Blog Camp : Blogging About Blogging
It's that time of the year. I've attended Blog Camp UK and I'm going to bang on a bit about what I learnt, what inspired me and how I move forward with my blog. Non-bloggers look away now.
Have they gone? OK, lets get down to it. First of all... I LOVE BLOG CAMP. Every time I attend one I come away re-enthused about blogging and full of ideas. I want to spend time evaluating what the speakers said, think about how I can implement that to my advantage and find ways to keep creating interesting content. That's what I want to come away from any blogging conference with, to be honest, but I have total confidence that Blog Camp will deliver every single time.
The agenda was ram-packed and there were a few sessions that were double-booked but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and go with your gut instinct. I'm glad I did as I managed to centre some thoughts and get clarification on my idea of the way forward.
For a full list of the speakers you can see the Blog Camp UK website or the Tots100 blog (who totally stole my idea for this blog post title, by the way). I wonder if you can work out the ones that I went to listen to? Think #nerd, #sarcasm and #inspiration and you're half way there. I shall share some of the best tips of the day with you, though:
- Links in and out of your blog are good. With reference to the dofollow/nofollow discussion you should dofollow genuine links and nofollow paid links. The End. (ref: Lee Smallwood, Geek le Freak)
- Grow, Change, Evolve (ref: Muireann Carey-Campbell, bangs, bun, spikes, heels)
- If you think a PR is feeding you bullshit then contact the brand direct (ref: Stephen Waddington, apologetic on behalf of all PR companies)
- Don't be a dick! (ref: Stu Heritage, Snark-Extraordinaire)
We might get worried about the technical side of blogging, wonder how we can monetize our blogs and stay legal, try to figure out who might be copying our content, become obsessed with how other bloggers are getting on our tits... but it's all about publishing new content and keeping the internet alive. It's about being a community and supporting each other. There's enough posts out there to keep us all out of mischief so if you see something you don't like then move on or offer a constructive viewpoint. Make your journey around the World Wide Web an enjoyable and memorable experience for yourself and everyone else.
But the biggest lesson that I learnt is that it's important to go all out to get a good photo angle but remember, you're surrounded by bloggers who are doing exactly the same...
To see exactly how I got this amazing (!) picture, have a look at "Blog Camp : Caption Time". And don't forget to have a read of why I took three jackets to Blog Camp UK too.
Blog Camp sponsors - Skype and Growing Up Milk - who made the event totally free for all attendees.