Revive: Blogging Conference Review

This weekend, I went to a blogging conference and all I got was this t-shirt.

Actually, it’s really nice and is now my new fav… and it’s not all I got… read on…

“Revive” is the name of the blogging conference and it was hosted by the gals behind the Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market. If you’ve been following my blog, you know I heart those markets. I’ve blogged about them here, here, and here. I even did a guest blog post recently for Junk in the Trunk’s blog about creative ways to store diapers. So, when they announced a blogging conference, I snapped up a ticket before you could say, Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market (which takes a while to say, actually).

If you follow me on Instagram (@MakingourDream)… you saw my live reports from the scene:

Clockwise from top/left: my DIY’d networking cards, conference hashag (#reviveyourblog), handout from Whippy Cake on branding, Steph balancing snacks on her baby bump, Adrianne & Jeremy speaking, Hubby of the year bringing Miss Camille down for her lunch

Want a closer look at those cards? Okay.

I slapped those puppies together super quick using the fonts and color scheme from the blog and self-printed them on Avery cards. Not the most professional, but they worked. It was nice to have something to hand people when they asked.

I really enjoyed the conference and am still processing everything I learned. The speaker lineup was an impressive list of local (Phoenix-area) bloggers and small business owners:

Becky Crosby of Whippy Cake

Karen Scheffe of Élan Photographie

Ashley Lemiex of The Shine Project

Adrianne & Jeremy Lentine of Dream Book Design

Kimberly Sneed of A Night Owl Blog

Liz Ekstrom of The Blue Eyed Owl

Stephanie Flies* of City Moms Blog Network

Heather Bailey of HELLO My Name is Heather

*Fun fact: Steph designed this here blog you’re reading right now!

It was a lot of fun to see some virtual “friends” in person, meet other creative people and find out about some new blogs. More importantly, I was challenged to think more critically about my own blog. I still need to process and prioritize all the factoids I took in, but among the first things I’ll be doing is a more concentrated effort on connecting more through social media – particularly Instagram. I’ll also be better about the blog’s Facebook page, which often goes neglected. I also need to be really vigilant about Pinterest. Oh man, I was pinaddict a year or so ago and I’ve let that habit die a slow death. However, I still get a ton of traffic to the blog from some of my older projects. Adrianne and Jeremy talked about how to be proactive with Pinterest and I’m definitely going to start doing that.

The conference itself was really enjoyable and I’d recommend it for other Valley-area bloggers if the gals do it again. I think they did an impressive job of attracting quality speakers and attendees. They did a nice and creative job of forcing us to network with new people. Since I knew several folks there, I may not have ventured out as much as I did without their gentle nudging – alright, it wasn’t gentle, but wasn’t painful either! I thought the price was right ($75). We got a swag bag with the t-shirt, handmade notebook, washi tape, free admission to the next Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market and some other little things – really nice & unexpected. The price also included breakfast, lunch and a froyo snack. The venue, The Icehouse, was interesting – architecturally really cool, although a little too cool (temp wise) in the morning. It’s in a shady area of downtown Phoenix (a stone’s throw from the 4th Avenue Jail), but I felt safe there during the day. My “constructive criticism” would be that next time the conference have tables so we could use laptops to take notes and have a bit more room to spread out. Also, I wouldn’t mind more vendor booths for shopping during breaks. This momma doesn’t get out too often and it would be fun to get a little shopping in on a day “off” like this!

Overall, it was awesome and now I have to go read all of these blogs I found out about!

Did you go to REVIVE? Agree with my review? Hate it? Please share…

About Michelle Fortin

Michelle Fortin is a follower of Jesus, a wife and a mom. She's also an award winning broadcast journalist and public relations professional. Michelle spent nearly a decade working in television newsrooms across the country, both behind and in front of the camera. Training future broadcast journalists in her faculty associate roles at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and at Arizona Christian University was a cherished focus of her post-TV career. Today, she maintains a roster of public relations clients focused on empowering fellow “momprenuers.” She also serves as a speaker for various women's and mom's events. Michelle received her bachelor’s degree from Biola University and Master of Mass Communication (MMC) from Arizona State University. She and her husband, two young kids and English bulldog call Scottsdale, Arizona, home.
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