Time to wrap up my Central Florida Blogger and Social Media Conference recaps with CFLBlogCon: Part III!
CFLBlogCon: Part III
At 3:15 p.m. on Saturday, I made my way to Josh Murdock’s presentation “Widgets, Gadgets and Apps for Bloggers.” Josh’s PowerPoint presentation was easily the flashiest of the day with lots of cool features. The guy clearly knows his stuff! (You can see his entire presentation on his website.)
Josh talked a lot about different websites that could be really useful to bloggers, including:
- Animoto: Allows you to create videos using photos, video clips and music
- Diptic: Awesome app that allows you to create picture collages
- Xtranormal: Make your own animated movies
- Turboscan: An app that allo ws you to scan documents, receipts, etc. to your phone and save them as a JPEG or PDF file
- Evernote: An app that allows you to create notes that sync between devices
Before heading into the next session, I stopped by the popular photo booth set up by Macbeth Photography. Everyone was encouraged to stop by to get a headshot taken for their blog.
Whoa baby. That’s a whole lotta face.
I felt like I was back in high school taking a yearbook photo. The photographer was so friendly and made me feel really comfortable… and then he did something horrific.
He requested a “serious face.”
We’ve been through this. You guys know I can’t do the whole “no smile” thing.
A “no smile” turns into a “closed mouth smile” which then turns into a “closed mouth laugh” which makes me look like the biggest tool in all the land.
Proof:
I told you. It’s awful. I think I shall use this photo as my new headshot picture and paste it all over the blog to freak out new readers. Muhaha!
Back to the sessions…
The next session I attended was moderated by the beautiful Katy Widrick and included a Q&A with Crystal Duncan, Director of Client Strategy and Operations for IZEA, and Amanda Tinney, the blogger behind Disney Everyday.
The two women answered questions from attendees, many of which addressed how brands select bloggers to work with and how to foster a good relationship with brands that can lead to a more lucrative partnership.
Some takeaways:
- Make a “Top 10 Brands I Love” list of brands you adore. Reach out to them and try to start a relationship based on your genuine love of the company/product/service, etc.
- Many brands offer freebies or small payment for sponsored posts because they know bloggers will take it, yet they are typically more than willing to negotiate and offer more. Tell them why you’re worth more.
- Make sure your site looks professional and is easy to navigate. Make your contact information easy to find.
- Brands dislike filling out contact forms. They’re much more likely to reach out to you if you have an email address displayed.
- Brands are happy to work with bloggers who have a smaller audience, too. They love working with passionate, professional people.
The final session I attended was all about utilizing Facebook and was led by Jeanette Scott, also known as J from J’s Everyday Fashion. J is one of my Orlando blogging buddies (you can see her on the blog here and here), so I was especially excited to watch her presentation.
Some of J’s tips:
- Consider posting actual content from your blog on your Facebook page. Many people who are on Facebook may not read blogs and prefer to follow you on Facebook. Bring the content to them.
- Encourage engagement on Facebook. Ask people questions!
- If you’re working with a company and they are not paying you, consider asking them to mention your blog on their Facebook page as a form of “payment.”
- Mari Smith is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Facebook.
To wrap up the day, attendees broke out into groups by niche and I headed upstairs to meet up with a group of fitness bloggers.
(Top: Me, Carissa, Rachel, Kat and Caroline Bottom: Paula, Steph, and Tekeya)
I was also a little too excited to spend time with Paula and Michelle, two of the most entertaining and fun Central Florida bloggers I know.
I miss the Central Florida Lady Blogger group meet ups! If you live in Central Florida and are a blogger definitely check out their Facebook group. They’re a fun bunch and are very welcoming! (There’s also a Tampa Bay Lady Bloggers group for those of you in the Tampa Bay area. I met a bunch of women from that group at the conference and thought they were very friendly, too! Check ‘em out!)
During our break out session, everyone just chatted before some order was restored and we sat in a circle, introduced ourselves and shared a few things we learned from the conference. It was great to meet a lot of new people and find some new blogs to follow!
And that concludes my long-winded recap of CFLBlogCon! Just in case you’re not totally sick of blog-talk, you can find a bunch of blogging-related tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way on my Blogging page.
I’m already looking forward CFLBlogCon 2013!
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