These spotlights are opportunities for you to get to know some individuals who were recommended to me for the article I recently wrote for Mashable, 4 Essential Traits for Social Media Success in Your Career. The purpose of my project, detailed here, is to profile some social media professionals to keep an eye on in the coming year.
Spotlight: Stacey Ferguson,
Nadia Jones, and
Nyasha Smith
Title: the ladies behind
Blogalicious and
MamaLaw.com
Who paid it forward: Elisa Camahort Page
What Elisa had to say about Stacey, Nadia, and Nyasha: “…when Lisa, Jory and I launched the very first BlogHer Conference in 2005, it was because we decided to *do something* about people saying it was hard to find women who blog, instead of only talking about it on our blogs (which we did plenty of too). Similarly, I believe the Blogalicious team saw that conferences like BlogHer and SXSW were spotlighting issues and perspectives about people of color in individual panels, but they wanted more. So they, too, had the chutzpah to simply decide to do a full conference by and about women of color who blog themselves. And then when they did it, they did it with a bang. We sponsored, and our company representative came back with tons of ideas and praise for how well they executed. They’ve also expanded to introduce B-Link, a service to create opportunities for women of color to engage with marketers who want to reach them.
“To me, they are rising stars because they saw a need; they took the reins and didn’t wait for anyone else to fill it; they are building community, and they are seeking to create opportunities for their community.”
Stacey, Nadia, and Nyasha met each other at Howard University’s School of Law while they were pursuing their J.D.’s. Nyasha went on to become a legistlative attorney, Stacey a government attorney, and Nadia was a commercial litigator and later became a law professor. As they each got married and started having children, they remained in touch and discovered that they all had similar questions about parenting, motherhood, marriage, and work. Their correspondence became long email chains that were really helpful. They soon discovered blogs and how they were the same interaction as their email but that they could share the helpful advice they had shared with each other with a broader audience – mostly about how to achieve a good work-life balance. This was the start of MamaLaw. This was approximately three years ago, and since then MamaLaw.com has blossomed and became a catalyst for the establishment of Blogalicious, a conference designed to encourage diversity in blogging, specifically women of color, inviting them to come learn and socialize. This was a one-of-a-kind conference, and as a result of its success, Stacey, Nadia, and Nyasha also launched B-Link, which is designed to create and foster engaging conversation between marketers and influential women of color consumers. They also launched MamaLaw Media Group which now serves as the parent company of the three ventures and is largely devoted to raising the profile of women of color online, all while networking, building relationships, and promoting inspiration and success for the blogging community.
Why they feel Elisa recommended them: their story is similar to that of Elisa’s. Through MamaLaw, they created a network of women bloggers of color and decided to put on a conference to promote diversity. The first Blogalicious was in October 2009 and they invited women of all backgrounds to come, learn, and socalize. Due to the groundbreaking nature of the conference, they believe Elisa saw a bit of herself in them, forging a new path for women, particularly women of color. They called her early on to get advice and to help answer some questions. BlogHer became one of the first sponsors.
What instigated the idea of Blogalicious: Stacey said that as much as the three of them connect on the blog, they obviously still needed to connect in person. Nothing can replace that. She believes it is important to nurture the in-person relationships, especially as we become more tech savvy. According to Nadia, she is glad she took the leap of faith to do Blogalicious. It was a dream of theirs and she fully supports going after your dreams without being intimidated. Nyasha stated that the partnership they’ve formed as friends was strengthened in the process of taking on a new endeavor. As women, being able to rely on friends as you embark on this is priceless. One wouldn’t have been able to do this without the other. One lesson that came out of the conference was the immense power that women of color have in the marketplace in terms of their ability to control household spending. After the conference, the hope was that companies will recognize their buying power and develop marketing campaigns designed to reach their demographic more aggressively.
Where they see social media going over the next 12 months: in the next 12 months we will see more diversity in social media. More people are getting into Twitter even though lots of people do one or the other right now. As we progress, more people are going to be multi-tasking with using social media. We will also see more integration of social media technologies into our everyday lives. Things like Google search will change the way people view information, and people are going to get more engaged in the conversation because of it. It will become more accessible too – the ease and accessibility of the tools will encourage more people to use them.
Connect with Stacey, Nadia, and Nyasha on:
Spotlight: Jenny Blake
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