I had the pleasure of attending and the honor of speaking at the first Go Blog Social in Kansas City last weekend - a conference for bloggers by bloggers. It's fun to have something like this local and in the midwest. There are so many great communities and stories here in the midwest, and while those larger conference in NYC, Sat Lake, various other bigger cities are so great, a midwest conference is key for supporting key influencers that live in all those in between places. I really hope to see Go Blog Social back next year and to continue to grow, which I think it has a lot of potential to do so.
In the panel I spoke on, Jessica of How Sweet Eats and I talked about the relationship between bloggers and brands. I opened up the session by grounding everyone in the current influencer marketing situation. I've kind of wrote about some of this here, but to reiterate - here's a little recap. Consumer's rate blogs third most influential among all digital tactics right behind retail and brand sites when considering a purchase. Also high up is how how trustworthy they deem blogs. This is an awesome pat on the back to those hard working bloggers, right? So people actually come to our little sites for real life and honest opinions on things, places to go, advice to give, etc.
What is interesting is that brand's spending among influence marketing is way behind the curve. On average, of all brand's digital budgets, only 10% goes to Social Media. Within that already slim slice, only 6-10% of the budget is spent in influence marketing. Compared to how highly consumers regard blogs and influencers - there is a lot of room for brands to leverage this growing field. You can download the full report that touches on this here.
After everyone understood the current landscape of influencer marketing, Jessica and I walked through a few important points on how bloggers should start to think about brand work. High level, they are:
1. Keep brand work authentic
2. What brands look for
3. Before you work with brands, things you should establish with your self first
4. Diversify sponsorships & brand integrations
5. Working with ad networks/PR Agencies/Agents
It was a lot of info for a short amount of time, but we had a great group of listeners and note takers! I've been getting additional emails and tweets since and love that we were able to bring something new to the group. Thanks again for having me, Go Blog Social!
{Outfit Details: Baseball Tee (non-maternity version), Dress, Boots, Belt, Bag - Theit, Round Bracelet, Pyramid Bracelet, Earrings, Watch, Lips}
Below are a few photos from the conference.
Me with co-founds Kat & Sarah and my co-panelist, Jessica.
One of my favorite things about the conference was meeting some new vendors in the expo hall. Loved this triangle necklace by
Shop Jami and went home with this long necklace by
Hello Cheeseburger (as well as a few other things).
Two of my favorite panelists on Friday was by the
Ampersand Design Studio girls, who talked about branding and strategy, but also left us with an awesome little cheat sheet (top photo), and J of J
's Everyday Fashion, who shared what inspires her - and I can't wait to now pick up
The War of Art
to read on my upcoming beach vacay.
Did you attend Go Blog Social? What did you like best about about the first day's round up?
If not, do you think you'd attend next year?
