So.....last week I turned 31 and had a great time celebrating with my family. If you were following along on my Instagram, you would've seen some of the things I got to do for my special day.
I want to start off with the day 9/18, my birthday and leading to attending my first blogging conference.
9/18/14
On my birthday, I was bummed I had to work so it felt like just another boring day at the office until 5:30 hit and I picked up my girls from childcare and headed to the Mall of Georgia for my girls to attend their kids club birthday party. Their kids club was celebrating kids that were celebrating birthdays in September, October, and November. Lauren will be celebrating a birthday in October and she insisted on making sure she didn't miss this party since we did last year because it fallen on the day of my birthday then too.
The girls got to play bingo, ride the mall carousel, and eat birthday cake that was provided by Costco.
After the party came to an end, I made my rounds to a couple of stores to pick up my birthday freebies from Sephora and Ulta.
I gave Mr. M a call to meet the girls and I back at home so we could ride together to Benihana, a restaurant I have my birthday dinner each year.
I had a wonderful time celebrating the evening with my family at Benihana. We were one of the last people in the restaurant so it was nice having the place to ourselves.
9/19/14
It's Friday and I had to be back at work. Type-A conference had started but I was unable to take off of work because my job took me out to celebrate my birthday at Bahama Breeze.
Once I got off of work, I picked up my girls from childcare, went home and packed their clothes to spend the weekend with their grandmother. I drove over an hour south from where I live to the girl's grandmother's house. My girl's grandmother just came back into town from visiting her mother in California to watch my girls so I could attend the blogging conference- very sweet of her to do.
I had small talk with her before heading back on the road home to get ready for a couple of days of learning and networking at the blog conference.
Driving back home was a nightmare! The freeway was like a parking lot due to a couple of accidents and road closures, it took me over 2 hours to get home! Once I did arrive home, I quickly hopped in the bed and went to sleep.
9/20/14
The big day is here, my first blog conference, although it had already started the day before. I had a meeting with a brand first thing that morning but I was too tired to get out of bed. I didn't have their number to call them so I left them an email I was going to be late and hit the snooze button to go back to sleep.
I finally got my eyelids to stay open and I got ready to make the 30 min drive to the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Buckhead where the Type-A conference was held.
Once I arrived, I went to get my name badge and swag bag. I went into a huge ballroom where speakers were getting ready to start their segment, "Setting & Negotiating Your Rates". Pretty much the topic was knowing your value and stop doing stuff for free for brands. It's ok to do things for free at the beginning to build your portfolio but if you continue to keep doing it you will not go far with your blog so be picky with who to work with. I have started to be picky with the brands I work with because I like to work with brands that fits my lifestyle. Now, when it comes to charging, I've been guilty of doing some things for free since I make all my money through affiliate marketing and I need to put my foot down and request payments. I know I'm a huge value and I'm no beginner blogger, my blog has now become my business and I need to treat my blog as a business with everything I do.
While at the conference, I got to meet up with my local blogger buddies I already have met before, got to meet bloggers I've known online for awhile, and meet new ones. It was great networking with all of them!
I stopped into a couple of breakout sessions, met with the company I was suppose to have a meeting with that morning, but I pretty much just hung out and mingled with my blogging buddies.
In the evening once the party was soon to start, I left and went home. Mr. M wanted to take this time to spend alone time with me since our girls was at his mom's house. We both decided on getting some drinks and talk about our day. Him and I don't spend a lot of alone time together because our schedules conflicts with each other so it was nice to spend time without having the girls tagging along.
9/21
Once again, I had a late start attending the conference. I was tired from being out the night before with Mr. M and I wanted to sleep in. I got to the conference before lunch time and sat down at the end of a segment called "Professionalism and Ethics in New Media".
Sunday seem to be not much going on, learning wise, there was a Town Hall Meeting, We Still Blog Awards, Keynote Panel: Legends of Blogging, and yet again a party.
Here are my thoughts about this conference....to me, I didn't really learn anything. This type of conference seems to be more suited for beginner bloggers. The speakers seemed to just ramble instead of getting to the point of what their topic was about. I was highly disappointed because I had my children's grandmother fly back home just to watch my girls so I could attend this conference and I had to cancel on my parents coming to see me from Memphis for my birthday weekend. I believe that blogging is such a saturated topic that it is hard to come up with new ideas to talk about each year. There is really no secret to success when it comes to blogging, you just got to love what you blog about, be consistent, be knowledgeable in your niche, etc.
