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Live Laugh Rowe

Live Laugh Rowe

A lifestyle blog that shares crafts, recipes, tutorials and life's moments.

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Finding my Bliss | Blissdom 2013

04/06/2013 · Kelly Rowe · 13 Comments

This post may contain Amazon or other affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Well, it’s finally here… my Blissdom re-cap.  YAY!  I’m going to share some of my thoughts, lessons, and experiences. Let me first share a few pics of the incredible Gaylord Texan, where the conference was hosted.  What an incredible place!!  The hubby and I came in a few days earlier and enjoyed many of the amenities in-between our site-seeing and shopping extravaganzas {giggle}.

BlissdomThere was a replica of the Alamo, a HUGE glass atrium providing natural lighting
to all the restaurants, walkways, and succulent plants…Gaylord Texan….and they had their very own Riverwalk.

riverwalkBlissdom kicked off on Thursday.blissdom{via}

I was basically attending alone.  I had a number of bloggers that I had hoped to meet, but with 800+ attendees, I knew it might be hit or miss.  Nerve wrecking to walk into the opening reception alone?  Heck, yeah!   However, I quickly found Kristen, Jaime, Jodi, Kristi, Taylor, Mackenzie, and Allison and the rest was history!  There was one familiar face in the crowd, someone I had met at BlogHer last year too, Alissa.  It’s always good to see familiar faces!

blogging conferenceAs the conference continued, I was blessed to meet some other fabulous ladies:  Thuy,  Jen, Tonya, Jennifer, Ashley, Samantha, Lindsey, Kelley, Amanda, and Claire and others (forgive me if I’ve left anyone out)!  And then there was Jon Acoff.  I also got some good eats and lots of fun swag.  Confession:  the books were the most exciting for me… all kinds of goodness wrapped up in those hard cover books that I got to bring home!  YAY!

So, we’ve covered the location and some of the incredible peeps that I met… now it’s time for me to share a few of the relevant tidbits I walked away with.  Let me also say that I went into the conference with NO expectations.  I set a few goals for myself and accomplished those, and anything else was extra.  I honestly walked away with more ‘self help’ inspiration than anything.  And you know, what?  I needed it.  I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotion with blogging over the past few months.  I have to admit that it’s a love-hate relationship.  {hee-hee}.  We’ll save that soap box for another day.  Anywho, here are a FEW of the tidbits of truth and inspiration that I brought home with me.  Ready or not, here we go…

The conference kicked off with keynote speakers, Scott Stratten.  He was uhhhh-mazing! Scott shared some incredible reminders regarding social media, branding and staying authentic to our brand/business.  I couldn’t possibly share everything, but a few things that Scott shared have really stuck with me:

–> Talk with people, not at them!
–> Twitter is a conversation, not a dictation.
–> Humanize your brand!
–> Make your content good enough that people want to share it!

Connect, don’t collect was also a fabulous reminder in regards to the friendships/relationships that you make at these types of events.  I don’t need to collect hundreds of business cards, what I needed to focus on was making some connections.  I did just that!  I can say that I came home with some fabulous new friends with whom I anticipate collaborating with and blazing a new trail in my blogging adventures.

I’m going to insert a thought or two here on conferences and cliques real quick, if you don’t mind.  After attending two conferences solo, I’m confident that based one my observations,  cliques are inevitable.  Typically, those you room with will be the people you will tend to gravitate to throughout the conference.  However, you can choose to let the cliques discourage you and potentially ruin the conference for you -or- you can embrace the opportunity of meeting new people, sitting at a table full of complete strangers and sometimes stepping outside of our comfort zone.  There are a lot of re-cap posts out there… some good, some bad and, honestly, some are just plain ugly.  No conference is perfect and will meet everyone’s expectations.  That seems completely impossible, and one attendees experience is not going to be anothers.  I think we all have to experience them to understand the dynamic they provide, the education it may or may not offer and weigh the pros and cons for ourselves.  I’ve always been blessed to make a connection or two that proved to be invaluable and they’ve turned into incredible friendships.

Moving on…  I would {love} to start doing some videos, in the near future, so I chose to attend the You Tube session.  I learned a lot of great information there — such as the trifecta of connecting all of your readers/viewers to your other social media outlets, somehow placing different tidbits on Instagram, Facebook, You Tube so that they’re clicking around.  An example would be that if I did a craft video, at the end of the video (and also in the description/comments of the video), suggesting that they visit the blog to see where my supplies were purchased, etc.  and vice versa.  I loved that… and while that may be obvious to many You Tubers, I’m super new to it and found those tidbits extremely beneficial.  PLUS, if you’re monetizing your blog and your You Tube channel — you’ll get two clicks and potentially make more money. Boo-yah!

I also loved that they said to think of your channel on You Tube like a TV show.  We all have a sitcom/show that we love and plan to watch at a specific time each week, right?  Well, plan to post your videos on a specific day and at a specific time each week so that your viewers know when to expect new material.  Fabulous tips for a newbie like me.

The last part of that session that I enjoyed hearing was, “Don’t feed the trolls.”  Now, I know that the comments on You Tube videos can be much more cruel and down right mean next to a blog post; however, there are mean people all over the internet.  Don’t feed them.  Ignore them.  It’s not worth the wasted energy.  Makes perfect sense, right?  Well, sometimes we want to kill them with kindness — just say no! Don’t do it.  Let it go and love the haters {smile}.

