Blog Camp 2016

Last weekend, alongside many other bloggers, I attended Blog Camp. Blog Camp is a free blogging event held by Flea Enterprises, which includes Tots 100 (the parent bloggers) Foodies 100 (the food bloggers) and Hibs 100 (the lifestyle and interior bloggers). This year, the event was sponsored by The Wood Window Alliance.

I went to this event last year, and had a brilliant time, so I was really looking forward to it. Unlike last year, I wasn’t nervous in the slightest – I just couldn’t wait to meet up with some of my blogging friends and learn new things to help me to improve my blog. I barely took any photos though – we were having so much fun I completely forgot!

I met up with Zara from Mojo Blogs and Nikki from Keeping Strong and Moving Forward at Birmingham’s Grand Central – even though I’m a Brummie, it was the first time I had been there. We made our way to The Studio, where the event was being held. After finding our badges, we headed to the main seating area to grab a pastry or two and the first of many, many coffees!!

We then headed to the main room, where the introduction was. The table was a mass of notebooks, pens, drinks and mobile phones – I love the fact that blog conferences are the one place where you can all sit and play with your phone without appearing rude! Even more weird was the fact that Zara, Louise from Birds and Lilies and I were chatting online, as well as sitting next to each other.

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We decided to go to the Collaborative Blogging session to start with. A collaborative blog (one where multiple bloggers contribute)  is something that I had never even considered before, but I know I have come away from that session with a few ideas – just need the time to do something with them!

Zara and I then decided to stay for the Pinterest Tips and Tricks Session, with Sarah Barnes from Taming Twins. I love Pinterest – I can lose myself for hours on there looking for all sorts of random stuff, and do get a fair bit of traffic from there. It’s something I want to really continue and develop, and some of the ideas and tips were really interesting and helpful. For example – people start to pin for events two months in advance, so in September/October, people will start to pin ideas ready for Christmas. We did get a fit of the giggles over something absolutely ridiculous though, so if anyone saw two women shaking in the corner, and possibly letting out the odd snort – that was us!!

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We then met back up with Louise, and decided that we would miss the next lot of sessions, and just have a coffee or three and a natter. It was lovely to sit back in the bright conservatory style room and just talk. We all speak every single day, but it is rare that we all get to meet up in person, and boy, we made the most of it!

Sitting there meant we were also first in line for lunch – there was a selection of sandwiches and wraps, salad and potato wedges. Not bad for a free event, and I’ve discovered that chicken and avocado is one of my favourite sandwich combos!

We then went and found the room for the next talk, which is one we had been looking forward to and knew it was going to be useful. It was time-saving tips for busy bloggers, by Mel Knibb and Aby Moore from You Baby Me Mummy. I found Aby’s part of the session really useful – that woman is a machine! I’ve already put some of her tips into practise, such as setting up keyboard shortcuts.

After another coffee and cake break, we headed back for the Pinterest Advanced session, which was a follow on from the morning one. Again,we picked up absolutely loads of tips, such as using Tailwind to schedule pins, and using affiliate links. Zara and me ended up having another fit of giggles over (sorry Sarah, it was absolutely nothing you said, just our very childish sense of humour!). This time neither of us could stop laughing – every time we looked at each other, we started again. I ended up having to leave the room to calm myself down! I haven’t laughed like that in a long, long time, and my tummy still hurt the next day.

The final session was about making money, with Emma Drew from From Aldi to Harrods. As she makes more than £2500 a month from her blog, she is definitely the lady to listen to! I found it really interesting that most of her income comes from affiliate links, which is something I have started to work on, so it was really useful.

We weren’t quite ready to say goodbye to one another and go home, so we headed over to Grand Central to have a mooch around some of the shops – Tiger and Hema really are a bloggers paradise, with all the cute stationery and photo props. After an enjoyable hour or so having a wander, we all went on our seperate ways, until BML next month!

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2 thoughts on “Blog Camp 2016”

  1. Oh I’m glad you had such a good time. I’ve never made it to a blogging conference but I definitely need some pointers so I should do really. I love the new Grand Central Station too, it’s such a lovely space now and I need to make time to look around properly.
    Nat.x

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