But I will say, I had a great time networking with other bloggers, they made my first blogging experience very enjoyable.
Now, will I go to another blogging conference? Maybe. But I'm already attending a couple of more this year that I have already signed up for so we'll see if I'll have a better experience. Also, since I am technically a affiliate marketer, affiliate marketing conferences and business conferences may be better suited for me.
I want to start off with the day 9/18, my birthday and leading to attending my first blogging conference.
9/18/14
On my birthday, I was bummed I had to work so it felt like just another boring day at the office until 5:30 hit and I picked up my girls from childcare and headed to the Mall of Georgia for my girls to attend their kids club birthday party. Their kids club was celebrating kids that were celebrating birthdays in September, October, and November. Lauren will be celebrating a birthday in October and she insisted on making sure she didn't miss this party since we did last year because it fallen on the day of my birthday then too.
The girls got to play bingo, ride the mall carousel, and eat birthday cake that was provided by Costco.
After the party came to an end, I made my rounds to a couple of stores to pick up my birthday freebies from Sephora and Ulta.
I gave Mr. M a call to meet the girls and I back at home so we could ride together to Benihana, a restaurant I have my birthday dinner each year.
I had a wonderful time celebrating the evening with my family at Benihana. We were one of the last people in the restaurant so it was nice having the place to ourselves.
9/19/14
It's Friday and I had to be back at work. Type-A conference had started but I was unable to take off of work because my job took me out to celebrate my birthday at Bahama Breeze.
Once I got off of work, I picked up my girls from childcare, went home and packed their clothes to spend the weekend with their grandmother. I drove over an hour south from where I live to the girl's grandmother's house. My girl's grandmother just came back into town from visiting her mother in California to watch my girls so I could attend the blogging conference- very sweet of her to do.
I had small talk with her before heading back on the road home to get ready for a couple of days of learning and networking at the blog conference.
Driving back home was a nightmare! The freeway was like a parking lot due to a couple of accidents and road closures, it took me over 2 hours to get home! Once I did arrive home, I quickly hopped in the bed and went to sleep.
9/20/14
The big day is here, my first blog conference, although it had already started the day before. I had a meeting with a brand first thing that morning but I was too tired to get out of bed. I didn't have their number to call them so I left them an email I was going to be late and hit the snooze button to go back to sleep.
I finally got my eyelids to stay open and I got ready to make the 30 min drive to the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Buckhead where the Type-A conference was held.
Once I arrived, I went to get my name badge and swag bag. I went into a huge ballroom where speakers were getting ready to start their segment, "Setting & Negotiating Your Rates". Pretty much the topic was knowing your value and stop doing stuff for free for brands. It's ok to do things for free at the beginning to build your portfolio but if you continue to keep doing it you will not go far with your blog so be picky with who to work with. I have started to be picky with the brands I work with because I like to work with brands that fits my lifestyle. Now, when it comes to charging, I've been guilty of doing some things for free since I make all my money through affiliate marketing and I need to put my foot down and request payments. I know I'm a huge value and I'm no beginner blogger, my blog has now become my business and I need to treat my blog as a business with everything I do.
While at the conference, I got to meet up with my local blogger buddies I already have met before, got to meet bloggers I've known online for awhile, and meet new ones. It was great networking with all of them!
I stopped into a couple of breakout sessions, met with the company I was suppose to have a meeting with that morning, but I pretty much just hung out and mingled with my blogging buddies.
In the evening once the party was soon to start, I left and went home. Mr. M wanted to take this time to spend alone time with me since our girls was at his mom's house. We both decided on getting some drinks and talk about our day. Him and I don't spend a lot of alone time together because our schedules conflicts with each other so it was nice to spend time without having the girls tagging along.
9/21
Once again, I had a late start attending the conference. I was tired from being out the night before with Mr. M and I wanted to sleep in. I got to the conference before lunch time and sat down at the end of a segment called "Professionalism and Ethics in New Media".
Sunday seem to be not much going on, learning wise, there was a Town Hall Meeting, We Still Blog Awards, Keynote Panel: Legends of Blogging, and yet again a party.
Here are my thoughts about this conference....to me, I didn't really learn anything. This type of conference seems to be more suited for beginner bloggers. The speakers seemed to just ramble instead of getting to the point of what their topic was about. I was highly disappointed because I had my children's grandmother fly back home just to watch my girls so I could attend this conference and I had to cancel on my parents coming to see me from Memphis for my birthday weekend. I believe that blogging is such a saturated topic that it is hard to come up with new ideas to talk about each year. There is really no secret to success when it comes to blogging, you just got to love what you blog about, be consistent, be knowledgeable in your niche, etc.
