The City of Opportunities. How to become a blogger and go on an inclusive blogging tour
21 march 2023
Special Perspective, an Internet-based media publication, has recently published an article by Vladimir Vaskevich dedicated to the blog City of Opportunities launched as part of the inclusive project You Can Do Anything! implemented as part of SIBUR's social investment program, the Formula for Good Deeds.
Vladimir Vaskevich, a correspondent writing for Special Perspective, talked to an inclusive team of Samara-based bloggers who had been implementing a project to provide training to bloggers with disabilities. The bloggers discussed what it takes to become a part of their community, how not to be shy about making their presence seen on the Internet, and how to go on an inclusive blogging tour to Sochi.
An inclusive blog that has evolved into a large-scale project
Inclusive blogging, which is when a team of people with and without disabilities join their forces to work on building a community or maintaining a web page, is a rare phenomenon. This is not some non-profit organization or a charitable foundation. Rather this is about joint pro bono work for the sake of a common cause, such as promoting inclusion as a positive trend and disability as a possible resource for enabling new achievements.
One of these blogs is called Limbless Watchers. The team consists of three bloggers: Olga Lifanova, Alexei Trantsev, and Darya Suloyeva. Of these three, only Olga and Alexei have disabilities. According to Darya, prior to starting this project, individual members of their team had been quite successful maintaining their own unique pages on social networks.
Alexei Trantsev has been successfully driving the advancement of social networks within a non-profit organization, Olga Lifanova is busy developing the page of her massage studio, while I have been going to social networks to show how my small hairdressing business is getting on. That said, both Alexei and Olga have a Group I disability, while I don’t, but they seem to be all doing quite alright despite that, Darya noted.
A few of years ago, the three bloggers decided to team up and use humor in discussing disability and the real opportunities that are available to visually-impaired people, like Olga, and to people without hands or arms, like Alexei.
At the outset, our readers found our self-mockery in our blog’s posts hard to accept. After all, our society is not yet used to hearing a blind person talk jestingly about how he or she does not see any problems, or seeing an individual without hands teach managers of non-profits NGOs to inspire their staff while keeping all the work under control in their own hands. But after a while, the number of subscribers and instances of thankful feedback started to grow, and that inspired us to do more, the blind blogger Olga Lifanova noted.
Over time, the inclusive team grew increasingly more popular as invited guests sharing their experiences at various social and youth meets across the country. A year later, they entered into a partnership with SIBUR's social investment program, the Formula for Good Deeds, and jointly developed a project they called the City of Opportunities. This is a community of inclusive authors, complete with training courses, and an enabling and supportive environment for beginners.
The primary goal of the project is to help people with disabilities come out of the obscurity at least online and learn to talk about themselves in a way that other people would admire and value, rather than feeling pity and embarrassment. The secondary goal is to make the topic of inclusion increasing more popular on the Internet, and to make joint projects like our blog more widespread, Darya Suloyeva shared.
What they teach at the City of Opportunities
It was not fortuitous that the project was given this name as its organizers intended to use it for sharing their best practices, as well as for creating a permanent positive environment where everyone could feel a part of a lofty and important trend.
The core component of our project is our community, where everyone is entitled to attending a free video course for beginner bloggers. This will be equally relevant to people with and without disabilities. The project is inclusive by nature, and so we are not limiting ourselves just to participants with disabilities. The key requirement is for the aspiring bloggers to have the urge to write about inclusion it their area of expertise. The next stage of the project involves setting up regular online meetings, where members of our team and guest experts can share their tips and any interesting tools they use in their blogging. These are held twice a month, following which their participants are required to do their homework, thus putting their theoretical knowledge to practice. Nearly every piece of homework involves an assignment to write a new post to give the participants an opportunity to improve their writing skills while we offer them suggestions for how to do this better, Darya Suloyeva noted.
One can also watch videos and read articles on blogging without having to do homework. For that, one just needs to sign up to become a member of the open City of Opportunities community. The project’s organizers recommend paying particular attention to broadcasts on developing one’s personal brand presented by such renowned experts on inclusion as Alexei Trantsev and Mikhail Chetvertakov, marketing expert Ekaterina Nenasheva’s class on effective collaborations, as well as photographer Yuliya Otroshchenko’s talks on the aesthetics of disability.
