Not that I need an excuse to head to Philadelphia to visit my best friend, but The SITS girls having a Bloggy Boot Camp there had me booking my ticket right away! I arrived on Friday afternoon, met up with Stephanie for drinks after the BBC cocktail hour, and we had a lovely Friday dinner. We were up early Saturday morning for a run before BBC & I ran from my hotel towards her place, past Independence Hall & we ended up running across the Ben Franklin Bridge to New Jersey. I love running with my BFF and adventuring to new places!
The conference was at swanky hotel and over 150 lovely ladies (and a few men) filled the room with chatter and excitement as we waited for the incredible line up of speakers. One of the great things about this conferences (other than the very affordable price) was the super social tables that were assigned for the first half- it gave everybody a chance to move about the room, meet new people, and have a good seat. I started out front & center, so I got my best photos early on during the day.
Our first speaker was the beautiful and funny Laurie Turk of Tip Junkie sharing some fabulous general ideas and suggestions to improve your blog. I took tons of notes & laughed quite a bit during her presentation, including many ideas that I’m going to be working hard on the next few months.
Next up with Colleen Padilla of A Classy Mommy sharing information on video blogging! She may have sold me on the importance of video & especially YouTube for search engines, so I’ll hopefully be adding vlogs to Grow Soul Beautiful. Audrey McClellan spoke of expanding beyond the blog with events or books, but I was in the back of the room & didn’t snag any great photos. After a fabulous lunch sponsored by King’s Rolls (hello sliders!), Tiffany Romero, Allison Tallamantez, Laurie Turk, and Danielle Liss moderated a breakout panel on the Business of Blogging. There was some great information about PR/media, work-life balance, business costs, legal issues, and more.
Our first afternoon session was with Dali Burgado from Secrets to Web Success on SEO, and she had some amazing tips and information. I feel so behind & I’d jump on the opportunity to take her class if I even though I had 20 minutes a day to spare- hopefully this fall I can get all genius-ed up on SEO. The final and my absolute favorite presentation of the day was Sharon Rowley of Mom of 6 who shared an awesome presentation & real stats on how she quickly grew her blog.
After the official end of the conference, Mirassou sponsored a happy hour and wine tasting where we got to mix & mingle more, take awesome photos, and personally chat with most of the speakers. All in all, a fabulous event & I’m so glad I was able to attend and learn so much.
I’d highly recommend attending a Bloggy Boot Camp if you get the chance- well organized, great networking, wonderful speakers, tons of great information, and a fabulous swag bag. My favorite part was meeting so many other bloggers- I wished I”d had time to talk to more of them! We tried to do a quick round of intros and card passing when we sat at each table before gals quickly started lighting up twitter with the hashtag and the speakers started the next session. I’m also signed up for the one in Dallas this fall, and I”m excited to do it all over again!
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Hubby is on his way home from India now & it’s graduation weekend for my brother!
Wow! This conference looked like time well spent! Jel! =)
Greetings from Texas recently posted..Pink Party
This looks like so much fun! I’ve always wanted to go to a blogging conference!!!