But I will say, I had a great time networking with other bloggers, they made my first blogging experience very enjoyable.
Now, will I go to another blogging conference? Maybe. But I'm already attending a couple of more this year that I have already signed up for so we'll see if I'll have a better experience. Also, since I am technically a affiliate marketer, affiliate marketing conferences and business conferences may be better suited for me.
My kids love the fire place to lol Happy belated birthday. I never pay for conferences you can find most of the info they talk about online if you do some research. I think it's more so for the networking and meeting people you talk to on social media in real life. Thank you for being honest about the conference.
ReplyDeleteI agree Kita that anything you want to know about you can do a search on the internet and that's what I've been doing throughout my blogging journey. I guess my thought was going to these conferences would help me take my blog to the next level but it really wasn't the case with this conference because like you said it was more for networking. But me paying $300 just to network was not worth it. Thanks girl for the birthday love!
DeleteLouida, I have to agree that there was a lot of things I consider to be wasting my time at the conference. I've written a little outline script for a video I'm making about attending the conference and one of the points is setting a specific goal to achieve by attending the conference. My specific goal was to learn as much as I can about blogging, turning it into a money-making venture and just anything I haven't learned yet or maybe was unaware of. I took LOTS of notes.. and I achieved that goal. I did learn some stuff - particularly in the session you mentioned about negotiating rates, also some of the laws pertaining to blogging disclosures and giveaways, and a few other things I found useful. But, I agree with you that most of the sessions are fluff and little actual content. I expected to be able to come home with filled pages full of information.. and while the stuff I did bring home is useful, it's nowhere near what I thought I would be getting for whatever it costs $200, or something?
ReplyDeleteI think in the future, I will definitely definitely research the blog conference better before forking over my money. I'm not really into this big crowd environment very much. I think spending your time meeting up or conference calling with a few select bloggers that you build relationships with could probably be way more informative and beneficial than attending these big conferences - and they're free. So, there ya go,. that's my opinion. When do you wanna meetup?? LOL
I'm happy Candy I wasn't the only one that felt that way. I came home feeling the same way I did the first day I attended the conference. My goal was to learn something new and start making some changes with my blog. I left the conference feeling uninspired and very disappointed because I invested in attending. It seems this conference was more focused on parties than anything else and I didn't come to the conference for that, I came to gather more useful information I did not know about blogging and put it to use.
ReplyDeleteLike I was discussing with another blogger, having a blogging coach would benefit more than attending conferences because at least you get the help one-on-one with someone that is doing better than you are and can give you hands on help that you need to succeed.
I would be more than happy to meet up Candy and help you with your blogging goals if you would like to make money through affiliate marketing. And thank you for sharing how you felt about Type-A conference, this helps me see how others who attended felt.
I agree with a lot of your points. I've been blogging for more than four years now, so there's not much that's new to me.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I should fight harder to be speaker at these conferences since I have extensive public speaking experience.
Happy Belated Birthday!
You really do need to speak Joyce and I'm surprise you haven't already. You're very knowledgeable when it comes to blogging and what you know can help a lot of people getting their feet wet in the blogging world. You're good at creating videos and that is something that is popular right now because readers likes to see visuals and I know you can share your knowledge about that. That is something I need to learn myself.
DeleteWhat a bummer! It's so hard to know when a blogging conference will be good or not, especially when they are so expensive. Some of the Blogging conferences I'd like to attend, but the money is either way too much for me or it ends up just being a giant networking event with bloggers who don't really fit into my niche. I'd love the idea of a one on one type blogging coach. I might have to look into that! Happy Belated Birthday!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the birthday love girl! Yes, blogging conferences are expensive and if I'm paying I want a good return on my investment. I went there to mainly to learn more about blogging but I guess since I'm a blogging veteran there is not much left for me to learn because I know pretty much all of it.
DeleteOk, I read this earlier but couldn't comment because I was at work. SO, I agree with your points about the conference. Maybe it's because I've been a blogger for more than 4 years now. Maybe that's why only a few things made me say really? LOL. But a lot of the content was fluff and that was disappointing.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you agree with me LaShawn! You were there so you know exactly what I'm talking about. Content was definitely fluffed, and the speakers were trying to drag it out until their time was up.
