I’m back with more #TBSCon coverage! Last week I did a recap of the Vera Bradley Cocktail Party which you can read here. Today it’s all about the speaker part of the conference. I’ll be talking about who spoke, a little of what I learned, and more! The speaker portion is definitely the meat of the conference. It’s incredibly informative and amazing to hear such powerful woman speak! Also all of these women really followed their dreams and made those dreams come true in one way or another. So why would I not want to listen and soak in as much as possible + share it with y’all? 

The speaker portion kicked off Friday morning at the Riviera Conference Center which is right across from Belmond Charleston Place. The center is an old movie theater and just about the coolest place to sit and learn possible. 

Jess and Cathy started the session with a speech and then it was Lindsay Humes who lead the speakers. Lindsay is the creative woman behind White Oak Creative. She designed my site and has saved me time and time again. If you’re EVER thinking about upgrading or just updating your site, Lindsay is the gal for you. She is the sweetest person ever, answers all questions ASAP, and never leaves you high and dry. Not to mention she’s very smart and savvy! 

The main item I learned from Lindsay’s speech is that organizing your blog encourages your readers to engage with past content. Past content is just as useful and helpful as current content. It shouldn’t be stuck in the past! 

Next up, Amy Furry. She wrote the book Recipe for Press, has been an editor, helped build editors, and basically has a laundry list of achievements. While I haven’t started diving into her book yet {life is freaking crazy right now} I absolutely cannot wait to do so! Her speech was over the top informative and passionate. You can tell she loves what she does and she truly wants to help others get to the place they want to be! 

My key takeaways from Amy were to figure out why you want press. Why do you want to be in that magazine or included in that blog post from your favorite site or have your blog listed on that site? What’s your why? This is extremely important to know so when you pitch it comes across passionate, strong, and informative. 

Sarah Bertness from LikeToKnowit was next. I have to admit, I was very very excited to hear her speak. I have been a part of the LikeToKnowit program for about a year now and would definitely like to get more out of it. Whether it’s publicity {regrams} or purchases. It is one of the top ways for bloggers to make money so being a blogger, I’d like to utilize the program the best way possible. I have wedding goodies to pay for after all! 

If you don’t know what LikeToKnowit is or haven’t signed up yet,  you can find out more about it here. 

My favorite thing that Sarah said was, “be a scroll stopper”. What that means is post high quality content, beautiful content that inspires others, unique content that your followers don’t see everywhere else. What you post should stop your followers in your tracks. That’s being a scroll stopper. I really loved that and have reflected on that a lot. I hope to start creating some scroll stopping images for y’all on instagram soon!

Finishing off the session was Victoria from The InStyle Collection. Her topic of focus was “Finding Your Vision”. 

I loved how Victoria talked about pitching. She said make sure your pitch matches your voice from your blog and your instagram. You want to be extremely consistent and authentic. How you represent yourself on your blog outlets should be how you represent yourself in a pitch. If people know who you are, what you stand for, and what your brand is, the right brand that fits your match will partner with you! 

After the speaker session we all strutted over to the Belmond Charleston Place. That is where we had lunch and were able to digest everything we just learned. I LOVE this photo of us all making our way over. Isn’t it the cutest? P.S. do you see me? And the fact that I’m not wearing blue? {ahhhh} 

photos by kim graham photography

Hope y’all enjoyed hearing about the speakers and my key take aways! Please let me know if there is anything you’d like my to elaborate on or if you have any questions. You can always comment below or shoot me an email [email protected]. 

Be on the look out next week for the last part of the conference + all of my looks! 

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