BlogHer.com, An Interview With Elisa Camahort, COO and Co-Founder

I've recently seen a bunch of advertisements for BlogHer.com on various mom blogs. I checked out the site and it seemed to be a great way for female bloggers to connect and network with one another. So I went ahead and registered as a user. But I still had some lingering questions about the site, it's ultimate purpose and the history of the founders. So I contacted Elisa Camahort, COO and co-founder of BlogHer.com and she agreed to humor my curiousity in the following interview.


Could you tell us a little about yourself?

My co-founders, Jory Des Jardins, Lisa Stone and I are lucky because we come from complementary backgrounds...which meant we always had diverse perspectives to bring to any decision or discussion. I come from the high-tech space, focused on product marketing. And once I discovered the power and influence blogging and social media could have, I struck out on my own to consult with organizations about how to incorporate those tools into their overall marketing plans. Lisa was a journalist who transitioned from print to TV to online. Jory is a writer who came from a publishing business development background. We were all three bloggers first, and consultants in the space second.

What is BlogHer.com?

BlogHer.com is one of three things BlogHer does. We actually started with our annual conference in 2005, and now are doing three conferences per year. We then launched BlogHer.com to be a community and new hubs for women who blog in 2006. It's on the one hand a kind of Yellow Page, where bloggers can list and self-categorize their blogs, and on the other hand a kind of TV Guide, where our 80+ editors shine a spotlight on what women are blogging about across every topic under the sun. It's also a community site, where members can blog, connect, form groups etc. Later still we launched our BlogHer Publishing Network, where we act as publisher for over 2500 bloggers, selling their advertising and syndicating and spotlighting their headlines and content.

Why did you and your co-founders establish BlogHer?

We established BlogHer originally to answer the question we thought needed to die, namely "Where are the women who blog?"We then created a mission to create opportunities for those women to pursue education, exposure, community and economic empowerment.

What did you do before BlogHer?

Immediately before BlogHer I had my own marketing consultancy, Worker Bees. Prior to that I was in the cable broadband industry, managing product lines and their P&L.

What can females bloggers gain from your site?

It's all about our mission: You can derive *value* from BlogHer, and that value looks different for different community members. For some making money is part of the value, but for others it is about the exposure, or community connections or the inspiration.

What advice would you offer a female blogger just starting out in the blogosphere?

First: Blog about something you care so much about that you can keep with it and at it for a long long time. Second, find your tribe. Whatever you care about, there are other bloggers caring about that same subject. There is community there, and it can sustain you. Third, just remember that the Internet can amplify and widely distribute your voice. It is your personal platform. You can use it for personal, professional or political reasons, but whatever the reason...you can be heard. That can be a great thing. It is also something to bear in mind and decide ahead of time how comfortable you are with it. Being mindful of this amplification and distribution before you decide what and how to write is better than worrying about something you've said after the fact :)

BlogHer.com is owned and operated out of the San Francisco Bay area. For more information about BlogHer.com click here.