Bloggy Boot Camp: Charlotte, NC

We got back last night from the 4 day trip that I WON to Bloggy Boot Camp in Charlotte, NC. (Thank you SITS Girls, I’ll love you forever.)

We left on Thursday from Pennsylvania and drove down to Charlotte. We spent all day driving, and pulled in at 1am, so we didn’t technically get there until Friday. Eddie went with me. It was a kid-free long weekend! (our first one since 2011.)

I will have more posts coming telling you all about Charlotte. Today I want to focus on the conference.

It started Friday night with a kick-off cocktail party. I buddied up with Brenna from Life After Laundry. We “met” online last year during Online BlogCon, but this was the first time we met in real life. Brenna is adorable and so sweet and I could listen to her southern accent ALL DAY.

Saturday was the day of the actual conference. Eddie booked tee times at two different golf courses and was gone all day, so don’t worry about him. We were told to dress casually and that the room might be chilly because of the air conditioning, so this is what I wore.

Shirt: Calvin Klein
Jeans: the Limited
Flip Flops: LL Bean

We got our name tags and were assigned seats for the first few sessions. Brew Over Ice was there with Keurigs so that we could make iced coffee or Snapple. (Did you know they make Snapple K-cups? I didn’t.)

Tiffany and Fran, founders of the  SITS Girls and Bloggy Boot Camp, did some talking and then the presentations began.

First we heard from Ashley and Shell, two bloggers who had been able to turn their love of social media into real jobs (making real money) managing Facebook or other social media accounts for businesses.

Then we heard from Casey, the Director of Analytics for Collective Bias. He spoke about Search Engine Optimization and Analytics. A year ago I might have fallen asleep, but I’ve fallen deep enough down the blogging rabbit hole that these numbers are important to me and I was really engaged.

Then we heard Brittany from That’s Vandy speak about blog design. She had some great tips that I definitely plan to implement. I think her talk was my favorite of all the tech-focused. (I’ll do another post soon with my top 10 take aways)

We broke for lunch (chicken, veggies, and key lime pie) and then my favorite part…

I got to hear Robin O’Bryant! Robin is the author of the hilarious book Ketchup Is a Vegetable and Other Lies Moms Tell Themselves. I was offered a trip to the Bloggy Boot Camp of my choosing, but I chose to go to Charlotte because I knew Robin would be speaking. She spoke about the world of publishing and how to break through the door.

With Lori from Loripalooza and Robin O’Bryant.

Then Cynthia from Nap Warden designs spoke a little bit about photo editing, specifically using PicMonkey. I got a few take aways from this session as well, like the way I save my files. I’ll be saving as .png instead of .jpeg from now on.

Then Tiffany and Fran from the SITS Girls spoke some more and we all broke for a wine tasting. I don’t drink alcohol, so this normally wouldn’t be up my alley, but I had a great time.

I got to meet Stephanie from When Crazy Meets Exhaustion and a lot of other new friends.

I had an awesome time. I think if I was a new blogger I would have been completely overwhelmed and curled up in the fetal position after all of the tech-speak and business talk, but I am at a point in my blogging career that made everything very relevant and super helpful.

Thank you SITS Girls!!!!!