A few months ago, my dear friend, Charlene DeLoach of Charlene Chronicles invited me to a unique event called Blogger Bash. Billed as “10 themed parties that will serve as networking opportunities between bloggers and big-name brands from baby to travel,” my immediate thought was ‘how would this appeal to me?’ After all, I’m not going to many blogging conferences anymore. After blogging for more than a few years, I feel that I’ve typically aged out of a lot of the information that is presented at these events. I’m also not much of a product reviewer.
However, as a consultant, blogging is much of my working world (I’m Engagement Strategist over at SheSpeaks and have my own business, Pivoting Media), and I felt there could be potential opportunity for me at this conference and I’m not one to miss the what was billed as THE blogging event of the season. When the day come, and it was time to put on clothes other than my daily jeans worn while working at home, I was really pleased to make the trek into the city.
I was even more pleased when I realized that just about every blogger I have met working in this space and have grown to love would be joining me at BloggerBash. Charlene joined forces with Laurie Schacht of Toy Insider, The Big Toy Book and Joey Fortman of Real Mom Media and their combined outreach certainly brought in the masses. Friends like Jill Smokler of Scary Mommy, Ellen Seidman of Love That Max, Jennifer Wagner of Connect with Your Teens, Fadra Nally of All Things Fadra, Esti Berkowitz of Primetime Parenting, Ciaran Blumenfeld of Momfluential, Estelle Erasmus of Musings on Motherhood & Midlife and many more (several of my faces in the pic above) were in attendance, and more importantly, we had time to talk. The conference had only a few planned panels – most of it was saved for networking with the brands. After a few months of trying to find myself in this crazy world, the event brought me back to earth and helped me appreciate the voice I’ve carved out in this community. I loved sharing stories of successes, failures, life, business and more with these wonderful, amazing women.
Meeting with Brands
As for the event, imagine over 100 toy brands in one space in 24 hours! I am so impressed with what my friends pulled off. We were able to have one on ones with the brands, something that is really hard to do at the usual blogging conferences. Some of the brands I especially enjoyed meeting at one of their events were Rooibee Red Tea, Fashion Angels, Fat Brain Toys, Bananagrams and so many others. Better yet, a week later, a package arrived at my door filled with products too heavy to bring home. It was Christmas in July.
Source: Life Without Pink on Instragram
Kudos to Charlene and company for putting on a new kind of event for the blogging community. Long may it last.
Disclosure: I received a pass to Blogger Bash but all opinions shared are my own.
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You said what many of us have thought recently. Have we outgrown the conferences? And sometimes, I think yes. Most of the learning I can do is on-the-job training. But the real reason I go is what made Blogger Bash so wonderful for me. It’s the women (and sometimes men, but mostly women) that are peers, colleagues, and friends. It’s nice to professionally network and personally visit. So great to see you!!!
Thanks for stopping by, my friend.
One of the many highlights of the event for me was getting to spend time with you. I found that I could not write about Blogger Bash in one post. I already wrote blogged about Alex’s Lemonade Stand http://connectwithyourteens.net/childhood-cancer-alexs-lemonade-stand/ and my next post from Blogger Bash is going to be about all the great games, including Bananagrams.
I’m going to read this! Love your posts, Jennifer.
Dear Holly. It was such a treat to see you and get a great photo with you at Blogger Bash. I am working on my post and will link to yours when I do it. Thanks for mentioning my blog Musings on Motherhood & Midlife in your roundup. XO
Yes, I adore this photo, too, Estelle. It really captured my day of seeing fab women!