I attended my very first blog conference Memorial Day weekend- and yes, I'm just now sitting down to blog about it..life's been a little hectic since I got back!
I chose The Casual Blogger Conference, since it seemed to be just the right size for this little blogger who doesn't swim with the big bloggers. Beside learning about blogging better, blogging platforms and SEO, there were also workshops on photography, niche blogging and sharing your faith in blogging. It was a small conference, with tickets limited to around 400 attendees.
The thought of a really big conference in a really big city, like blogher or bliss kind of scares me..but this, I figured, I could do. And I did!
Here is a pic snapped of me tweeting from the cbc10 flikr stream. I have to say, that I finally came to a firm handle on twitter and all it can do-all conference related.
I'm a little shy, the thought of going to a conference all by myself was a little scary. I was really looking forward to meeting Janae in real life, after connecting as blog-friends. We have a lot in common, we definitely connect on a kindred-spirit level; meeting her was a big highlight of the conference for me. Love ya, Janae!! :)
She has 6 daughters! I know, I don't believe it either!..look how young she is!
The opening meeting was given by Rustin from the blogfrog community. He was a great speaker, very personable. A few points from his talk that stayed with me:
- find your niche first, then expand
- do your homework -pass on the bad ideas and grab the good
- partner-up
- pivot-keep one foot on what you have learned, and when your original plan does not work out, use the other foot to change direction
- sacrifice to get to the next level
- don't get discouraged -there is no such thing as an overnight success.
It was very insightful listening to Rustin talk about how he started blogfrog. I've been part of the blogfrog community from pretty early on- though not at the very early beginning- but early enough to see it really grow in an explosive way. I really enjoyed hearing how he started it, the different ideas and failures he had, and how big it has gotten; their success is very inspiring.