Getting out of bed before 9am is a bit of a mission in itself (especially if I'm not getting paid to do so),so you can imagine the level of excitement I must have felt to willing get out of bed at 6am (well technically 6.45am because I hit my snooze button like 5 times) to attend Hand-picked Media's gets Social Event
Hand Picked Media is a Social Media Agency that hand picks the best and most innovative UK blogs to work it, effectively creating a community of bloggers that believe in delivering a versatile message of quality not quantity to their readers. They help to promote blogs, open a channel of information as well as work with PR agencies on their bloggers behalf to create exciting campaigns that are exclusive to bloggers. So knowing this little snippet of information it does seem like a best fit for them to pull off this absolutely great blogging conference.
Now I personally believe that this event was more like the ultimate blogging conference than a typical event as I feel that I absorbed sooo much knowledge and tips from purely sitting in my seat listening to these professional speak so passionately and informatively on their chosen fields on SEO, site traffic, Blogger and PR Relationships, Journalism, the possible future for Bloggers in the media, and Online vs. Print Media. I think Hand-picked Media did a fantastic job in approaching speakers who could advise and relate to problems and thoughts that bloggers encounter with their blogs. While all the speeches from all the Speakers and the Beauty/Fashion Panels where all insightful and relevant, I think my favourite talks of the day came from Garry Davies and Mark Borkowski.
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| Our Honourable Beauty and Fashion Panel |
Garry Davies from Why Communicate spoke about his top 10 tips *even though I'm sure I counted 11* on how to successfully promote and increase your blog traffic by making the most of the tools available to us on the web. With pointers on how to interlink your posts and pages, use blog rolls, the importance of Meta-titles and Meta-descriptions, as well as using readily available and free social platforms (Facebook, Linked-in, Google + etc.) to effectively increase your blog traffic as well as decrease your blog's bounce rate. I hand on heart, believe I learnt so much from him, that despite him informing us that his slideshow will be available to use online I still managed to write 4 pages worth of notes that I plan to put into action this week.
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| Garry Davies giving us his SEO speech |
Mark Borkowski IS the PR Guru King! His slideshow and speech on Media Communications, PR and Strategies was an eclectic mix of confidence, animation and experience with a hint of controversy that captivated my attention from the start.. I am not kidding his slide show and one-liners were just so graphic and effective I literally did not want to shift my focus away from the podium in case I missed something ground breaking. Thinking back it was a struggle to quick share his one-liners onto the #HPMSocial twitter hash tag as I was secretly afraid I might miss another ultimate one-liner.
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| Mark Borkowski doing what he does best. |
Bourjois, Keihls, Daniel Henderson, Biotherm, Shu Emura, Feel Good, Kenneth Green and my new found infatuation China Doll Boutique were the proud sponsors of the event and when I spoke to some of the people behind the brands they all seemed very knowledgeable and answered all my questions about their products which was great, however when speaking to Nhuc Tran (China Doll Boutique) and Caroline Foxbury of Feel Good, they spoke with such passion and enthusiasm, and it was just soo contagious that I am actually excited to go out of my way to buy and review some of their products just because they believe in it so much *that's a bit geeky isn't it?? Oh well it's true*
