BlogHer12 Recap Part III: Sessions,Katie, and Ceviche.

Saturday

Now where was I?

Oh, it’s Saturday morning.

Thank God sessions didn’t start until 930! I needed that extra time!  It’s amazing how well I sleep with no husband snoring/sprawling in the bed and no baby monitor turned up to amplify every noise a 2 1/2 year old makes at 2am.

But I digress…..

Originally, I had it in my mind to go to the Leveraging Google+, Pinterest and Instagram session.  Buuuut. A little birdy had mentioned to me about a week earlier a session where  Jill Krause  was speaking. And since I couldn’t go to Blographer on Thursday and hear her speak there( still very very bitter about that by the way), I decided that I wanted to go see her session:

Pro Tips: Branding and Blogging Professionally.

And this session, was my favorite of the whole conference.

The other Panelists were: Charlie Capen, Gina Crosley-Corcoran and Mandy Morrison.

I am sad to say that I had never seen the blogs of the other three.  I checked them out and was  like….whooa where have I been????

I found it interesting that until a year ago at Blogher11, Jill hadn’t allowed herself to take blogging or herself seriously.  Once she did, her readership tripled and opportunites came her way.

Yeah…I sat straight up in my chair.

Tips from this session:

• Be comfortable with your brand.  Have a consistent image and message across all forms of social media.
• Give yourself permission to be professional. ( Side note: this is a problem for me personally)
• Blog consistently, 5 days a week.You will have more page views and more following you when you blog more often.
• Blogging more frequently can make you more comfortable blogging, but don’t just put ANYTHING out there. 🙂
• Find your graduating class: bloggers like you.  Be frank and open with each other. Support each other.
• If you are going to do advertising, make it easy for people to contact you and to purchase your ads
• Suggestions to help on ads: Passion Fruit, and Ad Rotate for WordPress
• Invest in a blog designer if you can. I was thrilled to see them advertising for my bloggy friend Sarah over at One Starry Night.
• Take a look at your page and see what readers see when they first come to your page
• Don’t have any music, don’t accost your reader, have an updated about page, an no centered text.( hard to read)
• For personal ads, Mandy recommended a seperate sponser page where you have stats etc.

There was more, so check out the live blog here.

I loved this session. I’ve spent hours since this session researching and implementing a few of the things they talked about.

After this session, I really really wanted to go to the Avoid Analytics Overload: Google Analytics tips. But it was closed( packed) and the Vlogging Part I session was packed also. It was in such a small room, that I heard they kicked people out.

Not cool. But that was a problem throughout the conference. Some rooms were too small for the amount of people who wanted to go to them. And really, that wasn’t fair. Afterall, we paid for it didn’t we??

So anyway, since I coudn’t do that, I decided to go wonder around the expo hall until lunch.

I then headed on up to the main ballroom for lunch and Katie Couric.

But while Mimi, Nellie, Quiana and Elana ( Just met her there, but LOVE her!!) were waiting for it to stop, who should sit down but Dr Goddess! And then, a few more of her friends showed up including Franchesca Ramsey(@chescaleigh) and   Erika from A Black Girl’s Guide to Weight Loss!! And this right here is what made me say….I LOVE BLOGHER! I mean where else would I just randomly sit down and have lunch with these ladies????

But back to Katie Couric! She, by the way, is just as perky and happy and confident as she is on TV. I watched her for years on the Today Show, and missed her when she went away. I’m excited about her new talk show! You can tweet @katieshow and send her your ideas for the show and maybe write for her website.  We were told that Katie would be happy to hear from us!  So if you’ve got an idea…..

I stuck around for the Women Influences as Change Agents Keynote with Soledad O’Brien, Christy Turlington Burns, and Malaak Compton Rock.

And found Fadra from All Things Fadra outside the ballroom. She is tiny.  But I was so happy to meet her. But alas, I had no camera with me…*cries*

After lunch, I wondered around for a bit. I forgot I had been invited to the Dodge relaxation session. I peaked in and guess who found me:

It’s from Dumbmom from Parenting By Dummnies !!! I first met her when she was leading a session at Blogalicious last year. I LOVE her blog on life with her three boys. And she is obsessed with Instagram like me.

After that, I wondered around in the expo hall for a few more minutes, and I ended up in my last session:

How to Price and Value Your Services.

I didn’t take many notes here. It was not as I expected, but I did pick up a few things that I will be looking into

• Quantcast
• Cecily Kellogg ( she has a post on media kits  on her site and is just a great all around person)
• Know your Focus: Know what your audience wants to hear. What makes YOU  different.
• Your audience is your customer
• And finally, my favorite quote from the whole conference: “You need to value your services, or other people will not value your services!”

As usual, you can find out more here.

After this session, I was beat down, but I had dinner planned with my awesome bloggy bestie @brainypintsizer.

But I did stop by the closing address to learn that Blogher13 is going to be in Chicago!!!! Who’s down??

Anyhoo, I got to hold Dani’s sweet little boy and felt my overies give a great big twitch. Something about 8 week olds……

Anyhoo, @brainypintsizer and I took a cab over to Calle Ocho and it was GREAT!

Sangria

Lobster Ceviche..Yummy

Vaca Frita al Caballo……yeeeeesssss

I even got to ride a the subway and……it was hot…and smelly…and I don’t want to do it again….

I loved loved meeting her finally in real life and she is JUST like I thought she would be.

SO COOL.

After that, I came back and checked out CheeseburgHER. which…..I mean…where were the cheeseburgers!!!And the fries???????

But the drink of the night was good……

LOL.

I left there and made my way back out to Times Square for a few photos…..

And then headed back to my room where I ate my cold cheeseburger,packed and then crashed.

And that my people is the end of my Blogher12/New York Adventure.

THANK GOD!

LOL