A couple weekends ago, Peter Green, Morgan Foster, and I (Vanessa Green) made our way to Sandusky, Ohio for the 2016 Bloggy Conference. We were eager to connect with the bloggers and social influencers who attend the annual event to learn, connect with peers and brands, and be inspired.
The event kicked off with Rachel Brenke‘s keynote, “Positioning Yourself As An Influencer.” One thing that resonated with us for our own blog: she encouraged attendees to learn about their typical reader and write content that speaks to them. Rachel recommended creating an avatar that represents your target reader and writing your blog posts, as she put it, “like you’re writing to that person alone.”
In another session, Claudia Krusch gave attendees advice on growing their social media following and positioning themselves for brand influencer jobs. She recommended they join social media blogger support groups within their niche to continue learning and growing as professional social influencers.
After lunch, Peter and Morgan lead a community session with tips on managing your WordPress site, keeping it secure, and running smoothly. They shared our plugin picks for managing a WordPress site and covered important information about theme design, SEO, and running backups.
Over the weekend, attendees got to hear more about working with brands, growing a YouTube audience, maximizing Pinterest engagement, using sponsored posts, building influencer campaigns, and more. Tiffany Carroll, of IZEA, told attendees, “The best way to be an expert is to learn from experts.”
On Sunday, Claudia Pennington of SEO Audit Guide shared valuable information about how SEO is constantly changing, and gave attendees tips on how to improve how their site ranking in search results. She provided insight on how page titles, meta descriptions, mobile-first incentives, page load speed, and of course, good content, can work to improve your blog’s rank.
Each session during the 2-day conference was packed with a good balance of information for both new bloggers and seasoned bloggers. A big thanks to Tiffany Noth, of Bloggy Moms, who organized the conference and a shout-out to all attendees we had the honor of meeting in Sandusky, Ohio!
If you attended, what was your favorite part of Bloggy Conference 2016?
Vanessa is responsible for coordinating conference sponsorships and creating marketing collateral to help support our team and public-facing story.