View from our hotel room; Capitol building is behind the tallest tree, you can just make out the round dome
The IFBC 2017 Conference was a great experience and I came home with a bunch of notes and to-dos. Here is a rundown of Day Two and some of the nuggets of wisdom I took away. Look here for my review of the first day too.
Day Two began with a choice of two break-out sessions and I chose the “Creating Videos for Under $100 with Lennis Perez of Cook Dance Love Live. She went through all her favorite apps and techniques, showing us ways to save money at every turn. I love to learn tips from experts!
Bloggers doing what we do at conferences
Next up was the “Beyond the Blog” panel discussion about exploring different ways to put your blog to work for you, breaking into a career in food, writing, photography, events, etc. Featuring Lori Rice of Fake Food Free, Laura Sampson of Little House, Big Alaska, and Shanna Jones and Felice Sloan of Urban Swank, and led by Midgi Moore of Juneau Food Tours.
L-R; Laura Sampson, Little House, Big Alaska; Shanna & Felce of Urban Swank; Lori Rice of Fake Food Free
This was such a fun session, with each gal sharing her own perspective on how to expand beyond just writing a blog and creating different revenue streams. There were plenty of laughs with such big personalities on stage, LOL. Too fun!
Cort Tafoya of SEO Shrugged gave us a deep level look at Google Analytics. It is such a huge resource and could take ages to discover all it can do without the help of experts like Cort. I’m looking forward to diving in and learning more about what I can learn!
After lunch we got together with Lisa Lin of Healthy Nibbles and Bits to learn about styling techniques for working with fresh Avocados from Chile. Did you know that California is a huge grower of avocados but our season runs September to March. Most of the avocados see in the rest of the year are from Chile and Mexico!
We had fun carving up our own avocados, trying to match Lisa’s skill with a knife and creating our own avocado roses. I can say with certainty that it will take a whole lot more practice to get as good as Lisa!! 😉
The adorable Annelies working on social media in our hotel room
The final panel was a trio of some of the biggest and best bloggers in the industry. They answered hot topics in food blogging, based on questions the attendees submitted ahead of time. Sabrina Snyder of Dinner Then Dessert, Maggie Zhu of Omnivore’s Cookbook, and Stephen Chavez of Latino Foodie were exceptionally forthright, pulling no punches and sharing secrets to their remarkable successes.
Some of my favorite nuggets of wisdom from the conference were …
- Don’t undersell yourself and never work for free, you have valuable skills; recognize your own worth
- Be consistent in your posting days and video postings to build an audience that looks forward to seeing your latest creations
- When filming videos with your iPhone, put it in airplane mode so you won’t get interrupted by incoming calls, texts, etc.
- Be reliable, organized, professional, and fun to work with – this will get you repeat business
- Always be authentic, nobody tells your story better than you!
- Try to create evergreen content – will what you write today still be relevant next year and the year after?
While in town, there was a huge memorial for firefighters who lost their lives, this flag was several stories high!
The IFBC 2017 Conference wouldn’t have been possible without a huge team of sponsors, see the first half in this post and here is the second half … check out these incredibly generous and talented folks:
Olive Oil Commission of California
Original Balsamic Vinegar of Modena
Owl’s Brew – a Tea Crafted for Cocktails
San Francisco Bay Gourmet Coffee
Spice Mama Exotic Indian Chili Sauce
Create a New Tradition Today!
Disclosure: I received a reduced conference fee in exchange for sharing my experiences with you. All opinions are, as always, my own.
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