New residents of the City of Opportunities will be able to take part in performing regular competitive assignment, win valuable prizes, and get advertising and experts’ support for their blog. All of them are added to a collaborative chat room featuring a warm and supportive atmosphere. At the end of the year, the best performing members will be sent on an inclusive blogging tour. Last year’s tour involved a trip to Moscow, whereas this year it will be held in Sochi, Darya Suloyeva commented. One can join the project by simply filling out a registration form.
According to Darya, the chat’s supportive ambience means a lot to them, and so her recommendation is not to hesitate and sign up to take part in the project.
Our participants’ geographies and ages vary widely, as do the topics they focus on. Some of them cover fencing, others review books, another group may be focusing on building one’s personal brand as a speaker, while others may just choose to popularize the board game of Go. There are no restrictions as to the topics one may want to choose, and the sky is the limit to one’s opportunities. The only requirement is that the topic of the blog be inclusion-related, that the blog be run by an inclusive group or a person with a disability, and that the topic they cover should have an inclusive context, Olga Lifanova explained.
The social network VKontakte was picked as the appropriate platform for budding bloggers because the organizers believe that it is currently one of the most popular and accessible ones in the country, including for visually impaired bloggers. For their convenience, all content is duplicated in video and audio formats thus giving everyone an opportunity to get acquainted with the course’s materials in a format that best suits their needs.
How to understand that it pays to start one’s own blog
According to Olga Lifanova, before throwing oneself at blogging, one should absolutely set their goals. These goals may change with time, but you need to clearly understand why you are doing it and what for.
Some do it to sell their readers their products and services, others may cultivate a particular worldview, while a third group may want to share their observations and discuss their ideas with readers. Some use their blogs as a launchpad for lifting up their projects off the ground, while others set up all kinds of events for their readers. In any case, the goal of almost any blog is to build a loyal following of readers who will be coming back to read it. How that loyal audience could be used by the blogger in the future is another matter that warrants a separate discussion, the blind blogger explained.
One has to start with deciding on the visual design of the page and it is not that important whether it will be a separate page of a bigger blog or one’s unique personal blog. Whenever a reader lands on that page, he or she should clearly see what kind of person they are dealing wit and what benefits this blogger can bring them. Blind novice bloggers should be cautioned against ignoring the importance of the visual side of their blog. In the beginning, you would be advised to recruit the help of your acquaintances, friends or professional photographers for creating the necessary volume of your visual content, and then keep updating it on a regular basis.
It would still be beneficial for anyone who is visually impaired to learn at least the basics of visual content creation, even if they are not planning on taking pictures on their own. Although I have been blind since I was a child, through constant practice I have been able to build some understanding of the general rules of taking pictures, such as: do not shoot against the sun, wipe clean the lens of your camera, remember the importance of daylight, or that in twilights your picture may not come out sharp enough. In addition, you need to know what basic colors and the uniform style of your feeds are for, how to maintain diversity and variety of your camera angles, subjects, close-ups and long shots in picture taking. Even though the word "red" may only evoke an association with the sweet taste of a ripe strawberry for you, remember that a social media feed can be quite varied color scheme-wise, and that these color schemes can be used for creating covers, fonts and even smileys, Olga commented.
She recommends that blind bloggers should never be shy to ask for help with creating photo content. According to Olga, no one has ever turned down her request to take a photo, select good shots or help choose the right kind of getup for a photo shoot.
For a blind person, it's is quite a challenge to snap a good picture or put together a well-composed feed all on one’s own. And there are two ways to address this challenge: either find someone you can trust with that, or hire a content photographer on a case-by-case basis. Olga prefers to combine both methods where it comes to maintaining her massage studio’s page.
Photos taken by a pro photographer make your feed really well-balanced while portraying me as an expert massage therapist. Life shots will make your feed come alive, make it vibrant and truly reflect my personality as someone who lives an active life. Sometimes I venture to take pictures of things that I can't see. And even if it doesn't turn out perfect or I happen to cut off a piece of someone's head in the frame, my followers are still interested in what a blind blogger has been able to photograph there. This is something, though, that you would be better off not abusing too much. In a nutshell, that's how your whole image is being built, the blogger explained.
