This weekend I attended my first ever blogger conference. It was organized by Los Angeles Latina Bloggers and it was a great event. There were about 50 attendees, all bloggers who happened to be Latina. These were really creative, bright and beautiful women, who are writing some great blogs. I had the good fortune to meet some women whose blogs I follow, and some other women who I didn’t know but met them and their blogs, and found out we are practically neighbors!
The conference speakers lectured about branding for your blog and optimizing your social media presence. One of the things I learned is that if I want to reach more people with my blog I need to use more social media. I already have a Facebook personal page, which has been a good way to reach all you FB friends. It’s also been a good way to keep tabs on my teen daughter. However, even though FB is popular, Twitter is the next big thing. In fact, I am so late in jumping on this bandwagon, I think Twitter is not next big thing, it is the big thing. When I walked into this conference everyone had their phones out and was “tweeting.” I had no idea what everyone was tweeting about–it sounded like a foreign language to me. When one of the presenters spoke with me, he asked me what my blog focus was, then he asked me if I had a Twitter account. I said no, and asked him if I should have one. He smiled and said wait until his presentation. Well, during his presentation I began to see the value of the of blogging and tweeting. Before I attended this conference I considered getting a Twitter account but I decided against it, because I figured I really didn’t want to be that connected. I don’t even update my FB page that often anymore. However, after meeting the fellow bloggers at this conference, I realized there is a lot of support among bloggers using Twitter. So, I have succumbed. But first, in the next week or so, I will attempt to learn what I can about Twitter. What is it? How do I do it? How do I use it with my blog?
What about you? Do you Tweet?
Depends on objectives as to what to adopt and where to expend energy. If you are seeking a wider audience most definitely embrace a wider set of platforms for connecting. Each platform you add to the quiver comes with overhead. Time for sure. Money possibly. Twitter and Facebook are wildly popular but they are not the only platforms for being in touch.
Thanks for your input. I guess once I start tweeting I see if there’s value to the overhead I put into it. This blogging thing can certainly morph into a real time sucker!
It was so awesome meeting you.. and Tweeting has helped me get my blog out to masses that can Retweet it to their masses.. and so on .. you don’t have to update you status (Tweets) much if you don’t to… but after a while .. you WILL be hooked .. we can meet for lunch with Vanessa and we can give you a Twitter lesson ;)!