Phew! Mitten Moms Conference marks the end of my crazy season of blogging and I survived! I survived the conference season madness, and I must say the masochist in me liked it. Hanging out with my besties cancels out the lack of sleep and fewer slots on my editorial calendar because I was able to drink wine (in person) with my besties. Err… because I learned stuff. Err… because I connected with brands. Oh heck, I don’t know, it’s a little bit of everything!
2013 MITTEN MOMS CONFERENCE RECAP
MITTEN MOMS CONFERENCE SESSIONS
Let’s be honest with ourselves for a minute, blogging sessions can fall flat 90% of the time if you have been blogging for any length of time. It’s true. Veteran bloggers typically attend a conference to establish relationships with brands, and see their gal pals, because they know how to do the tasks newer bloggers are dying to learn. With that said, there are topics veterans need to revisit because they aren’t hip with the times and need a refresher.
- Example: Branding 101 with Molly Mason was good for new and old bloggers alike. I could go on and on about this but I won’t because my post will get too long and only a handful of you care about branding. My biggest tip for you is- stop what you are working on and figure out your brand. Trust me.
- Example: Marketing vs PR by Identity PR seemed to be the AH-HA moment of the conference because there IS a difference between the two and plenty of bloggers aren’t privy to that information. My product minimum isn’t outrageously high but it could prevent me from working on some PR campaigns because they don’t have room in the budget. It’s a wicked world of give and take!
Attending Mitten Moms Conference provoked a very similar realization to the one I had about branding, people pay for a specific niche. They pay, and they pay well, because it’s smart product placement for their goods and/or services. Mitten Moms is designed to be a conference connecting Michigan bloggers with Michigan brands (Meijer, Carhartt, United Dairy Industry of Michigan, etc). It’s genius because everyone prefers to hype their home state over ‘the other guy’. It’s sort of like this-
Yes, I live near Flint. No, I don’t live next to a drug dealer. Yes, downtown Flint is amazing, you should go.
- Example: Cooper Street Cookies was a sponsor and boy was he adorable. (Adorable, like I admire his ambition, not OMG I want him to be my mister.) Cooper Street Cookies is a Birmingham based company who could be singing the praises of bloggers very soon because bloggers get it done. Blog marketing is about more than page views and Twitter followers, it’s about getting your product in the correct hands and in front of the right eyes. Helloooo… Michael took the cookies I brought home to work… in Clarkston!
- Example: United Dairy Industry of Michigan sponsored a breakfast demo by Liz Della Croce of The Lemon Bowl, and was a natural way to integrate their brand (milk) into a ‘session’ everyone would attend. Kudos, UDIM. Kudos. As bloggers, we strive to create evergreen content surrounding a product so people actually read it and that is what UDIM did for us.
Despite coming home with a few new dairy recipes and learning the difference between marketing and PR, my biggest take away from the Mitten Moms Conference was….
Experiencing Middle Eastern food for the FIRST TIME!
You guys, news like this is worthy of its own blog post because my eating habits (or lack thereof) are THAT big a deal! It boiled down to a ‘when in Rome’ dinner situation and it turns out Middle Eastern food is pretty flippin’ tasty.
Special thanks to United Dairy Industry of Michigan for sponsoring my conference trip!
