Blogs Join Forces to Create “The Black Family Blog Network”

In a post entitled Surviving the Economic Forest Fire, I mentioned that one of the keys to surviving during the economic slow down was to join forces, create partnerships, and begin working together. In a African-American targeted niche blog industry, it’s sometimes very difficult to reach and impact the numbers readers we would like too if were just “one blog armies”. It’s also financially difficult to expand and improve upon our web offerings if we don’t make the necessary capital to cover the cost of expansion. This is especially difficult during tough economic times, as ad revenue slows and the amount of web properties (ad inventory) increases. That’s why working collectively with other blogs within a similar genre allows each blog to  feed off the other blog’s successes. One of my favorite examples of this is the creation of the “Black Family Blog Network.”

Lamar and Ronnie Tyler, founders of the award winning website “Blackandmarriedwithkids.com“,  have launched  “The Black Family Blog Network”. The network will group together a collection of black targeted family websites including; Blackandmarriedwithkids.com,
CocoaFamilia.com, and CelebrityBlackMarriages.com to increase their online reach, voice, and ultimately impact. The group’s mission is to support the fact that successful black families do exist and challenge the old stereotypes concerning marriage and family in the black community.The Tylers believe this collection of sites will provide more positive affirmation dealing with black relationships and parenting through interesting topics, photographs and video content that will be updated on a daily basis. Each site will also list the latest stories from other network sites at the bottom of each web page thus allowing users to stay current on the latest network topics.

Summary of each site:
Blackandmarriedwithkids.com is the flagship website which deals directly with relationships, marriage and parenting. Since launching in late 2007 the site has experienced explosive growth, added great contributors who provide various points of view and won two black web awards for Best Blog – Culture and Best Lifestyle Blog. The site has also been featured on local and national media outlets such as XM Radio, The Monique Show and Essence.com.

CocoaFamilia.com is a baby and children products Blog. The site will feature reviews on products such as clothing, toys and health conscious food choices that are of interest in the African American community. There will be a special focus on products made within the African American community.

CelebrityBlackMarriages.com is a positive entertainment Blog which focuses on news and photos of black celebrity couples and their children. We plan to balance out the negativity that’s found on most entertainment sites while at the same time showing positive images that we believe will reinforce our message.