Life in Beta

What to say about  Blissdom? I don’t even know where to start.

For those of you not in-the-know, Blissdom is a blogging/social media conference for women, held here in Nashville, Tennessee. This past weekend marked the conference’s third year, and happened to be my first year attending.

Though the conference spanned three days, I was only able to attend the Saturday sessions, and unfortunately, I don’t think I got as much out of it as I could have due to the stress and craziness going on right now. However, I wasn’t going to let all the negativity I’m dealing with keep me from going in general. I just wasn’t able to be my chipper-perky self quite as much, and as a result failed miserably at networking as much as I had hoped. Just the same, I got to meet some fabulous ladies, all of whom were so welcoming and friendly!

I did get a lot out of the sessions I attended. I focused on the business track for Saturday:

(1) Leveraging Social Media to Build Your Business

Panel, left to right: Amy Turn Sharp (Little Alouette), Caitlin Madden (Mabel’s Labels), Kimba (A Soft Place To Land), Kim Christopherson (You Can Make This), Kris Thurgood (Jesse Kate Designs), and Lisa Leonard (Lisa Leonard Designs).

A few highlights:

• The 5 B’s: (1) Build the buzz whenever you launch a new product, blog, feature, etc., (2) Be yourself–be real and don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself, (3) Be specific about the action you want your readers to take–join your Facebook fan page, follow you on Twitter, etc., (4) Bring on the bookmarks!–Social bookmarking is vital, and (5) Be appreciative–people don’t have to sign up for your newsletter or give you their information, so if they do, always thank them and if possible offer something in return (e.g. an e-book you’ve written on an area of expertise).
• Know your audience–survey them to find out which social networking tools they use, and focus on those first.
• Do your OWN social networking on Twitter and Facebook because it is vital to be authentic and personal.

(2) Evolving into a Professional Blogger – Paths to Success

Panel, left to right: Barbara Jones (One2One Network), Audrey McClelland (Mom Generations), Kim Moldofsky (Hormone-Colored Days), Allison Worthington (Allison Worthington Media), and Nancy Smith (@NancyDSmith).

A few highlights:

• Earned media– completely your words, your review; always be genuine, don’t lie about a product just to get paid; use constructive criticism
• Paid media– somewhat restrictive because you must use the words supplied by the advertiser
• Pitching to get paid media/sponsorship opportunities– be prepared to show the company what their ROI will be, use case studies, maintain relationships because often companies will refer bloggers for other opportunities

(3) Niche Blogging – Experts Talk About Blogging Your Passions and Expertise

Panel, left to right: Audrey McClelland (Mom Generations), Rachel Matthews (A Southern Fairytale), Sommer Poquette (Green and Clean Mom), Jennifer Schmidt (Balancing Beauty and Bedlam), Nester Smith (The Nesting Place), Heather Solos (Home Ec 101).

A few highlights:

• 7 questions to ask yourself in order to find your niche (via Nester).
• Bloggers take different paths to find their niche — some are able to define it from the outset (great!) but other times it is something that evolves over time.
• Use your blog’s subtitle/tagline to clearly define what your blog is about.
• Become an authority in your niche — but understand the responsibility that comes along with that.

One of the best things about the conference is the underlying hum of energy and inspiration that you’re able to tap into.  It is an amazing feeling to be surrounded by hundreds of brilliant, tech-savvy, talented women. Everyone I encountered was so friendly and more than willing to answer questions and give advice.

For instance, during the morning sessions, I sat at a table with the lovely Beth from In Good Cents. She was more than willing to share with those of us at the table some of her strategies for affiliate marketing on her blog.

Bloggers helping bloggers; women entrepreneurs helping women entrepreneurs: I love it.

I’ll certainly be attending next year, hopefully for the entire conference, and hopefully in a better frame of mind to really experience everything to its fullest. Thanks to everyone who put on this conference and participated in the panels — ya’ll did a fabulous job.

Yesterday, I got a blog comment from the lovely Cynthia of A Shimmy In My Spirit asking me if I was attending the Blissdom Conference.

Um. Excuse me … what what?! What’s this you speak of?!

I promptly had to google that shiz … and come to find out, it’s … well … let me just copy/paste the description from their site:

Blissdom is the premiere conference for women who find and express their bliss by publishing online. Blissdom ‘10, our third conference, is a welcoming oasis in the ever-changing blogging world. Speakers and panels featuring the best blogging, public relations and social media pros will be gathering to mentor new and old friends alike.

This is Blissdom’s most exciting year, with even more incredible content, events, networking and surprises scheduled than ever before. The size of our conference is perfect–full of synergy and opportunity, but intimate enough to get personally benefit from the professional development and personally fulfilling agenda options.