DeleteHappy bday! I missed Type A this year and am so sads about it!
ReplyDeleteThanks Heather!
DeleteHappy belated Birthday! It was nice to read a detailed post about a blogging conference since I've never been to one. I feel the same way about blogging books - once you've read one of them, they are mostly all the same, with an exception here and there.
ReplyDeleteI just love Bahama Breeze. We don't have one near us, but every time we go to Orlando we eat there several times. :)
Thanks for the birthday love Alli! That is how I felt about this conference, blogging is a hard topic to continue with new fresh ideas each year. From what I've heard from other bloggers who had been to previous blog Type-A conferences is that this one I attended was rehashed from previous ones.
DeleteI never knew Bahama Breeze was in Orlando too! I love this restaurant!
I'm excited about attending a blogger conference in my genre (fitness). I think it would be fun to meet folks in person vs. seeing them on the screen and a great way to network. Happy belated birthday again and that birthday clubs for kids sounds like an awesome idea! #productreviewparty
ReplyDeleteI think you'll enjoy attending a fitness blogger conference. I'm interested in attending one of those to learn more about fitness since I've been slacking off and it would get me more motivated. And you're right, it's much better to meet people in person then on a computer screen.
DeleteGirl, I love blogging conferences. I've been to a few including the big one "BlogHer". They are always good at getting you motivated and encouraged to keep going. I'm steeling your notes by the way! ;)
ReplyDelete#productreviewparty
Go ahead and steal them Stacie!
DeleteI went to a conference last year, but the main focus of that one seemed to be connecting with brands. I don't like to do a lot of blatant brand promotion, so that was a bit disappointing to me.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean. People lose their voice if all they do is, promote, promote, promote! That's why I started rebranding myself with this blog. My focus was purely product reviews and I wanted to do more than just that. I want my blog to be a place for helpful information, not just product reviews.
DeleteThis looks like an amazing birthday weekend! That blog conference looked like it was so informative. I want to go to one so bad! I've only met one other blogger in real life, so meeting a lot of bloggers at once sounds like a fun opportunity! So jealous. Happy birthday!
ReplyDeleteBlog conferences are the place to be to meet your blog buddies in person. Thanks for the birthday love Tiffany!
DeleteI haven't been to a blog confrence before, but I'm hoping I can attend at least one next year. I still have a lot to learn so I think it would be benefical for me. I hope you learn more in your upcoming conferences.
ReplyDeleteIf you still got a lot to learn when it comes to blogging Sonya blog conferences may benefit you. But remember, anything you want to learn about blogging can be easily found on Google and that's free. That is a way I learned.
DeleteIt is so hard for me to get to any. I think I am going to go the route of online conferences for education. I would like to go to a real one that is good to meet brands and bloggers in person.
ReplyDeleteI haven't done a online conference before but I'm pretty sure some are good to watch. I think I prefer local meet ups because it's free and you're not spending a bunch of money at conferences, but I do know what you mean with having face to face connection with brands Tammy.
DeleteI could see how if you're a seasoned blogger, perhaps all the information at these conferences are more like, "been there, done that", but it does look like a nice opportunity to network with fellow bloggers :)
ReplyDeleteYeah Celeste, blog conferences are great for networking and meeting up with your blog buddies but that is about it if you've been blogging for years.
DeleteWhat fun, Louida! And I LOVE the pics...
ReplyDeleteThe one about saying no is the gospel. I need that thing framed and hung on a wall.
Have a great weekend!
xo
Thanks Courtney! Yes, people need to start saying no to brands that doesn't fit their niche. It really helps keep your blog at good quality.
DeleteHappy Belated Birthday,Loudia.
ReplyDeleteIts nice to read how you celebrated the Birthday with kids....
So far,I didn't get a chance to attend to a Blog conference.But seems like great to learn more and to mingle with others...
Have a Great week ahead!
Amila
Thanks Amila! You should try to go to a blog conference some day, I think you may like it. I'm unsure if there is one in your country, so you may have to come to the states.
DeleteYou have a great week ahead as well!
It sounds like you enjoyed your birthday and had an awesome time at the conference. I wanted to go badly but it was too close to my sons birthday. Next year I am planning to go to BlogHer though if it is on the east cost. #ProductReviewParty
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard good things about BlogHer lately. I think it had played its course and it is a bunch of the same material. I think you might want to hold off going to that conference since it is way too expensive.
Delete