What an exciting and eventful Play Fest Planning Session all about mummy and daddy bloggers yesterday evening (resulting in a very long blog post, but it’s all great content). We don’t think we left a stone unturned (well maybe we’ll find one or two as we go along) but with all your input we now have a full service to offer mummy and daddy bloggers. OK yes we admit it was quite a big job pulling all your feedback together with so many valuable contributions, but we think it’s been a really valuable exercise.What do you think?
And now we are very excited to communicate back to you the outcome of the Play Fest Planning Session held on Twitter and on Facebook on Wednesday 5th October. Thanks to everyone who contributed. This post is now open for discussion, so please feel free to add your comments, thoughts, suggestions, ideas, contributions.
We really want this to be a way forward for Izziwizzi Kids and Play Fest as a fun online community, so we’ve done our best to take all the feedback, organise it and come up with ideas of how we can move it forward. We fully acknowledge that you may have things that you would like to see done differently to the suggestions that we have made and we welcome your ideas on how things might be improved. We’ll close this off on 31st October 2011, so your input before this date is greatly appreciated.
Here is a summary of the Benefits of Play Fest Currently
Mummy and daddy bloggers who come to Play Fest say…
- Play Fest provides inspiration for new blog posts. It provides play ideas with kids that you can then blog about in addition to reviews;
- Play Fest reviews provide good publicity for bloggers, the toy company and you get a toy to keep for your time;
- Play Fest introduces you to other fab fellow bloggers and is great for tips;
- Play Fest provides a connection with toy companies;
- Play Fest provides brilliant support network especially good if you are new to blogging or vlogging to help build your confidence;
- Watching vlogs in Play Fest helps to build connections, friendships, tips and ideas for personal vlogging.
We know that we can do better and from the Feedback of Play Fest Planning. Here is how we think together we can do it.
Widening the reach of your blog:
The main objective of product reviews is to help individuals make wise purchasing decisions. In 2012 we want to take this a step further and build up our content network to help generate visibility of your product reviews and your blog as well as helping individuals make better purchasing decisions. Our aim in 2012 is to extend our content network for your reviews to build exposure for you.
We are also undertaking lots of work on video optimisation to make the videos you produce for Izziwizzi Kids and Play Fest more visible within Google Search and across the web. This will again be a way that your blog will obtain great exposure without any extra effort on your part.
We have also taken on board your feedback on how we can make improvements to IzziwizziKids.co.uk, plus our Twitter and Facebook page to extend your reach.
We’d Like to Give Your Blog Greater Exposure on the website IzziwizziKids.co.uk:
Thanks to your brilliant ideas, we have identified a number of ways that we can create greater exposure on the website IzziwizziKids.co.uk for your blog. Here are a few additional ways that we can help exposure of your blog:
Identify a dedicated team of mummy/daddy bloggers who rotate a sum up every week of Play Fest on a blog post. This could be published on your blog, but also we could read this into IzziwizziKids.co.uk and distribute via your social networks and our social networks to help increase your exposure and obviously we benefit from this additional exposure too. The post should contain all the useful links mentioned within the Play Fest. This might also tie in with the follow friday on Twitter on a Friday. We could do this on a live basis and publish at 10pm on Tuesday and Thursday if the nature of Play Fest is brainstorming and everyone who came wanted to see an immediate result!
Please just reply below if you would like to put yourself forward to be part of this team. We would like to work with mummy/daddy bloggers who have been involved in Play Fest and have a good grasp on how it all works.
We will create a blogroll on our website that includes links to each of the official silver and gold toyologist bloggers (we’ll come on to this in just a moment) to create links from IzziwizziKids.co.uk to those bloggers who are committed to contirbuting to the Play Fest community and continuous improvement.
We can identify a team of loyal bloggers (recognsied for their status with an Izziwizzi Kids recognition badge of course) who have demonstrated a high degree of commitment and contribution to Play Fest over the past 12 months and read in posts created from their blog automatically to IzziwizziKids.co.uk and have proven to be exceptional in their content. Our thoughts are that these should be by nomination from within the Play Fest itself and we can collectively review these every 12 months.
We will also start selecting a review of the month, a blogger of the month and create a post around these and distribute across our social media networks and those of our suppliers. We will be seeking nominations for these through the Play Fest.
Giving Your Blog Greater Exposure through Play Fest, Twitter and Facebook
Part of what we do every week is actively seek out new parents and bloggers through Twitter and Facebook to join the fun! This means that our network is growing pretty rapidly and we expect it to snowball. We would like for your blog to benefit from this snowball effect and some of the ideas you came up with during Play Fest we believe will work really well to help you to build exposure of your blog.
Instead of bringing the video reviews back into Play Fest (as feedback indicates that these take up time and distract from the event), you arrange to be online at a certain time to be available to answer questions about your review. In effect, you are holding a mini party about your product review and extending the Play Fest. You will be able to host your review session on Twitter by using the hash tag #PlayFest or on Facebook by posting to our wall. We think this will work really well as we can not only help you to promote your slot, but toy companies will have an interest in promoting your review slot too. “I’m going to be live on Twitter at x answering questions about your product. Tell your audience…”. Even if people are not available to answer questions during the time slot, they will still have the opportunity to ask you questions at a later time if they want to. The only rules here would be that the reviews shouldn’t take place during the normal #PlayFest times.
