Blissdom 2012

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You all know how much I raved about Blogalicious 2011? I was an amazing and eye opening experience. I hoping to get even more inspiration at the upcoming Blissdom Conference in Nashville, TN. This is so close to home, I just couldn’t pass it up. I have so much planning to do. I need new cards made. I need to finally get that QR code so I can easily share my contact information and blog links. And I need a plan for this blog and a press kit. Even though this blog is still really small, I’m quite interested sharing information about the products that make my life better. There isn’t anything better for spreading word of mouth information than the blogs we share with the world. I worry about the way products are marketed to us and I love seeing the truthful reviews from real people. Of course, not even every blogger can be trusted but I take the word of a real person over an advertisement any day.

And I completely blame Krystal Grant. I saw the Blissdom badge on her site and I couldn’t help but check it out. See, unspoken word of mouth.

Addicted to Statistics


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Attending the Blogalicious 2011 conference really opened my eyes to what is possible through the world of blogging. I can’t say that I plant to do even half of what I heard that others are doing but what I do want to do is put this blog in a position where greater things are possible. I’m all about setting myself up to have choices in life.

But building this “choice” has caused me to become a little too obsessed with the statistics. My blog posting and traffic has increased significantly since just before the conference and I’m excited about all the new readers that are coming my way. But I find myself looking a little too much at that pretty little graphic that google uses to show you how well (or not well) you are doing.

By the way, HELLO! to all my new readers. Happy to have you aboard. Remember to subscribe or comment during the month for a chance to win in my first giveaway!!!

Okay, back to the topic at hand. One key point that was made by several people at the conference was that the biggest mistake you could make is to make it all about gaining followers and having higher numbers. It is quite exciting to see my little blog growing, but my goal is to produce good and usable content.

So, I’m depending on you, dear readers to keep me accountable on my content. Leave comments often and let me know how I’m doing.

Hope you all had a great weekend and you are refreshed and ready to start a new week.

Why You Should Use Twitter At Your Next Conference

Prior to the Blogalicious 2011 conference, I had not used Twitter since February 2010! Since I love technology, I had kept up with the Twitter news and I know how Twitter was being used for news sharing and celebrity misconduct, but Twitter’s practicality in my life had shown itself to be rather limited. Enter the world of Blogalicious and everything changed. At the start of the conference we were given the hash tag established for the event (#blogalicious11).

I ignored the request for a little while until someone at my table started commenting about something she had just read in the twitter feed. It piqued my interest enough that I thought I should at least give it a glance. Lucky for me, my computer remembered my twitter handle and password. And then I remembered one of the reasons I am not a big twitter user. The twitter website is not the most usable site out there. So, I downloaded Tweetdeck, set up a column to follow the conference has tag and I was on my way.

It wasn’t long before I started to see the value of using twitter during this conference.

        ❑        Build Enthusiasm. Past conference attendees were tweeting about how excited they were to see each other again. New attendees were tweeting about what they were hoping to learn. Some were tweeting of their anticipation as they waited to get off the plane or waiting for the taxi to at least move another five feet so they could feel they were getting closer. Everyone was buzzing and the buzz was contagious.

        ❑        Run Contests. Want to give away copies of your book, a cell phone, a new line of products? Encourage attendees to use your own hashtag and gain much needed buzz among conference attendees and the twitter-verse at large. Win, win all around.

        ❑        Get content from sessions you were not able to attend. What do you do when the session on writing a great pitch is held at the same time as the session on creating kick-ass content? Just pick one and use the tweet stream to gain information from the session you couldn’t attend. You don’t get the full impact but you definitely don’t loose out completely.

        ❑        Share notes. In sessions where so much information is flowing, it is easy to miss something. Wait a few seconds and someone in the room will tweet what you missed. No need to interrupt the presenters asking them to repeat content. The Twitter-verse has you covered.

        ❑        Virtual Lost & Found. We all loose things. It’s inevitable. What better way to let technologically savvy people know they lost something than through a tweet? But that goes the other way as well. I remember seeing tweets from an attendee that managed to hold on to her computer but not her cell phone. A few tweets and she was soon reunited with her lost lifeline.

        ❑        Make contacts. With 300+ attendees, there was no way to make rounds and meet everyone. Did I mention that I’m actually quite a shy person. While it is not common for me to walk up to a stranger and say hello, I was comfortable responding to someone’s tweet and letting that serve as the introduction that would push me into making a real life contact. Don’t forget, everyone attending these conferences are not as outgoing as you would think.

        ❑        Organize side gatherings. Cocktails, impromptu book signings, swag swaps, etc. There were so many things going on, no one could ever get bored or lonely at this conference.

How do you use Twitter at your conferences? Do you find it useful or a distraction?