The video records a meetup at Farset Labs in Belfast where host Adam McBride interviews several local bloggers (Speakers B‑E) and veteran blogger Barry Adams. The discussion explores what blogging means today, ranging from citizen journalism to niche topics like lifestyle, parenting, autism, and fashion. Participants share why they blog, how they get started, and practical workflow tips such as scheduling posts and cross‑posting to Twitter and Facebook. Barry Adams reflects on the evolution of blogs from personal diaries to powerful business channels, warning against over‑commercialisation while acknowledging that genuine passion can eventually lead to revenue. Other speakers describe how blogging has opened career opportunities, boosted their professional reputation, and helped with SEO work. The conversation ends with a rundown of how future meet‑ups are promoted – primarily through Facebook groups, Twitter, Eventbrite, and local event calendars.
Chapters
Adam McBride, what have you organised and where are we tonight?
So we're in Farset Labs, which is Northern Ireland's first makerspace, and this is the Belfast Bloggers Meetup, where bloggers will be coming together to share stories, learn from each other, and connect.
What is blogging all about?
So blogging is like sort of the latest form of citizen journalism in a lot of ways, although it can go from people blogging about events in Africa and revolutions to people talking about their pet cat or where they like to go out for a meal.
What kind of things do you blog about?
Lifestyle and parenting, so it's everything between days out, travel, product reviews, recipes, toddler tips, everything.
Yeah, I'm pretty much the same, only I haven't got a toddler, I've got an 8-year-old boy, and I started off my blog to talk about autism, which he has, and then on the side of that I talk about parenting in general and lifestyle and everything that goes with it.
Was it easy to get started?
Very.
You don't expect the route that blogging takes you down, so from it going to just like your wee journal, it blooms into something much more than that, and it's really easy to get into.
Why have you come along to the meetup tonight?
Just really to broaden my horizons, to see who— networking, who I meet, hopefully tips along the way.
You're looking at fashion and family and so on with your blog posts. Have you found that everybody's kind of quite supportive about it?
Och yeah, like you do, and then there's other people look at you as to say like, what are you at? Like you're putting your whole life and yourself out there to the public, but I find it quite interesting and I'm happy with it.
And how do you work the mix between kind of the blog and Twitter and Facebook and all those other ways of advertising?
I set up, I made a makeshift office in our spare room, so literally just lock myself away for a few hours and what I put in the blog then I have to put on Twitter, just a whole load of things and just take it from there. Just schedule.
Schedule, schedule, schedule everything. Very, very rarely it will actually be someone sending out a live tweet. You just schedule your tweets, schedule your Facebook posts, everything's pre-done because you would not have the time to make sure you're updating regularly.
Or you can have a sneaky cup of tea when all the kids are having dinner and just have a quick 20-minute catch-up in the corner of the kitchen with the Snickers and a cup of tea.
What are some of the most interesting things that you've blogged about or things that have happened to you as a blogger?
For me, I think it was when the National Autistic Society picked up one of my posts and it went semi-viral, and I was sitting at my computer watching the stats going and going a bit, getting a bit hyper about it and couldn't really believe it. So I think that was one of the most exciting things on my side.
I'm a stay-at-home mum, so I have children to speak to, which they're not the most amazing conversationalists, so being able to just pop online and tweet or Facebook or even Instagram someone that you've really bonded with through blogging is It's pretty amazing to someone who just stays at home.
I think blogging has become a lot less navel-gazing. When I started blogging, I think it was back in 2002— yes, I am that old— it was just more about telling your own stories and, you know, about your daily life. And then very quickly it became more of a channel for political blogs and blogs about your passion and your hobbies and your travel and business as well. Business blogging caught on fairly late in the whole blog scene, but it's become very, very powerful as a channel. And you see pretty much every business that wants to be taken seriously online has a blog in one way, shape, or form. Not always to the betterment of the blogosphere. There's a lot of content out there that is just not really worth reading, just being produced for the sake of having content. But at the same time, we do see other blogs who, you know, founded by people in their garages, hobby projects that have really taken off and gotten massively powerful and have incredible influence and and a big share of the voice in the market now.
There's quite a lot of commercialization that's come into some blogs, some people trying to deliberately set it up to make money, others just that's an accident. Where do you stand on that?
I do think bloggers could monetize it properly, but it shouldn't be the main goal of a blog. I mean, I write for State of Digital, like I said, and we have some advertising on the website, but it barely even covers the cost of it. For us, it's a labor of love, really, rather than a money-making machine. I think if you go into blogging with the goal of making money, you're picking the wrong thing to do. You have to have something you want to write about, something you feel passionate about, something you can really add value to. And if you do that right, you know, the money will take care of itself in the long run.
For me, blogging has opened up a lot of career opportunities, has increased my profile and my reputation in the industry, and has made my, my job, my work as an SEO guy, much easier and There is a lot of sponsored posts floating about, there's a lot of reviews floating about, but I think that a lot of bloggers are trying to stay true to themselves and are trying to give honest opinions. And there is a few that give bloggers a bad name and maybe say what companies want you to say, but the majority of us still give our very honest opinion on the products that we're given or the posts that we're given to write.
So how do people find out about the Belfast Bloggers Meetup for future events?
Well, a lot of the people that find out about it tend to be involved in groups on Facebook that are blogger-oriented, as well as Twitter and generally on Eventbrite event lists and stuff like that. I also tend to put it on other calendars such as Digital Circles calendar of events, and I had it on the Farsight calendar and the Sync and I calendar.