The other idea that came out was about rotating hosting Play Fest. We would love to bring in more diversity to the running of Play Fest. We would like to explore trialling this perhaps once per month initially to see how it all works. We can then gather feedback and see whether we can roll it out more widely. This would help you to gain further exposure through social media networks. We would like to highlight that we would need to retain quite a lot of control over the structure and product content to ensure we get through everything that we need to, but we truely would love you to get involved in stimulating and chanelling the conversation in Play Fest.
Please just reply below if you would like to put yourself forward to have a go at hosting Play Fest.
As we start to work more frequently with you, we’ll become naturally more aware of what you are up to and be able to positively help promotions of your blog. We will give time and commitment for those who actively contribute in the Play Fest and are committed to their own personal development.
Recognition and Status:
A very popular area within Play Fest Planning was to introduce a prestigious badge to demonstrate, loyalty, status and participation in the Play Fest community. These would be a variety of badges depending upon certain criteria. In addition to capturing key informatoin upon registration, our aim is to build a network of mummy and daddy bloggers who want to review products and are committed to continuous improvement. Here is how we could work it and would welcome your feedback for improvement.
5 levels of status/badges:
1. Supporter of Izziwizzi Kids Play Fest
The starting point for someone who has been to Play Fest and can be used to promote Play Fest
2. Izziwizzi Kids Official Toyologist
Awarded for repeat attendance at Play Fest and Actively contributing to Play Fest with Reviews
3. Izziwizzi Kids Official Recognised Silver Toyologist
Awarded for demonstrating continuous improvement in the quality of Play Fest Reviews (and that includes me). Must have completed and demonstrate a minimum of 8 product reviews for Izziwizzi Kids.
4. Izziwizzi Kids Official Recognised Gold Toyologist
Awarded for demonstrating continuous excellence in the quality of Play Fest Reviews (and that includes me). Must have completed and demonstrate a minimum of 15 product reviews for Izziwizzi Kids.
5. A further badge awarded for blogger of the month
Awards should be given during the Play Fest and would require a suggestion by a Play Fest attendee and backed up by 4 additional likes or votes. A team of play fest individuals actively looking out for this would be really helpful each week e.g. checking current status of blogger on the website and making a recommendation as appropriate.
Please comment below if you would like to be part of this team seeking out awards.
Gold Toyologists can also have a user ID to guest post on IzziwizziKids.co.uk. We will also showcase blogger of the month from within silver and gold toyologists. When awarded blogger of the month, an additional badge would be provided.
To give opportunities for other mummy or daddy bloggers to gain exposure on IzziwizziKids.co.uk, from time to time we will have a carnival with a topic and the opportunity to shout about Play Fest and read the posts from your blog into IzziwizziKids.co.uk. There will be a registration option for mummy and daddy bloggers to keep updated when these opportunities arise.
Creating a space to extend Play Fest:
“So a Forum, a network of bloggers and the meet up?! Sounds like a lot of work?”
This was quoted within the Play Fest planning session along with another few points which led to a conclusion of an opportunity to develop Play Fest. You will see by the fact that I have personally invested every Tueday and Thursday evening to get Play Fest up and running with no financial gain for the whole of 2011 which has included over 25 hours per week in preparation, planning, organising etc, plus the fact that I am still awake at 3am in the morning following out Play Fest planning session that I am not one to shy away from ‘a lot of work’. But I am realistic about what I can achieve with the time I have. Plus for Play Fest to continue to grow with this level of commitment, I need to start exploring ways of generating a bit of revenue. I am going to now propose an idea of a way that we can start to generate a bit of revenue through Play Fest in a way that reflects how we can now expand upon what we have to bring you additional benefits and potentially revenue too.
Play Fest is an open, accessible, friendly online community. A place for fun and inspiring play. Having taken on board much of the feedback and as part of developing Play Fest going forward we have a solution that could address lots of issues raised during Play Fest .
We spoke about the idea of a forum during Play Fest Planning, but there was some dilemma about this being open and being exploited, v’s being closed and seeming like a non-transparent environment. We are proposing to put together an Izziwizzi Kids Bloggers Members area that will provide a safe area for you to explore ideas and receive lots of extra benefits.
Free membership will provide access to everybody at Play Fest who registers to get involved in supporting the organisation of Play Fest.
We would then propose the next level of membership available for official toyologists who want to express a commitment to their personal development with toy reviews and achieve silver or gold status. This status comes with benefits that have already been highlighted in relation to increasing exposure of your blog.
A membership model would help us to ensure that everyone involved has an interest in contributing and working for the benefit of the community.
It will also help prevent lots of bloggers jumping on the band wagon and taking on your opportunities with little commitment. If you have created reviews already you have a head start.
