lessons learned at lavish

Last weekend's Lavish! conference was so jammed packed with great speakers and I am so glad I made the trip!

As promised, here is my looooong list of tips I took from the "unconference"...

Saturday morning's keynote speaker, James Andrews, certainly got everyone excited about the social media and how far it's come and how far it's going to go. He told us through social media, we are able to "own our eyes." No one else is telling us what to blog or tweet about, it's up to us to create content...the voice is ours. A memorable thought from his speech was to take a "posture of humility" every day. Be thankful that even one person is reading your blog or following you on Twitter. That definitely got me thinking and made me very appreciative of how far I have come since I started this journey 7 months ago.

The Design Sponge panel, featuring Grace Bonney, was one of the most packed sessions of the day! It is where I took the most notes and got the most helpful advice for my blog and social media efforts.  Some of the tips...
- Take risks....put yourself out there!
- Create connections on a personal level. No mass emails to people- make them feel exclusive. Comment back when you receive a comment on your blog.
- Be natural and relatable.
- Twitter and Facebook are "social" sites, so be social! Be authentic with your interactions.
- Rule of 3 (regarding social media)...1/3 of your interactions should be personal; 1/3 business related; and 1/3 resource sharing (in the form of re-tweets, plugging others).
- Create your OWN content-- Integrity + Authenticity = Growth.
- Look to other blogs outside your niche for inspiration.
- Push yourself outside your comfort level.
- Share your knowledge.
- Write with purpose.

Our lunch Keynote Speaker was Jeralyn Gerba of Daily Candy and newly created Fathom. She gave great advice as well...
- Create a compelling, consistent voice.
- Again...ORIGINAL content!!!
- Verify all your facts-- this will give you credibility.
- Regarding advertisers and publicity-- Choose the right relationship for your brand and aim high. Try to get your ideal sponsors to advertise on your blog.
- Respond to feedback...take negative comments with a grain of salt; be generous and gracious.

The most emphasized point through all the sessions was to BE ORIGINAL AND BE AUTHENTIC with your voice. I summed it up in my notes by writing, "Inspiration doesn't necessarily need to follow up with imitation."  What I meant by that was, there may be blogs that you love and are inspired daily by and they are very successful, and in order to achieve that success, you imitate their style. That formula won't work for you since it isn't really you....it's you imitating someone else.  Once you use your own voice and style, your blogging efforts will pay off!

So there's my recap...I hope I didn't sound like a mess! I am so excited over everything I learned, I found myself typing super fast and probably making no sense :)

In other blogging news, I am over at A Thoughtful Place today sharing my 'Holiday Haven'!