Margarita, another one of the blind participants of the City of Opportunities project, had paid little to no attention to the visual side of her blog prior to going through this training. However, after having been properly instructed by the experts, she really started paying attention to these details and that her blog grow 10 times more popular in a single year.
Updating one’s blog regularly is equally important for a successful blogger, as is consistency in uploading content. According to Darya Suloyeva, early on, it is advisable to ask your acquaintances who can see to give you feedback on your page. And also offer them to subscribe and ask their own followers to do the same.
Within one’s blog, you can build a system of different rubrics to make it more fun for your subscribers to follow the development of specific aspects of your life. That way you will get them hooked on. As if this were akin to something like a TV series of sorts. If you are afraid to expose your personal life in your blog too much, you don’t have to. After all, your blog can be dedicated to just one particular topic, or related only to your hobbies, such as knitting or traveling. But your personality and your style must shine through your page, Darya advises.
Building up one’s social capital
The project’s organizers note that blogging helps bloggers structure their thoughts and sort out their lives and affairs. And for a disabled individual, it is yet another excellent tool for reaching out to people and discussing proper ways for interacting with people with disabilities.
A blind blogger could try to monetize blogging by offering their expertise. For example, many blind people like myself make a living by giving massage. By maintaining active presence on social media, one could attract new customers while rekindling the interest of the current ones. More than once, I have heard my clients say something along the lines of: "Hey, I hadn't been to your practice in a couple of years, but then I saw your recent post and realized that I had to run to you right away!", Olga Lifanova said.
Another channel for monetizing one’s blogging is by selling advertising and engaging in mutually beneficial collaborations. For that to happen, the blog should have an impressive enough number of followers and needs to continue evolving strongly. But perhaps the most important incentive for any blind blogger would be the idea of building up their so-called social capital.
The more interested followers you have, the richer you get. And it's not at all about the money, since blogging is also about socializing and making new interesting acquaintances. For many blind people who rarely leave their homes, this is a great opportunity to put themselves and their talents out there for the world to see, and should a need arise, the blogger would always be able to ask his or her followers for help. Our blind participants of the project have often been helped by their followers to come up with a design for their blogs or business cards. You write and you do your best, and there are also people who read your posts, care about you, and really want to get involved in your life in some way or fashion. Why not use it to your advantage? Within reasonable limits, of course, Olga concludes.
What should the project’s participants expect to see in the new season
The project has been underway for more than a year, churning out new broadcasts and building a supportive environment. To date, more than 700 people from different regions of the country have gotten involved in the project. Day in and day out, inclusive bloggers have been publishing new posts, sharing their success stories with each other, preparing collaborations with celebrities and setting new goals in terms of the number of followers. As of this March, new participants can also join the project.
In the project’s new season, every new participant would still be able to get full training by taking our course, have an opportunity to interface with more seasoned bloggers and experts in a private chat, do their homework and become eligible for receiving valuable prizes for their efforts. In addition, my colleagues and I are launching a new podcast called The Intermediaries to continue talking about relevant trends in inclusive blogging and bringing in new interesting experts, Darya Suloyeva shared.
During the 2023 spring and summer season, the project’s team will make four trips to the cities of Perm, Kazan, Nizhnekamsk, and Tomsk to deliver lectures and give motivational master classes. And later in November five of the most active participants will join the project’s experts with disabilities to go on an inclusive blogging tour to Sochi, with all their travel expenses covered by the organizers. Every day of the tour will be dedicated to bloggers’ getting acquainted with various subject matter experts, visiting interesting locations for building up photo content materials and using them as news pegs for their blog posts.
During last year’s blogging tour to Moscow, our attendees were mastering the skill of good writing together with Olga Savelyeva, a famous writer and stand-up comedian, while also getting introduced to the most advanced public and inclusive platform on Blagosphere. They got exposed to the excitement of car racing on a racetrack and learned how to describe with gusto their attendance of a show by the legendary Quartet I and visiting an exhibition at the Museum of Russian Impressionism featuring audio descriptions. This year we will also try to do our best to prepare a similarly impressive program for the tour to Sochi. The good weather that is typical for this resort destination should help set the stage for a great experience, Olga Lifanova noted.