We propose to be very generous in how we set this up and to extend financial savings and rewards for your involvement. Our aim is to bring you a fantastic range of services and opportunities that save you time, give you the edge and generate a position of being better off than not being a member.
We would like to provide a members area for bloggers who are committed to their personal development and offer the following benefits:
a) Provide you guarateed portfolio of products to video review each month (worth in value in excess of your membership fee)
b) Help you to increase the revenue you generate through your blog by exploring opportunities with our network of contacts
c) Provide you with technical and marketing expertise to help you expand the potential of your blog.
d) Provide you with additional exposure by having opportunities to feature as a special guest within a monthly event to support mummy bloggers.
e) Provide you with information and feedback from within the community on your reviews within a safe environment to help you continuously improve your reviews.
Within the members area we can provide technical and marketing advice, but you can also tap into the expertise of your fellow members to resolve particular issues.
We would envisage that this service would have a low cost monthly payment associated with it from as little as £6.99 per month. You could then earn commissions on an affiliate basis by introducing new mummy bloggers to the scheme i.e one month for each new introduction.
Please provide any feedback or comments on this model. We are proposing to give the first 10 members 6 months membership at only £2.99 to help get up and running. If you are interested, then please reply below. Full details of membership will follow shortly.
Other points raised during Play Fest Planning to be addressed were:
Communicating how your product reviews make a difference, i.e. they are fed back to companies and help individual product purchases with our growing content network.
Add…I love Play Fest but… x to the end of every play fest to ensure that we are always on the ball and address any concerns each week.
We need to implement some kind of document to explain the review process to new reviewers and streamline the instructions for reviewers.
Communicate with a simple update each week when the reviewers for the week have been notified. Put an update out to say that the review slots for last week have now been filled. Thanks for putting yourself forward.
As a blogger, it would be absolutely invaluable to be able to set up a conference or event where bloggers could physically meet the Toy Companies…
The topic for next weeks Play Fest Planning is Focus Groups or Teams to help Play Fest Meet it’s objectives in 2012.
Hi Al,
I would love to try out hosting Playfest, and also being a part of the Awards Team.
Hello! Love the ideas, I would be interested in everything! The £20 fee may be tricky as it is quite expensive but I suppose it depends on the full details of the membership….
I’m keen to know how this will impact on non mummy bloggers – will we still have opportunities to review? As much as I’d love a blog I have found it quite daunting looking at the various options out there and with limited technical skills in this area, never been quite sure of the best route to take. I think the opportunites you are suggesting look great for bloggers to gain exposure and hope I can be part of it if I ever get my blog fully set up.
That’s great Magz. We’ll be doing more on the teams front next week in Play Fest Planning, so we can sort out the details there:-)
Hi Lauren
It’s a good point. My thoughts were around what the value of the membership really is worth, but then giving back in value more than you spend. For example, if you introduce blogging friends, then you both save £5 on your monthly membership. The more people you introduce, the more everybody saves. Plus I was thinking along the lines of creating a constant stream of toys to review so you get lots of products and with an established team of mummy bloggers there would be more Klout with companies, so could potentially introduce revenue earning potential for mummy bloggers. My intention is that you get a lot more out of it than you spend. Plus if you were one of the first ones in, then you’d have 6 months under your belt to introduce fellow bloggers. Out of interest, would you have a ball park figure of what you think membership should cost? It might be a better approach to look at an amount which is affordable and then base the structure around that. All input on this is really valuable. Go on girls let’s get price down
if it is worth £20 then its worth paying it, I just wasn’t sure what the membership involved. I like that you can knock money off by introducing etc and I like the constant stream of reviews.
Some really interesting ideas. I’d definitely be interested in taking part in hosting playfest, blogging about it and also the awards. The membership scheme is definitely appealing, not sure about spending around £80 a year as that can be seen as quite a lot to some families. I’d like to be able to see exactly what was going to be involved – maybe a free trial for 1 month and then the option to continue subscription?
I would love to be part of the awards team
)
I am interested, definitely would like more info on membership scheme. Loving the badge and awards ideas too!
@moolboots
Just read your response Al, it all sounds so good! Would love to be part of it all… its all so exciting!!!
Hi
I haven’t been around much lately but I’d love to be involved in any way I can to help out. This would also give me a commitment to playfest too.
All these ideas are fab and it’s clear how much work you put in!
I think this all sounds like a great idea and we would love to be involved
Really interesting outcome from lasts session , gutted I wasn’t able to make, really like the ideas and would love to be part of the team of bloggers and (ooh I’m being brave) would love to have a go at hosting it one time too! :0)
Loved the sessions over the last few weeks, met some amazing people and got some awesome tips and inspiration.
I would love to be involved for 2012 on the Play Fest panel in some way through blogging or testing or just lending hands
Charlie
…PS I would be willing and happy to pay a membership fee to support Play Fest & the hard work that goes into it.
Hi Charlotte
That’s fanastic feedback. Glad to hear you are getting such a lot out of it. Thank you for your kind offers of support.
Al
xx