A Dozen Random Musings on BlogPodium 2014

Hello!  As I mentioned in my last post, I attended BlogPodium on Saturday. It was a jam packed day full of learning, meeting the sponsors/brands and connecting with other bloggers.

 

Following the same format as my last year’s post, here are a dozen takeaways from the event on Saturday. I filtered down my notes to these key points and added some thoughts on how I think  it applies to me.

1) The opening keynote speaker was Donna from Funky Junk Interiors. She advised to write out your mantra and stay authentic to it. My mantra has always been to inspire my readers to have a home that makes them happy – pretty simple but it has been my guiding principle since I started this blog over 5 years ago. That’s why I don’t really post many personal photos here (plus I really don’t like any photo taken of me!) or  post about anything else non-decor/design related.

The venue at the Royal York hotel was pretty stellar and the service impeccable as you would expect.

 2) At the “Do’s and Don’ts of Making your Blog Irresistible to Brands” presentation, Cynthia Zamaria advised to follow the business of the brands you want to work with, not just their social media channels. Good advice!

3) She also noted that blogs are ranked 3rd as influencers of consumer purchases. That’s the reason why brands are so willing to work with bloggers who have a unique point of view and want to share it.

4) I then attended the Bloggers and Brands session.  When creating new content, ask yourself  “Would I want to read this?”   I have so many posts in draft that I feel aren’t blog worthy for some reason but I think I need to complete a few of them as I really do think they would be of value to readers. I think in my case, I am too harsh a critic and I think, “why should I post that – everyone knows that” when in reality, the average homeowner/potential client most likely doesn’t.

I loved the lunch key note panel with Jennifer Flores, Scott McGillivray and Monika Hibbs and moderated by Leigh-Ann Allaire Perrault. So many nuggets of information that we have probably heard before but are good reminders.

5) Again, be authentic and don’t try to be someone you’re not.

6) Goal setting is a massive tool. It’s how you predict the future of your business. (I need to do this more often.)

7) Understand delayed gratification. Things don’t happen over night and you have to work hard at it.

8) Everyone was listening attentively when Monika shared the photo apps that she uses for her photos which are amazing as you can see here. They are Snapseed, Afterlight, WhiteAGram and PicTapGo. I know I will be downloading these as taking great photos has always been a challenge for me.

 

9) I then sat at a roundtable lead by the lovely Lisa Canning and one of her pieces of advice was to “play to your strengths.” Make a list of all your activities related to your life/business. What can only you uniquely do? What can be delegated? What can be cut completely. She mentioned a book called Essentialism by Greg McKeown that is a must read on this topic. As a designer, this is key and I am still trying to figure this one out because I can’t do everything.

On the subject of play to your strengths, I am so not an in front of camera person as witnessed doing a colour confessional with Para paints.  I’ll leave that to the professionals. 🙂

10) Brands appreciate metrics (blog stats) that demonstrate both visibility and engagement, with the latter being key.  So if you have 10,000 followers on a social media platform but don’t actively engage with them, that’s not a good thing. And don’t bother “buying” followers because brands have ways of figuring this out and this is frowned upon, obviously. (On a side note, I am thoroughly surprised by how many people actually do buy followers. It’s easy to tell if they do – there is someone, a designer/ “media personality” who has over 100K followers on Instagram but gets less than 20 or 30 likes on a photo. Those are bought followers – so sad really.)

11) Attending a conference with your design bestie is the best! So much fun with Christine including our photo booth antics.

12) Jennifer and her team are a talented, creative, hard working bunch.  I can only imagine the countless hours spent on creating the best possible day for us. Thank you!

All photos by Flow Photos and SnapShot Photo Booth.

Did you attend? What was a key learning for you?

Have a great week everyone!