About a year ago, I learned about a blogger community called Social Fabric®. Other bigger bloggers I'd heard of were SoFab members and said it was a great community. Where bloggers get paid to work with brands. That sounded awesome to me as I was a fairly new blogger and looking to make some money blogging. SoFab isn't like a lot of other blogger communities out there because you have to apply and be accepted to join. I was oh so lucky to be accepted the very first time I applied. :)
After joining, I started to apply for shops. I got lots and lots of rejection letters. LOTS of them. I still wasn't sure what this blogging community was about and predictably I was getting frustrated.
So I asked for help, something SoFab is great about as a community is offering to help each other out. I wasn't sure what I was doing wrong with my applications, but I got some feedback and felt better about applying. I still wasn't getting picked, but early last summer SoFabU held a food photography class. Sign-ups were on a first-serve basis. To say I stalked that signup is a tame description. :) I completely panicked when the server crashed, sure that I wouldn't get to sign up.
My stalking paid off! I got in the class! I was oh so excited. :D This was my very first time actually working with SoFab. It was even better as Sears was sponsoring the class and they bought everyone a grill. Can you imagine being a fairly new food blogger and getting a brand spanking new grill to work with for your blog? To say I was excited is putting it mildly.
At the time I didn't realize that most of the others in my class were either Campaign Leads or much bigger bloggers. Then there was little old me, who was still trying to figure out this whole blogging thing. I learned a heck of a lot about photography. If you've been following my blog for a while, I'm sure you've noticed the improvement in my photos.
After that I got picked to attend the Illinois State Fair to check out Seattle's Best and Jeff Mauro. It was a blast and definitely not at all like work. This was just the first of many campaigns I've gotten to participate in. Every time I get picked for a campaign its like Christmas!
Being an active member of Social Fabric has allowed me the freedom to work on projects I'm really interested in like my Chicago Breweries Beer Bread Project. Doing things like this makes me proud to call myself a blogger. Working with big brands is great, but being able to promote local small businesses totally rocks!
For all these reasons, I count myself LUCKY to be a SoFab Member. :)
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