If you are a blogger in Ireland you may have heard about the launch of the "Blog Awards Ireland" which will be taking place later this year. I had the opportunity to catch up with one of the organisers, Amanda Webb who shares some insights behind how the idea for the awards came about and what we can look forward to.

Krishna: What gave you the inspiration to host the blog awards especially as the former Irish Blog Awards were retired some time ago?

Amanda: I loved what we were doing in the KLCK Bloggers Network and thought it would be wonderful to run a blogging awards.

Damien Mulley had previously organised the Irish Blog Awards but I remembered him saying he wasn't going to run it anymore.

The Blog Awards had become an institution in the Irish social media world and people looked forward to it. It was sad to see it not happening anymore.

It's important for small businesses who are blogging themselves to get recognition for their achievements. Small business tend not to enter big award ceremonies, perhaps mistakenly, because they feel they can't compete but also because of the expense.

So we spoke to Damien to get his blessing and off we went.

Krishna: How will the awards be different (or the same) as the Irish Blog Awards?

Amanda: We always loved the Irish Blog Awards, and my fellow organisers both Lorna Sixsmith and Beatrice Whelan were finalists last year.

We're sticking with the judging process, free entry, a lot of similar categories and the laid back spirit that has always been a big part of the awards.

We are making some changes there are some elements of the event that will be different, we have some new and exciting offerings for sponsors and a few surprises on the night.

We're also going to put the judging criteria live on the site. New categories include Health and Wellbeing, Eco and Green, Best Designed, Best Mobile compatible, Best Video blog and Best Corporate Blog.

We're also doing a special ticket price for the fist 100 tickets for 30 euro. This includes a three course dinner.

Krishna: Who are you hoping will enter the awards?

Amanda: We've tried to include a category for every kind of blogger. We're hoping to get a wide range of bloggers involved from personal bloggers, small business to corporate bloggers. If you’re proud of your blog we hope you will either be nominated or nominate yourself.

Krishna: When will people be able to enter the awards?

Amanda: Nominations will open in June 2012. Entry will be absolutely free and anyone can nominate you (you can even yourself).

Krishna: You have announced there will be 29 categories; what are some of the most unusual categories?

We're quite excited about including a mobile category this year. With an increasing number of online searches in Ireland being made by mobile devices it's crucial that your blog is mobile friendly.

We've also introduced a category for best designed blog, That doesn't just mean it's pretty blog but that it works well, is easy to navigate and enhances personal or business branding. I'm really looking forward to seeing the entries in this category.

Krishna: How will the awards be judged?

Amanda: We've always liked the way that the Irish Blog Awards were judged in the past so we've decided to use the same approach.

Anyone who is interested in being a judge can apply to be on the panel. More details will appear on the website soon.

For the first time we have a "Peoples Choice Award" for best blog post, which will allow the public to choose the winner. We'll be announcing details of this soon.

Krishna: Will you be looking for sponsors and how do people get in touch about being a sponsor?

Amanda: We have 29 categories open for sponsorship are hoping to announce our first big sponsor soon. If you are interested in sponsorship get in touch: sponsor@blogawardsireland.com

Krishna: Do you know where the awards event will take place and when it will be?

Amanda: The event takes place on 13th October in the Osprey hotel in Naas, County Kildare

Krishna: What three suggestions do you have to help people publish content to their business blog more frequently if they find they have limited time?

Amanda: Here’s one from each of us.

What sort of questions do your customers ask you? Answer these in your blog – Amanda.

Having a regular themed topic for a day of the week helps with idea generation and organisation of time - Lorna.

Every time you think of an idea sketch it out so that you always have two or three posts half written, that way your never stuck for an idea – Beatrice.

Keep up to date with news about the Blog Awards Ireland by connecting with them on Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/blogawardsireland and watch the website in the next month for more details of how to get involved as a nominee or a sponsor.

And of course you can follow the Blog Awards Ireland on Twitter.

Do you get stuck thinking of what to write about in your blog posts? Here is a helpful info graphic from Copyblogger created by Blueglass.com which might inspire your content marketing.

What other ideas would you add?

By the way this is a great example of re-purposing content and publishing it in other formats as the infogrpahic was based on a previous blog post!

comScore reports that many of the top markets for blog usage are in Asia - a global analysis of the Blog category revealed that Japan led all markets in blog engagement in June 2011, with the average visitor in Japan spending more than an hour (62.6 minutes) on blogs during the month.

