The Great Melbourne Blog-in V2 #TGMBI

The post blog-in wrap up

Last month, a group of Melbourne-based bloggers gathered for my second ever Great Melbourne Blog-in.  

Blogging can be such an isolating activity. It’s something you do alone and usually with little interaction with other people, let alone real-life people.

The original idea behind the blog-in was to bring Melbourne bloggers together to co-work for the day in a relaxed setting while forming new relationships with other bloggers.

That grew into having guest speakers and it became more about the social side of meeting other bloggers than actually getting any blogging done. Not that anyone complained!

Over the two blog-in events, only two blog posts have been written, but many new friendships formed. I know where I put the value in that equation.

I find the day energising and inspiring. The energy people brought to the room, and their warmth and humour was amazing. So thank you to our attendees. It was also so wonderful to see so many familiar faces from the first blog-in.

Insights from our guest speakers

Nat Alleblas – Driving traffic to your website with Pinterest

We kicked off the morning with Nat Alleblas talking about using Pinterest to grow your blog. She gave us a real life example of how a single pin on her travel blog has brought thousands of people to her blog. After her pin went viral, she was excited to learn more about this search engine – because at its heart, that’s what Pinterest is.

She took us through optimising a pin and our profile, writing the perfect pin description, creating compelling boards and repinning other users’ content. Nat’s session was so interactive with the bloggers firing a multitude of questions and scribbling copious notes.

Nat’s almost finished writing a book about Pinterest for business and you can sign up for her email list to be notified when her book is ready.

Karen Hollenbach – Think Bespoke – Publishing on LinkedIn

Karen from Think Bespoke is a LinkedIn specialist and that was immediately obvious when she took us through the important parts of setting up a viable LinkedIn profile and how to participate in this professional networking platform without coming across like a stinky snake oil salesperson.

Using Karen’s advice, I’m going to take time out to focus on a LinkedIn strategy that addresses what I want do be known for and know who I want to influence

Karen emphasised the importance of the ‘know – like – trust’ cycle. Let people know who we are first, then like us, and ultimately, trust us.

Karen is running a series of online seminars for LinkedIn users. The first seminar is about Understanding LinkedIn for Business and is on March 24th at 10am. It’s $27.00 and during the session, she will show you the four ways to grow your business on LinkedIn.

Some of the bloggers who joined us

There was me (of course!) the host and organiser – find me on Facebook.

And here are some other blog-in attendees:

• Lotti from Rock Paper Video
• Carly Findlay
• Angelique from Social Media Mania
• Nicole from Three Harmony
• Sherry from Inner Rhythm
• Androulla from Empower Beyond
• Natalie Alleblas
• Melinda from The Melbourne Map
• Anne from Word and Web
• Karen from Think Bespoke
• Vi Nguyen from Beauty and Feathers
• Jason from Digital Tools of the Trade
• Debasree Das
• Aditi from Diary of a Cusp
• Kriti Dube from Kinetics of Success

The next Blog-in

I’m currently living in a different hemisphere (find out about the impetus behind that recent big move here) but will organise a blog-in every three months or so when I return to Australia for a visit. Sign-up to my newsletter to find out when the next blog-in will be, though it’s likely to be late May 2017.

I’d love to hear what you got out of the day.