped build something amazing & I am happy that you can benefit from that! Thank you!
Love the sponsorship from ClubMed. Smart of them to connect in with our bloggers and social influencers on BlogChat.
Hey Mack,
Funny how things evolve. Can you imagine this post in 2009, the social purest would have run you out of town. Sooner or later though things must monetize and become a business model, as we all need to buy shoes.
That said, is #BlogChat now considered an advertiser for businesses wanting access to that community, and where does the game stop, what is the right balance?
Seems like that conversation might help some struggling bloggers understand that friends, fans and follower count really do matter.
Eric it’s funny, when I did my first sponsored #Blogchat in 2010, I remember one #Blogchat regular telling me that she had to leave and wouldn’t be back simply because she didn’t believe it was right for me to make money from #blogchat. The funny part is, if I was just trying to ‘make money’ off #Blogchat, we would have been sponsored every week for the last 3 years. Instead, #Blogchat has had 2 sponsored chats in 3 years up till now. The bottom line is that whenever you add monetization to a social media activity that previously wasn’t making money, some people are going to balk. Some people are ‘social media purists’ and if they object to the marriage of social media and money, that’s fine.
At the end of the day, I know that if I bring on a sponsor for #Blogchat, that I am doing so because I believe it will ultimately benefit me, as well as the #Blogchat community and the sponsor. As long as it’s a win-win-win deal, then I can live with it.
Can’t wait for the chat!
And enjoyed your comments on sponsoring the chat — Great food for thought. There will always be people who don’t want you to get paid for your work for whatever reason, but there will ALSO be people who recognize and value the work you do and are willing to pay for it. Especially when you provide a lot of free information on your site, I think it’s smart to monetize the community you’ve built. Nice work.
Congrats Mack,
Excited to hear about the new sponsors and co-hosts. As always, looking forward to the next #blogchat.