Alrighty y’all!

On August 9th-11th I attended the 6th Annual Blog Societies Conference in Alpharetta Georgia with my sister Tiffany Brown (@tiffanydbrown_). The conference was hosted at the beautiful Hotel Avalon. 

 

I don’t even have enough words to describe our experience staying at Hotel Avalon.  I will be doing a separate post to share my thoughts, pictures, and video. But since you are here to read about The Blog Societies Conference (#TSBCON) recap I will spare the hotel deets and dig right into the conference juice!

My sister and I love taking trips together but the ones we really like to crush it on are conferences and community meetups.  So this time I invited Tiffany with TiffanyDBrown.com to share 3 of her key takeaways and I will share three of mine. 

6 Thing You Need to Know about The Blog Societies Conference 

1. Photographer and Videographer present

You all know how I feel about photographs and videos especially when it comes to quality content. And Cathy and Jessica nailed this portion of hosting a conference! There was a professional photographer Colleen (@xxiiiphoto) and videographer, Drew (@drewglickmanfilms) who were both presents for the entire conference. During the opening party when Jessica was welcoming us to the conference and I heard her that they wanted us to spend less time on our phones trying to get great images for blog content and focus on learning and connecting it took me back. She followed up by introducing the photographer and videographer that would be present to snag video and photos for us to use. Talk about a lifesaver, this may seem small but it was a huge help!

P.S. Keep reading to check out these great photos I am bragging about!

2. Speaker Knowledge & Workshop Topics

There are 2 main things I look for when attending conferences, education, and connection. This conference delivered on both. The Blog Societies founders curated 6 major topics that bloggers, online influencers and entrepreneurs (like ourselves) really need to know. The workshops flowed easily and gave us the opportunity to dig into the top areas we wanted to learn more about. We were able to attend 4 different workshops each lasting a full hour. These workshops were presented by amazing speakers who were eager to share their experiences from mistakes to ways to do things right. Best part, the speakers did not hold back on filling our heads with so much knowledge inspired us to get up and get at it! Here are the workshops we attended and the bomb speakers!

• Travel Blogging: (@aliciatenise)
• Social Media (@christan.duncan)
• Photography (@noelledowning and @rachmartino)
• Contracts (@cobaltchronics)

The strongest point I can make about each of these workshops that we attended was that the information that was shared was on a higher level. I am going to be real, I do not want to invest my money in a conference that is on a beginners level or teach me the things I already know. I want to have a place I can go and continue to elevate my knowledge. Although my head was about to explode by the end of the day it was SUCH A GOOD FEELING! Because I was overflowing with ideas, inspiration, and steps that I could take after attending these workshops.

3. Transparency and Acceptance of Questions

The knowledge sharing didn’t stop after the workshops. Oh no! Saturday was dedicated to more educational and elevating information. This time it was in a speaker formate and all of the attendees joined together in one room to hear the speakers and panel discussions. What I loved the most from this day was that Jessica and Cathy laid out the house rules in the beginning and continued to remind us that these sessions were open to questions. We didn’t have to feel like we had to save all of our questions till the end of the speakers’ session, we were able to ask questions as soon as they popped in our heads. Which I found to be so valuable because sometimes you just can’t remember it all and 99% of the time if you have a question there is at least one other person in the room that has the same question but may not be willing to ask.

But by having the openness to ask questions and receive immediate feedback was extremely helpful. It also gave us as the attendees the opportunities to share information that we know with one another. Yall, this was a powerful session. Let me hit on one other fact, transparency. I know we are hearing that word a lot but The Blog Societies made this word shine. If you had a question, you got an answer that was open honest. You never felt like you were getting the runaround or the filtered version answer to your question. I really appreciated this.

Now, this is what my sister, Tiffany has to say… 

4. Planning and Organization

Now, I have attended some really amazing conferences the past couple of years. It’s funny how when you go to different conferences you see that things can be done differently. For example, I’m might have gone to one conference at the beginning of the year,  and to me that organization was great! But then going to The Blog Societies Conference this year really exceeded my expectations.

From the moment we arrived on site, everyone was so nice and accommodating. Justin in valet treated us like queens. Later that evening, when we were in search of something to eat Justin, took us for a spin on the hotel golf cart! Y’all this golf cart had all the bells and whistles. We laughed so hard and it really helped set the tone for the experience that was yet to come.

We checked in and Jeremy saw that we were a little frazzled due to our flights being delayed and having to drive over an hour through rush hour traffic in a thunderstorm to get to the hotel. He was so nice to gift us complimentary drink coupons to help rest our nerves. lol.

Can we say winning?!

After we arrive at our room we dropped our bags and recorded a room tour.

If you want to check out the video just click here (insert IGTV)

After we settled in we had to quickly change clothes to make it down to the Welcome Party. We arrived at the registration table and Ms. Caroline (Birdie & Boe ) had the biggest smile on her face, she gave us the warmest welcome and handed over all of the details we needed to get the most out of our first night.

Once registered and we received our tote bags, itineraries, and lanyards for the conference.  On the back of the lanyard, there was a very detailed itinerary that broke down what my individual schedule was based on what I had selected in the survey prior to the conference.

You’re probably wondering what is so great about that. Well, let me tell you. Have you ever attended a meeting or conference and you had to keep up with a sheet of paper?  Yeah, what if you lose the paper? Yeah. This small attention to detail was amazing because I didn’t have to ramble for papers because it was right around my neck.

5. Focused On Cultivating A Community

After we registered and we had our schedules in hand, we came across a sheet of paper. On this sheet of paper was ALL of the Instagram handles for everybody who was attending the conference. It included, first and last name what state they were from. Also included was everyone’s Instagram handles. There was also Instagram handles for every sponsor of the conference! Can you say efficient and organized?

You know so many times we attend conferences and we’re so busy and concerned about passing out business cards and trying to follow everybody at that moment. It was a great experience because after following and engaging with fellow attendees profiles, the next day we were able to meet them in person. This really made our interactions with fellow attendees more personable. We weren’t there in the sense of exchanging business cards, because they already had that information for us.

What more could a blogger ask for?

6. Constant Communication of Daily Events

My favorite thing was receiving a recap of the previous day in my inbox at 6 o’clock every morning during the conference. Yes, you read that right! Daily Conference recaps and updates. More importantly, there was a link to all the images for us to use (with giving credit of course).  You guys everything we needed at our fingertips. Hands down this conference had to be one of the most stress-free conferences that I’ve been to.

There was no feeling of being rushed or feeling as if there was not enough time in the day to do things we wanted to do to unwind. The schedule was streamlined and organized and the sessions went from 9 to around 3:00 or 4:00. This type of schedule gave you plenty of time to go explore take photos or hang out the pool.

It was AMAZING!

This blog post could go on and on about The Blog Societies Conference 2018 and it will be one that we will talk about for days to come. For this both Tiffany and I want to give a HUGE thank you to the founders of The Blog Societies Cathy (@poorlittleitgirl) and Jessica (@mystylevita) for the dedication, love, and passion they have for this community.

Definitely go show them some love (actually everyone we mentioned here would love some virtual love from you all!) and if you haven’t checked out The Blog Societies (@theblogsocieties)  make sure you do that right here!

Want to watch our  IGTV in-the-airport recap from The Blog Societies Conference 2018? Click here!

Have attended any blogger, influencer or entrepreneur conferences? If so, tell me about them in the comments below!

We are always looking for communities to join and conferences to do our next sister takeover!

 

 

 

Photographer Credit: Coleen Walter