South Korea ranked second with an average of 49.6 minutes on blog sites, followed by Poland at 47.7 minutes.

Taiwan ranked as the top market for Blog category reach among its online population with  85.5% of Internet users visiting blogs during June, followed by Brazil (85.2% reach), South Korea (84.9% reach) and Turkey (81.9%reach).

Source - Budgetable

Here is a great event to consider attending in person or virtually today if you are interested in blogging.

It's the first Bloggers International event and will take place simultaneously in County Laois Ireland and Chipping Norton England at 7.30pm. The event is as a result of a collabiration by KLCK Bloggers Network and The Chipping Norton Social Media Club and their gola is to connect with other blogger and social media groups around the world. The event is being sponsored by Blacknight.

The first Bloggers International meeting will be a live video link up with Chipping Norton Social Media Club and will take the form of a bloggers clinic with a panel answering questions on both the technical and creative sides of blogging.

You can submit questions to the panel by tweeting your question using the hashtag #bi11.

Check out the details of the event and register to attend over on their Facebook event page.

Are you looking for new ways to expand your network and build your visibility online? Perhaps you are not ready to start your own business blog - but have you considered guest blogging?

In this webinar I will share best practice tips for using guest blogging to develop strategic partnerships and attract more leads and profits.

This is an under utlised strategy and is something that you can implement even if you do not have your own business blog.

We will be covering:

- What is guest blogging and why it will boost your online visibility?

- How to find blogs to partner with?

- 4 keys to connecting with bloggers

- How to leverage the guest blog post?

- How to strategically build your network?

So if you want to make sure that you build your online visibility through guest blogging join this programme.

The event is free to attend and takes place on 29 April 2011 at 5pm (12pm ET) - register to attend here http://bgn.bz/gbw

Are you underleveraging your business blog success? Then mak sure that you check out the Blogging Success Summit which starts on 1 February 2011 and features brands and businesses including representatives from Southwest Airlines, McDonald's, Procter & Gamble, Ford, Cisco and Sony – as well as a number of small business leaders using blogs as part of their marketing plan. It is a virtual event and the content is scheduled over 4 weeks.

You can read all about the programme and register your place here:

= => http://bgn.bz/bss

There is a FREE webinar taking place to give you a taster of the programme on Tuesday 18 January 2011 – covering 9 companies using blogging effectively register to attend here (I have had a sneak preview of what is being covered and I highly recommend you attending as the content is information I know even experienced bloggers will find of value):

= = > http://bgn.bz/rcwebinar

The full summit will be covering:

- the best ways to market your business with a blog

- how to build an engaging blog presence

- innovative ways to generate quality leads and increase sales with your blog

- how to drive traffic to your blog with Facebook and other social media platforms

- how to grow a loyal blog readership.

Early bird pricing for the summit means you can access a ticket for a 50% discount.

Note – if you attend the summit as a result of clicking on this link I will be aid a referral commission as I am a marketing partner for the event.

It's good to see another corporate blog being established - this time by Exxon Mobil. A timely move given the challenges BP are facing?

The blog is authored by Ken Cohen who is vice president of public and government affairs for Exxon Mobil Corporation with worldwide responsibility for the company’s public policy, government relations, communications, media relations and corporate citizenship activities.

He comments:

To help encourage dialogue on the energy challenges we all face,  we’ve created the Perspectives blog. I’m calling it our “energy issues and policy blog,” meaning I’ll talk about ideas and actions from industry, governments, researchers and many others that affect the world of energy.

You will also find Exxon Mobil officially on Twitter (unlike their first account almost 2 years ago) - though interestingly they are using the channel for 'push communications' and aren;t following anyone at this time thought they have over 2000 followers.

What other corporate brands have you seen starting to blog this year?

How quickly does your website or blog load? That is a question I covered over at BizGrowthNews.com recently.

Here is another article that you might find of interest where the article at Zemalf shares some tools to check your site speed including some Firefox plugins:

Free website performance analysis tools:

• WebPageTest.org
• Pingdom
• Web Page Analyzer

Firefox plugins:

• Firebug
• YSlow
• Page Speed

What resources do you recommend?