Tuesday, March 9, 2010

What I Learned This Week - Boot Camp Lessons

I did it.
I attended my first ever blogging conference.
Saturday, I attended Bloggy Boot Camp hosted by SITS in Baltimore, MD.  

From what I gathered from the conference veterans, bloggy boot camp is different from other conferences because of its intimate size.  There was probably 100 people or less.  My absolute favorite part of the conference was that you never had to worry about where to sit and you were forced (in a good way) to meet as many people as possible.  When you picked up your name tag it had a string of numbers underneath your name that told you where to sit during each session and even lunch.  Awesome.

I'm still working on gathering my thoughts, notes, pictures, and trying to put together a recap post, but I did learn a few tips that I thought would be perfect to share for "What I LearnedThis Week."  


What I Learned From Bloggy BootCamp
Top Ten Tips

  1. Make sure you have an "About Me" page easily accessible on your blog.  You want your face out there and for people to be able to build a relationship with YOU.
  2. Link to your top three posts on our about me page so that your new readers can read your best work rather than whatever happens to be your latest post.
  3. Instead of linking your twitter page just to your blog home page where who knows what your new reader may see, link up to your About Me page.  This way they instantly meet YOU and can go read your top three posts. (See #2)
  4. Get rid of word verification (thank you, I've been saying this f.o.r.e.v.e.r. because it is annoying and it takes me multiple times to ever type in the correct word) and comment moderation if you are hoping to grow your blog.
  5. Build a tribe.  Even if you have many blogs and twitfriends you follow, have a small group that you count on.  In my case I would have to say that this is my Philly Mom group...they are my tribe.
  6. Join some message boards.  Ning and BlogFrog are two of the favorites.
  7. Create a reader demographic survey.  Get to know your readers so that you can build that relationship, but also to share with PR if you are looking at going that route with your blog.
  8. Clean up your Twitter feed at least once a month.  I used TheTwitCleaner that was suggested and loved it!  It was super easy to use and tagged people who were not following you, only tweeted links, and don't interact with their followers. 
  9. Keep your blog organized!  A neat trick that ResourcefulMom shared was to zoom out on your blogs homepage and then see how it looks.  Is it organized?  Cluttered?  Have reader appeal?  I tried this and I was pleased with what I saw,  but feel free to leave me a comment if you disagree!
  10. Using the Blogger platform is not looked upon as a good thing and all the best bloggers use WordPress.  Oh well, I'm sticking to Blogger.  Guess my future just won't include any Top 100 Mom Blogger awards! 
My favorite quote was from Tiffany, "Decide what you're gonna do and do it well!"


Don't forget to visit Musings of a Housewife to see what everybody else learned this week.

4 comments:

  1. Great tips. I love that the conference told you where to sit - that is always the hardest part for me because, although you wouldn't necessarily know it, I can be shy in large group settings. I actually like comment moderation though. I have always thought that it helps to get rid of some spam.

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  2. You are so right about the conference. It was a good one. I need to come up with my brand...not easy. I am spread too thin between reviews, blogging, and writing for other sites. http://www.musingsfromme.com/baltimore-bloggybootcamp/

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  3. Sounds like a great conference. Those are great tips!

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  4. I agree with you about Blogger. There are plenty of "successful" bloggers who still use it.

    Glad to hear that you enjoyed the conference - am considering going to one soon myself.

    Wisconsin Mommy

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Go ahead...tell me like it is!

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