To avoid the length of this post becoming too incredibly long, I’ll share one more session that made me smile, that was with  Simon Salt.  He topic focused on the wise old saying  “Believe in Yourself!”  He reminded me that I need to look in the mirror and say, “I Rock!” and “What I do is brilliant!” and “I am going to be the best I can be!”  Simon also stated that “If you try to please all the audience — you stop being YOU!”  I needed to hear that.  Sometimes we work so hard to please everyone else and we lose a piece of ourselves in the process.  Do you ever feel that way?  Thanks for helping me keep things in perspective, Simon. I want to stay true to myself 100% of the time.  A book that he mentioned as a ‘must read’ was Amazing Things will Happen by CC Chapman.  That’s been added to my to-do list {smile}.

I’d also {love} to share what I took away from John Morgan and John Acoff, but I’ll have to save those for individual posts at a later time…. so stay tuned!  Honestly, I chose some GREAT sessions and felt so incredibly inspired.  You know what?  I’m incredibly blessed too — having such fabulous readers like YOU who whisper words of encouragement in comments and e-mails.  Thank you for that!

Overall, I had a fantastic time of learning, chatting, laughing and complete and utter exhaustion {ha!}.  It was worth every minute and I hope to do it all over again next year… but for the time being — SNAP! is happening in less than two weeks.  Woot! Woot!

blogging conferenceHere’s to accomplishing great things…
and finding your bliss!  xo

I’ll be partying {here and here}.
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ABOUT KELLY

A DIY fanatic, Kelly shares her journey through her blog, Live Laugh Rowe, where she showcases her recipes, tutorials, crafts, home projects, and all things DIY. This East Coast Girl at heart believes family is number one as she finds the perfect balance of being a daughter, wife, sister, entrepreneur, writer and woman of God. Be sure to follow along as she shares her passion for life, love and family! Read more...

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Comments

  1. Shash says

    04/06/2013 at 9:10 am

    I loved your recap. 🙂

    Reply
  2. Claire @ A Little Claireification says

    04/06/2013 at 10:47 am

    Love it!! It sure was a whirlwind. I still haven’t done a re-cap. Maybe next week. Now I am sad I am missing Snap!. 🙁
    xo, Claire

    Reply
  3. Melissa B says

    04/06/2013 at 4:36 pm

    Sounds like you had a wonderful time!
    Thanks for sharing all of the great information!!

    Reply
  4. Kimberly Montgomery says

    04/06/2013 at 5:28 pm

    What a beautiful venue! It sounds wonderful. I always enjoy your re-caps. 🙂

    Reply
    • Kelly Rowe says

      04/10/2013 at 10:13 am

      Thanks so much, Kimberly! I trust all is well… and hope to one day meet you at a conference 🙂 HUGS!

  5. Debbie says

    04/06/2013 at 5:57 pm

    I’m so glad you went to Blissdom and came away with a better perspective. I enjoy reading your blog and it sounds like this was just the ticket to give you a boost! Sounds like a wonderful time and lots of great advice. How wonderful to meet all those fellow bloggers! Looking forward to more recaps, and I hope Snap is just as helpful for you.
    Debbie 🙂

    Reply
  6. jodi says

    04/06/2013 at 9:19 pm

    What a great recap post! I have been telling my husband all this year, I wanted to go so bad. He told me….”you wouldn’t want to go alone”, which is true, but I wanted to go so bad!!!! 🙂 I hope to go sometime, maybe next year. 🙂

    I am so glad you had a great time and walked away with some great insite, that’s what I want, so I can really focus on expanding my blogging.
    Take care!
    Jodi

    Reply
  7. kristi | ishouldbemoppingthefloor says

    04/07/2013 at 6:17 pm

    LOVE this. And I have to add, one of the highlights of Blissdom was making a FABULOUS new friend named Kelly Rowe who totally ROCKS! Knowing each other in person is even better than the blog world! Love ya, lady!

    Reply
    • Kelly Rowe says

      04/10/2013 at 10:15 am

      You are too kind, Kristi! It was such a joy meeting you as well… I sang your praises the other day to Jill (from Create. Craft. Love). Looking forward to hanging out again soon! Hugs.

  8. Laura @ Finding Home says

    04/08/2013 at 10:06 pm

    What a great re-cap – very gracious and honest. I am also going to SNAP and only have a few sort of acquantancies that I know are going so I am super nervous. When I wrote about it, a reader who met you at Blissdom(Claire) said I had to try and meet you because you were so kind and encouraging -so there you go, you did something right! Hoping to get a chance to meet you. Take care, Laura

    Reply
    • Kelly Rowe says

      04/10/2013 at 10:17 am

      Hi Laura! Thanks so much for reading up on my adventures at Blissdom. How super-dupe kind of Claire. I look forward to meeting you at SNAP!, Laura…. I’ll hunt you down if I have to {giggle}. The nerves subside quickly as you see familiar faces and get lots of hugs. See you soon.

  9. Jodie Fitz says

    04/11/2013 at 5:12 am

    THANK you for sharing 🙂 – I fully enjoyed….
    I’m thinking I might need to consider some conferences…
    Look forward to connecting soon. ~ Jodie xo

    Reply
  10. Susan @ Oh My! Creative says

    08/02/2013 at 9:26 pm

    I am only reading this now…in August, but it makes me want to attend next year. Sounds like it is a good way to meet other bloggers – a bit scary to go alone! Thanks for your recap! The hotel alone looks like it is worth the trip!

    Reply

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I’m the author, creator, cook, and photographer behind the blog. I am so glad you’re here!  I’m passionate about life, family, and my faith. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my journey, life is hard, but God is good.  Read More

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