Evolution of Design Blogging and Home Design Digital Marketing
By Adam Japko
When we announced the Design Bloggers Conference in 2010, we pivoted on a vision to virtually connect design bloggers and social media wonks in-real-life with education and networking that advanced everyone’s content marketing and blogging expertise. As a blogger in the wine industry, I took deep satisfaction contributing something useful to brethren content creators spending countless hours banging away on keyboards.
Now with the announcement of the Digital Marketing Summit, scheduled alongside the Design Bloggers Conference during Home & Garden Digital Marketing Week in Atlanta, we are driven by the inescapable imperative to create web and social content, participate in niche design networks and marketplaces, dive into e-commerce, drive new leads, and build digital brands and audiences. Our vision remains unchanged; to offer education and networking for staying ahead of game changing developments in the evolution of traditional home design marketing and media.
In 2011 the Design Bloggers Conference became a quick fixture on the industry calendar, right in the midst of a golden era for self publishers in design and other luxury industries. Motivated design pros and enthusiasts were building personal brands, growing well established design businesses, launching design careers, inking deals for namesake product lines, getting book deals, and more. “Cinderella” success stories about monetizing larger-than-life reputations built through blogging turned abundant, and we watched our Design Bloggers Conference grow as a positive catalyst in the middle of it all.
As we organized these conferences each year, I started understanding that the “Design Blog” was becoming an integrated piece of every forward thinking design professional’s marketing program. Celebrity bloggers were joined by thousands of designers, luxury showrooms and retailers, product vendors, architects, and other home design professionals. The “Cinderella Effect” of building rock-star blogger brands starting giving way to regular blog content for SEO advantages and web search discovery for the whole industry. And our little Design Bloggers Conference got bigger because it was no longer just for the dedicated full-time design blogger, but instead it was about the entire design industry’s marketing instincts and need for education.
Even more has changed than just that. The way content is created and consumed has advanced to short and more visual formats. Image and video content found its place and built audiences. Wayfair.com, Houzz, Chairish, One Kings Lane, Viyet, Horchow, Serena & Lilly, Blu Dot and countless other digital design platforms and marketplaces proliferated as consumers enjoyed these new online experiences and design trade pros necessarily adopted these environments as part of their client service, sourcing and marketing initiatives.
With all this, blogging is far from dead. Our Garden and Design Blogger Conferences, similarly represented in this fascinating piece at PROBLOGGER on How Blogs are changing and How You Can Stay on Top, remain anchors of the Home Design Digital Marketing Week. They offer cutting edge ways to deal with new subscriber patterns, affiliate programs, changes in SEO guidelines, integration of social tools, and paths to monetization.
Home and Garden Digital Marketing Week, which will now include the Home Design Digital Marketing Summit, is education and networking reflecting the metamorphosis of online marketing for successful home design industry professionals. We are as giddy and eager as were were in 2010 when we brought our Design Blogger Conference to life. You can register now at discounts if you want. Or, you can ask me more at ajapko at esteemmedia dot com. See you in Atlanta in March!