Cameroon's first blogging forum and networking event

Blogging has entered a realm of its own in Cameroon, from fad to industry. Cameroonians are entering the blogosphere daily, thousands every day from home and abroad. I’ve been blogging for over 5years and had no clue I was doing it. It was called “online journaling” and some called it “web diaries” or “blithering idiots writing on the Internet”. I tried not to blither, but I just did what I knew and now am known for what I did and continue to do: blog. Today, the evolution of this culture in Cameroon has led to the creation of the very first blogging event forum: BBCL, which took place December 30th 2014 at Le Meridien Bonanjo, Douala city center, Cameroon.

BBCL stands for Bold and Beautiful Camer Ladies. Started by a group of Cameroonian domestic and diaspora bloggers who decided to bridge the gap between bloggers, entrepreneurs and businesses.

At this event, you had the opportunity to be educated on what blogging is all about and how you could start a blog; not to forget the advantages of bloggers working hand in hand to promote businesses.

Guess stars were present including the new trending; now super star girl: Daphne. 

Bravo to all sponsors for believing in this innovative initiative in Cameroon; MTN Cameroon, Baileys, Liber, pricewice.com, UrbanTV Africa…etc etc etc.. 

This event helped enlighten its audience from a wider spectrum of life, some of the development of blogs and lessons about blogging and how to blog, not to forget it advantages to entrepreneurs and Business. The followings were discussed:

 Mbole Ekaney: Cameroon's A-list Blogger. One of the organisers. presenting about social media platforms and blogging

Yefon Mainsah: Cameroon's A-list blogger. Giving a presentation on Blogging, social media, collaboration, create, cultivate, youth empowerment and engagement, connecting various networks, internet penetration, self promotion, social media marketing, sponsored and funding collabo campaigns between bloggers and businesses, entrepreneurs, Camer entertainment, fashion, SEO, THE basics of promotion on Facebook, blogging 101

Advantages to entrepreneurs and Business.

First, it puts a human face on the corporation, helping people understand a little more about the day to day struggles and wins a company faces within their industry. Second, and more importantly, it promotes the business. Many people believe that blogs are the changing face of public relations and advertising today.

Is blogging for you? 

Depends upon what you want to do (your passion). If you have “static” information and articles and you just want to put the information out there and let it sit, then a general website will work for you. But if you crave interaction and you want to contribute to your efforts on a regular basis, then consider blogging. 

Blogging Tips

If you decide you want to jump into all the fuss and start blogging yourself, or suddenly realize, like I did, that you’ve been blogging all along and now what to be known as a “blogger”, then here are some tips that may help.

Attracting a Blog Audience: Generating Traffic

There are a lot of tricks and gimmicks out there that people promise will increase your blog traffic. The majority of these are worthless.

Using gimmicks and tricks to build traffic, tweak your search engine optimization, and force your PageRank with Google have all been done before. While they might work in the short term, they never work in the long term.

There are only two things that work to build an audience on your blog:

• Create Content Worth Reading
• Create Content Worth Linking To

By creating content worth reading, you will slowly in time build up readers. People will search for the keywords and search terms you use in your post title and content and come visiting to see if you have the information they need.

If you do, you have a happy customer and potentially a return customer. Make them really happy, they may talk about you on their blog.

When you create content worth linking to, you call into action the oldest advertising method in the history of the planet: word of mouth.

Blogs are fueled by who said what about who or what of interest to the author. They tell others and their readers follow, bringing them to you.

Blogging is a weird duck business. What other business in the world would you get more business by telling your customers to leave your store for something better, only to have them come back happy and telling and bringing their friends back with them? It’s amazing!

Special Tip: Just as you probably hate having surprise guests to your home when the house is a mess, make sure your blog is in place, filled with lovely content and furnishings, before you start welcoming guests to your blog home.

My personal contribution to this event was: Be You

The best tip anyone can give you about blogging and creating a successful blog is to be you. The best bloggers become the best bloggers because they are who they blog. They are fascinated by their blogging subject, rarely covering other distractions. They blog their passion and you feel it, you know it, it shows all over their blog.

People are attracted to positive energy. Create a blog filled with good content, positive perspectives, and meaningful content and you will attract readers. People want friends who are like them, but who also challenge them to be more. Turn your readers into friends and you build a loyal audience.

The more honest you are with your readers, the more your personality glows through the writing, the more you are willing to just be you, the expert, the person who knows or wants to know more, the more likely you are to build a steady readership.

When I was growing up, we were entertained on television by J.P. Patches, a wonderful clown who lived in the town dump in a shack and whose best friend, Gertrude. We were sure Gertrude was a guy but it didn’t matter. He was a girl with a mop on his head for hair and we loved her. J.P. was successful because he welcomed you into his humble home and shared his stories with you. You felt like he was talking just to you, and only you. You wanted to be like him, and other times, you learned from him because of his mistakes – not wanting to be like him. And yet you loved him, his simple life, his silly and corny jokes, and the adventures he and Gertude would stumble into around the town dump.

We all have that person in our life that was friend and mentor. Bloggers are also friends and mentors to many, so be the one that your readers trust for the information they need, and learn from each other along the way. Be a blogging friend and your world will grow with more friends than you know what to do with.

Don’t fake it, force it, or trick it into happening. It happens because you are simply you, the blogger, sharing your knowledge and experiences with others.

You can tell when a blogger is faking it. So can your readers. And just keep blogging. Keep writing. Stay focused. And blog “you”.

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Big kiss to all the courageous ladies who took it upon themselves to organise the BBCL event. Shout out to Yefon Mainsah, Adeline Sede K Mbole Ekaney Anrette Ngafor Delly VibangChantal Edie Reneta Ndisang Maischna Magzine Hilda Ngelo Braun HillNgum Ngafor and team for this great opportunity they created; to foster a blogging culture and its role in promoting businesses and entrepreneurs.