Day 72 : Blog Paws Conference Preview

BlogPaws was founded in 2009 by three pet lovers and bloggers – Caroline Golon of Romeothecat.com and Yvonne DiVita and Tom Collins of Scratchings and Sniffings and Windsor Media Enterprises.

The conferences are a great way for pet bloggers to connect with other pet bloggers  They gather to share expertise, tell stories and support one another. The sessions offer educational training and insight from industry experts in all sorts of topics such as SEO, Branding, Publishing, Video, Email Marketing, Photography, Writing, Blog Platforms, and a lot more.

This year I finally get to attend!

There are just a few days before the BlogPaws 2013 Pet Blogging and Social Media Conference and I want to share with you what’s on my agenda for those 3 days and a few other thoughts from discussions, today,  with fellow members of the Blog Paws Community Conference Newbies Group.

On day one there will be a Be the Change presentation on animal rescue at Sandy Hook and a Bloggers vs Vets discussion on how the 2 sides can work together and network.

There will be an evening welcome reception as well.

On day 2 the opening keynote speech is by Steve Dale then I plan to attend these presentations:

1. Facebook: Building fans to your page.

2. WordPress for beginners and converts.

3. Purina will be hosting a pair of presentations and I chose to attend the 2nd one:

A. The Link Between Diet and Domestication: 10,000 Years of Dietary Influences on the Canine Genome presented by Arleigh Reynolds.

B. Pet Welfare in America presented by Brenda Bax and David Meyer (of Adopt A Pet).

4. Using social media to be an effective advocate,

 On day 3 the opening keynote speech is by Clara Shih, author The Facebook Era.

The presentations I want to attend are:

1. Foundations of reporting for pet bloggers.

2. How to write and print on demand your book in 90 days.

3. Taking Twitter beyond a Tweet.

4.  Standing out in the popular niche of pet blogging.

The evening will be centered on events connected with the BlogPaws 2013 Nose-to-Nose Pet Blogging and Social Media Awards and the “Pawty” afterwards.

There will be an exhibition hall, and plenty of free swag,

I am looking forward to meeting many of my fellow pet blogging friends and also meeting my friend, the creative idea gal, Amanda Socci.

It was announced today that BlogPaws Sold Out and there would be Livestreaming (Details about the livestreaming included).

I went onto the Blog Paws Community website for the first time since before my eye surgeries to catch-up and hopefully learn a few things to help this newbie survive the experience.

The hotel will have free internet for conference attendees, and many attendees will be bringing their laptops and even using them to take notes during presentations.

Me? I’ll bring my laptop, but will be using good old fashioned notepads and pen for note taking.

While the evening events will require business casual, or fancier, attire, many people will be wearing casual during the day, including t-shirts with their pets on them.

I will be bringing mine and will see about wearing it. It would definitely help people familiar with Nikita and Elvira to pick me out of the crowd.

I will be bringing all my Opinionated Pussycat business cards (around 200) and expect to be exchanging cards with many people.

I expect to learn a lot, make some useful connections and who knows what else. Most important I expect to have fun, loosen up, and relax among friends, people who understand me and my love of this particular niche of the blogosphere.

The Blogs of Kiril Kundurazieff:

1. Mad Macedonian

2. The Opinionated Pussycat

3. SMFCB: A 365 Day Project

Day 29: Why Are You On Twitter ? What Do You Use it For?

Why are you a Twit? Or is it a Tweep? I don’t know all the slang, not by a longshot, hee, hee!

What do you, as a writer, hope to gain out of using it?

I originally joined not just as myself, but as Nikita, my cat. “Nikita” participated among other critter tweeps, but I soon noticed a troubling trend. Not everyone he followed or followed him were fellow critter bloggers, but instead people, with little in their profiles, some downright strange, who were tweeting in nonsensical ways. I decided to stop being Nikita, and eventually began to focus my own tweets more on my pet blogging and writing interests.

As for goals: As I focus more on treating my social media platforms less from the hobbyist view and more toward the “I am a writer” view, I hope to use twitter to find a readership and make connections to help me learn and move forward.

To me, following hundreds or thousands of people, or being followed by that many didn’t used to make much sense, however, I have begun to list subjects and am willing to consider following 1000 people, in my interests.

I have never felt guilty about not spending an hour a day or more on twitter, but checking my feed once a day might lead to the discovery of something that could be informative and useful to me.