[More]

In other words … paradise for a geek of the female persuasion. So, okay yah, SOLD!

I quickly checked my bank account balance, scrutinized my budget spreadsheet, and counted on my fingers and toes … and ultimately decided to register for the Saturday sessions. You can read about the sessions here or on the agenda page.

Saturday’s sessions include both a business track and a writing track. I’m leaning toward primarily the business track, which includes:

• Leveraging Social Media to Build Your Business
• Evolving into a Professional Blogger — Paths to Success
• Niche Blogging — Experts Talk About Blogging Your Passions and Expertise
• The Wizard of Ads- Pulling Back the Curtain on Online Advertising.

I’m considering swapping out the Niche Blogging session to jump ship over to the writing track and pick up Content is Queen – Communicating Your Brilliance through High Quality Writing. I haven’t decided yet. All the sessions look super fun and interesting. Makes me wish I could be in two places at once.

So… any of ya’ll going? If so, be sure to look for me and come introduce yourself!

Wow, look at this! Can I just tell ya how special I feel?

Given to me by Alexandra at The Tell Tale Blog (thanks!!)

The rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated me for this award
2. Copy the award & place it on my blog
3. Link to the person who nominated me for this award
4. Share 7 interesting things about myself
5. Nominate 7 other bloggers (I’m going to be a rebel and name 5 instead…)

Seven interesting facts about yours truly

(Mostly taken from my 100 Things list because I’m feeling too brain-dead at the moment to come up with anything new or different.)

1. I’m not a big concert-goer, but I love going to see stand-up comedians. In the last couple years, I’ve seen Robin Williams, Eddie Izzard, Broken Lizard and Hal Sparks (twice).
2. I’m allergic to orchard grass and ragweed. I also have a mild allergy to cats, but I just don’t care about that because I adore my kitties anyway. Zyrtec is my best friend.
3. I liked vampires way back before it was cool to like them. (Wanna make something of it!?) I was totally in love with Ben Cross when he played Barnabas Collins in the 1991 revival series of “Dark Shadows”.
4. I never leave home without my Blackberry, a point-and-shoot digital camera, and my Flip HD camcorder. (At a minimum. Sometimes throw my dSLR into the mix.) I’m a one-woman a/v club.
5. If (when?) I have a midlife crisis and change careers, I’d love to be a certified nurse-midwife or labor and delivery nurse.
6. I love fishies and at one point I had about 8 aquariums (fresh and salt water) all going at the same time. I’d love to have aquariums like that again some day!
7. I always, always wear a hematite ring on my thumb. I’m superstitious about it, actually. Hematite is supposed to absorb any negative energy around you. Once it has absorbed too much, it will shatter and you need to replace it. I haven’t shattered one yet, so I guess I’m blessed to be surrounded by mostly-positive energy. But I will tell you — on the rare days that I forget my ring, I nearly always have a very bad day.

And the nominees are…

(Several great gals I’ve recently found via 20SB and SITS! …)

1. Sarah at SillyGrrl
2. LiLu at Live It, Love It
3. Date Girl at The Date Girl Diaries
4. Amanda at Martinis or Diaper-Genies
5. Mel at Life, Liberty & Pursuit of Your Boyfriend

How sweet is this?! My friend Natalie over at Hope Springs Eternal gave me this sweet blog-award!

By the way…  if ya’ll have time, please go vote for Natalie for the Mom2Be Blog Awards. Today is the last day of voting!! Congrats, Natalie! Thanks to everyone who voted and helped her out!

RULES FOR HAPPY 101 AWARD

List 10 things that make you happy, try to do at least one of them today, and tag 10 bloggers that brighten your day. For those 10 bloggers who get the award, you then link back to my blog and create your makes you happy list.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY:

1. My family and friends (cliché but true!)
2. Snuggling with Gracie (my dog) and Stuart (my cat)
3. Knitting with friends at TNKS (and then going out for 2-for-1 wine at Chilli’s!)
4. Driving around the peninsula back home in Erie
5. Taking pictures
6. Snuggling up to read a good book
7. Random weekdays off work (yay trashy daytime TV!)
8. Amazon.com and Amazon Prime … saving me beaucoup trips to the store
9. Waking up to sunshine streaming in the windows
10. A good cup of coffee!

TEN BLOGGERS I PASS THIS AWARD ON TO:

1. Tia at Clever Girl Goes Blog
2. Erica at Junepath.com
3. Amanda at Mandajuice
4. Lauren at Salt Says
5. Sara at Sara Without an H
6. Miss Dot at Saving the World One Cupcake at a Time
7. Rachel at Scientific Nature of the Whammy
8. That Girl Blogs
9. Alex at Whoa-Mumma!
10. Trish at Write or Wrong