If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you might know that I went to my first ever blog conference this past weekend. It was such a fun and amazing event and I had so much to learn that I thought to let you guys know all about it! The theme of this year’s event was “Blog it Better” and it truly did gave a lot of tips on how we can blog better. Read on for the rundown of the sessions and what we learned!
It was a 2-day event, with a kick-off launch party at the Ellelauri Boutique in Philadelphia. They have such amazing and beautiful pieces! I met Liz Rymar, who is actually the owner and the designer of all the clothing here and she’s so great and kind and beautiful! I had such a great time there, talking to fellow bloggers, some who have just started, some who are about to launch their blog and some who have been blogging for years!! We had wine-tasting and some snacks, oh and a concihairge, where they were doing all sorts of beautiful braids!! I wish I hadn’t cut my hair 🙁 Oh well! There was also a flatlay photography workshop with blogger Ann Blake from ann blake photography.
The next day was the conference at Saxby’s headquarters in Philadelphia and it is such a great place. Windows, open spaces, such a creative office they have! The conference started at at 9:30 with a talk from Sarah Morgan from xosarah, who talked about 10 strategies that we can use to really drive traffic to our blog, get our subscription list going and take our social media to the next level. What a great and energizing start to the day!
Then we had Sola Onitiri from Now Let’s Get Going, who talked about being honest in your branding and having an organic voice. She talked about how she got into blogging and it was a story that we could all relate to. After her session, we had Andy Shaw from InstaFather and he has the cutest kids!! He gave tips on how you should always write in your voice, not what people think your voice should be, but what it is.
After that session, we had a lunch break and we had food from Grateful Plate and it was soooo good you guys!! I loved their Mojo chicken with beans, that was delicious! You should definitely check them out 🙂
After that we had breakout sessions where everyone had 3 options to choose from and I chose “How to monetize your blog with your first EBook” from Angela St. Cyril. She is such a sweet woman, I love how she talks! It was very helpful since at some point in blogging, everyone thinks about monetizing it and that was something that is good to have from the beginning. She went over everything that is involved in creating an eBook from writing to its launch.
Oh and we also had a cupcake decorating session with Ruth from Cupcakes By Ruth. We had to decorate a unicorn cupcake and as you can see, I did a terrible job! HAHA
After a fun cupcake session and few snacks, again, we had SEO Bootcamp from Jess from Broke Girls Go Out. First of all, isn’t that an amazing name! I mean, I am always broke but I keep going out!! 😀 It was very helpful as she talked about keywords, meta data and what we could to make our website rank better in google. Very Helpful for a new blogger like me!
Last, but by no means the least, we had an amazing panel which consisted of Erica from Coming Up Roses Blog (I love her so much and I was so great seeing her in person!), Nicole from Simply Nicole (such a sweet person she is!) and Amber from Ember and March (she has such good tips for anything you ask!) and then talked about working with brands. Very engaging and informative session! They talked about how to reach out to blogs or how to respond if they are reaching out to you, media kits, when to include in an email and when not to do so. To be honest, this session was my favorite!
We also, got goodie bags with lots of stuff from local business owners and also an Erin Condren Life Planner, which I have already started using and completely falling in love with!
I am absolutely planning on attending more of these conferences since they are so out of my comfort zone and I believe that these experiences make me better!
XO
