Minnesota Blogger Conference #MNBLOGCON

The last six months have been a whirlwind of sorts.  After a few failed attempts at starting a blog, I finally found a topic that kept me motivated enough to keep writing about.  Since starting my blog I have been fortunate enough to connect (online & in person) with many other bloggers in the Twin Cities through the Twin Cities Blogger Collective and now the Minnesota Blogger Conference.

As both an introvert and a relatively new blogger I was a bit nervous to attend last Saturday but was quickly welcomed in by this whole big community of local bloggers.  St Catherine’s University was a beautiful location to attend the conference at.

I most enjoyed that the presenters were able to give tips and lessons for bloggers of all levels.  Since I am more of a hobby-blogger and still figuring out what I want my blog to include it was nice to see and hear about all of the options out there.

The three lessons that I learned that I will implement right away are:

• Create a style guide for my blog!  It had never occured to me to set a “brand” for my blog and make sure pictures/text/style is consistent.  Luckily I am still in the early stages of the blog so it won’t take too long to edit past posts to match my new (still to be determined) brand.  I have started looking through fonts, colors, watermarks and am slowly narrowing down how I want my blog to look.
• Canva is my new best friend!  How had I not heard about this site/app until this conference.  Image Intagram x 1000!  I’ve spent quite a bit of time playing on the website and seeing all of the options.  I don’t want to get too ahead of myself on it until I set up my style guide (see lesson 1).
• Take good photos! During one of the breakout sessions, sponsored by Minnesota Beef Council, Alice Seuffert from Dining with Alice gave us some really great advice for taking photographs of food.  We even had the opportunity to practice onsite!  The next time I’m taking photos of a cooking project of mine I will be using her tips.

While at the conference there was an opportunity to get a professional headshot taken by Glimpses of Soul Photography.  Oddly enough I have been out of college for over 10 years, but have never gotten a headshot taken.  I’m excited to see how it turns out and be able to upload it to my blog.

I left the conference feeling more confident on what I am doing and proud to say that I am a blogger.  I have a few other ideas that I learned at the conference that I’m hoping will work out in 2016 so I will keep you updated as those come out.

Overall, I had a really positive experience and can’t wait until next year’s conference to see what other new skills I can learn.

My favorite “selfie” of the day! Laura from One Girl Two Cities, myself, and Heather from Simply Save. These ladies are so sweet!  Photo by: Laura @1girl2cities