BlogPaws 2012 – Day 3

Photo by Rebecca Jeffs

Saturday morning began with a keynote presentation by Lena West, founder of Influence Expansion. Lena stated that everyone has “money stuff” that holds us back, and she also stated that rather than focus on money, we should focus on expanding our influence. Lena then shared her insights for improving our social media results using her influence expansion system.

The first session I attended that day was Monetization 201 presented by Laurie Ruettimann of The Cynical Girl. I have been tweeting with Laurie for over three years and I was excited to finally meet her, so I sat in the front row like a total fan girl! Laurie is one of the top career advice bloggers in the country, and her presentation on how to become a professional blogger was interesting, inspiring and funny.

At lunch, we watched Kenn Bell’s video Hero Dogs of 9/11. The video focuses on the search and rescue dogs that were at the World Trade Center in New York City following the collapse of the Twin Towers. The video was intense and emotional, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house by the time the lights came back up.

Following lunch, I took my afternoon break to catch up on emails and write a blog post. Then I came back downstairs to attend Taking Your Blog Local presented by Rachel Phelps of PrestonSpeaks.com. While Rachel presented, Preston sat in the front row with his dad full of Westietude! Rachel spoke about developing local content, developing local revenue streams, working with local media, and helping local animal rescue groups.

That evening was the first annual Nose-to-Nose Blogging and Social Media Awards, and we all got to walk the red carpet with our flat or fluffy pets. Be the Change for Animals was nominated for Best Cause Blog, and while we didn’t win, it was an honor to be considered. Congratulations to Deaf Dogs Rock on receiving the Best Cause Blog Award!

Following the awards presentation, everyone partied and celebrated at the Blogpawty, which was also tweeted by the Twitter Anipals including: Cokiethecat, MaggieTKat, CosmoHavanese, Tildatoo, PushupsNPaws, BrutustheDane, IndyKitty, PumpkinPuddy, CheshireK, PepiSmartDog, and of course – BunnyJeanCook. A great time was had by all, and I fell into bed totally exhausted!

Congratulations to BlogPaws on another successful conference, and thanks again to my sponsors (Embrace Pet Insurance, BlogPaws, and my brother Steve) for allowing me to attend. See you next year!