Share your own thoughts in the comments.

Day 25: Twitter – Reasonably Intelligent Discourse, in 140 Characters or Less

Bad Tweep, bad, bad Tweep! or, changing the way you tweet is good.

I have been on Twitter a while, but never found the time to use it much, or focus my usage in any serious way. I once had a handle for my cat, Nikita, as a way to interact with other critter bloggers, but deleted it when I found a lot of the people with similar accounts that I interacted with were not even fellow critter bloggers and their tweets were often nonsensical.

I used to have reservations about the sheer number of followers I had and even felt so embarrassed by some that I blocked them!

While I still block a lot, I no longer worry about the number of followers I have, knowing I am not required to return the favor every time. I may even stop blocking, period, based on something I read in the piece reviewed below.

Deciding who to follow and how many, found me stuck on the fact that there was no way in hell I was going to read one day of the latest tweets by 1000 Tweeps I may follow. I’ve begun to realize that there is no law that says I have to!

Twitter describes itself this way:

“Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting. Simply find the accounts you find most compelling and follow the conversations.”

140 character conversations? Seriously?

Well, as Twitter explains: “you can discover a lot in a little space. You can see photos, videos and conversations directly in Tweets to get the whole story at a glance, and all in one place”

OK, cool, as long as you come to it with a focus, and not just as a way to fritter away your day doing nothing, the place can be useful, as a way to learn, interact with and make friends, network, and promote your own material and brand.

https://twitter.com/about

I am beginning to focus on following those I find worth it in certain categories related to my interests.

I have begun to use Twitter in a more focused way, doing so following some of the more common conventions popular on the site, not realizing that maybe some of the ways I tweeted were not the best ways to do so.

To give you an idea of what I mean let me share just 6 ½ things Dana Sitar says Twits need to stop doing, like, um, yesterday.

Dana is a “blogger, author, and entrepreneur with a mission to guide you in the pursuit of happiness through writing.”

My friend Amanda Socci recently interviewed her for her own blog.

Both women think Twitter is a useful tool for discovering and connecting with other writers. Who am I to argue? They are so much smarter than me! Not to mention I am finding they are right.

Anyway, back to Dana:

She eloquently makes her case on each of her points in such a way that you may soon feel like an idiot for doing things the way everyone else is doing it just because it’s easier to go along rather than think out of the box.

1. If you are going to “Friendly Friday” (#FF) someone, instead of posting 10 handles a tweet, go out of your way to do a tweet for each person, explaining why you recommend them.

Give your followers a REASON to follow that person!

So, you find that YOU are one of someone’s 10, and you want to say thanks…DON’T include the other 9 in your reply! You will just confuse the hell out of them, not to mention waste space better put to use with a more profuse thank you to the person who FF’ed you.

2.  Forget verification services.

She explains why you are doing yourself harm by using them

Good points, all.

3. Auto-Direct Messaging is bad.

Auto-DM? Don’t recall ever knowing about that!

She makes the point that it is far better to follow back, and explains great ways to engage when you do so.

4. Want to reach more people, especially your followers, when promoting someone with an @mention? She makes 2 points about this, one of which involves taking the time to do a re-write that makes the mention more attractive.

5. Got a profile pic that is something OTHER than your ugly mug all prettied up to show off your good side?

She offers 2 reasons why you shouldn’t, and offers 2 exceptions.

6. She explains why “Please Re-tweet this” every time you share something from your blog is a waste of space.

If you have written something worth reading, or worthy of a Pulitzer, or Nobel, it will speak for itself, and others will be falling all over themselves to share it with the world.

If I am going to learn to be more professional in my social media interactions then getting into the habit of practicing these tips might be a good idea.

Give them some thought. You may find you want to change a few habits yourself.

Check out her blog post for more = http://danasitar.com/2013/01/04/stop-doing-on-twitter-2013/

Check out her blog, DIY Writing = http://danasitar.com

Once there, and having explored the joint a bit, consider subscribing to updates and getting what  appears to be a very interesting free eBook she has written called “A Writer’s Bucket List”.

Creative Idea Gal interview:

One to Watch: DIY Writer Dana Sitar and Her Fabulous Writing Tips http://www.creativeideagal.com/2013/03/18/one-to-watch-diy-writer-dana-sitar-and-her-fabulous-writing-tips/