"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Last weekend, I had the privilege of being the Breakfast Keynote speaker at the BConnected Conference in Toronto. I promised attendees that I would upload my presentation by the end of the week.
The Future of Influencer Marketing (BConnected Conference).
With all my thanks to a wonderful audience.
As promised to all the wonderful attendees at my session at BlogPaws last weekend, the PDF of 10 Principles for Successful Professional Blogging.
Thank you all for attending and being such a great group.
As promised, I’ve finally uploaded the slides from the Media Kit workshop at BlogHer Pro last month: BHPRO MEDIA KIT Workshop (pdf). You may also be interested in the slides from last summer’s Pathfinder Day, Pathfinder Day 2012 FINAL (pdf).
This past Thursday, I delivered my workshop on using social media and blogs to build your brand and professional profile at the Pennsylvania Governor’s Conference For Women. I was honored — pleased — amazed — gratified — excited by the reception given to the workshop, both at the event and afterward.
Quite simply, it reminded me why I love what I do for a living.
The 500 or so women in the audience were very engaged. I had about 6 or 8 questions at the end, and I’m sure there would have been more had I not gotten “the hook” from my timekeeper, because I was mobbed at the podium at the end. The best part was afterward, though, when folks stopped me in the exhibit hall or came to my book signing to talk more about the topic or get my advice on a more personal level.
And my book! I don’t know how many copies of Professional Blogging For Dummies the conference bookstore had on hand, but I do know that the Pennsylvania ladies wiped it out. My book was sold out by 2pm.
What do I do for a living? I help:
But really, what I do is help people and brands tell their stories. And so many of the women at the conference had wonderful stories to tell. I truly hope they start blogs because I want to hear from and about them.
That’s why the very best thing was the thank-you note I got on Facebook today from someone who attended my session and bought the book. She wrote that I inspired her to get moving on her business and a blog.
That makes all the difference.
Because I know that I made a difference.
I love what I do.
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If you are in Houston or Boston, don’t miss the upcoming conferences in these states. I’ll be doing the social media workshop at both, and look forward to meeting you there. In fact, I am giving away a pass to each. All you have to do is leave a comment on my September 25th post for your chance to win.
Good friend Morra Aarons-Mele’s company Women Online is a sponsor of the conferences, in good company with firms like Citizens Bank and State Farm Insurance.
Last week I attended the AARP Orlando@50+ Conference. Snide remarks from friends on Facebook aside, I was not in Orlando as an attendee to plan my post-retirement life, although had I been, there was plenty of information on the show floor and in the sessions to help me. I’m still a couple years shy of the calendar milestone, and as for retirement, that’s at least 20 years off.
I was at the conference to present two workshops on Connecting and Communicating with Social Media as part of Kaplan University’s educational track within the conference. The room was full both times – about 280 capacity – even though the room was as far from the front door as you could possibly get and on Saturday it was one of the last sessions, competing with all the entertainment Orlando offers.
It’s impossible to introduce folks to “everything” social media has to offer in an hour session, so I focus largely on blogs and Facebook. Even then, people – especially in beginner audiences – tend to have very specific “how do I do this…” questions, and there is no way to get to all of them. That’s why I am particularly glad that as part of its deliverables for the AARP attendees, Kaplan has created reinventyourself.kaplan.edu, a site dedicated to expanding on the topics presented at the conference with self-paced in-depth courses on each topic. The site launches October 7. I’ll add a link here once it is live.
I helped develop a course based on my workshop, and got a sneak peek Saturday. The online course developers did a great job translating my concepts to the online interactive format. It is a great start for anyone dipping their toe into social media for the first time, at any age. It’s also free!
Of course, if you want to delve more deeply into blogging, and especially making money on your blog, my book Professional Blogging For Dummies is also a good choice! Links in the sidebar to your online bookseller of choice.
The workshops I am doing for the Conferences for Women in Pittsburgh, Houston and Boston use a similar outline, with a slight shift on focus to women and how these tools can help them personally and professionally. I’m giving away tickets to Houston and Boston; all you have to do is leave a comment on my post Using Social Media to Build Your Brand for a chance to win.
For more on technology use by older Americans, check out this post on the AARP blog ShAARP. I was honored that they included the story about my mom that I use in my workshops to make two important points about technology and the Internet. First, there is no age requirement or limit. Second, don’t think – or let anyone tell you, that you can’t do something. We learn how to do the things that let us accomplish our goals. Even if it seems – or even is – hard.
