Alt for Everyone Recap -and- Giveaway!

Forgive the hiatus… I’ve been a very busy bee. For the last several days, on top of tons of interviews and work, I’ve been participating in Alt Summit’s all-online Alt for Everyone conference. It’s a little nerdy and a whole lot of fun—the perfect solution to help beat my limp celery blueeeess *cue jazz music.*

As a participant in the conference, I get to attend seven classes, one keynote, and one meet-n-greet type session. I won’t get too into the nitty gritty details, but to summarize, I listened in on:

Branding with the amazing Rachel Shingleton of Pencil Shavings Studio. Rachel was so wonderful and this was such a great class to start with—she built out several prompts to better identify what my blog / brand is and what my brand is not. Not quite as easy as it sounds, but hopefully my new brand can help drive the success of Musings she Wrote!

Break into Video with the bubbly Alison Faulkner of The Alison Show. Alison literally named her show after herself. But she’s the main attraction; she’s super engaging and upbeat and was great about expressing the importance of just getting out there. Down the road, I hope to build more video content into the blog, but I’m still working out the kinks so bear with me.

The ABCs of SEO hosted by the king of “geek chic,” Duane Forrester of Bing. Duane was an incredible resource, chock full of various techniques and widgets and all kinds of nerdy analytics. Not only will his course help me grow my blog, but it’ll also help me build my family’s business and help me professionally.

Working with Brands, sponsored by Collectively, Inc. Working with brands—big and small—is how bloggers make money nowadays. And as a PR professional, I was interested in both sides of the equation. As a blogger, I think collaborations are a great way to share the things I love with my readers, so I’m working on it!

Making Money in a Changing Media Landscape with Meg Keene of A Practical Wedding. This class was really interesting, in that it taught me that more and more, bloggers have to get creative about leveraging their brand for the moneysss. It was also an exercise in humility. I, unsurprisingly, am small potatoes in the blogosphere.

Overcome Overwhelm with Hilary Rushford of Dean Street Society and Whitney English. This class was amazing (and I tweeted up a storm while watching it). Hilary and Whitney were just *so good* together, building off one another’s ideas and promoting general debauchery. This class was by far my favorite—blogging meets goal-setting meets talking nerdy about organization. How could a type-A creative like me say no?

How to Win Your Dream Sponsor with Erin Loechner of Design for Mankind. Erin covered her own pitching techniques and how others can adapt and personalize their approaches. Great insight!

I came away from the conference with a newfound passion for creativity, and so many ideas and tips and I a little bit feel that my head might explode—so bear with me if I start getting my blog on. I can’t help it!

As part of the conference, Alt sent “goodie bags” full of treats—things like cards, gift tags, reusable gift wrap, more gift tags… there seemed to be a theme. Giving.

And because I thought Alt was amazing, I thought I’d share a little bit of that experience with my wonderful readers by sharing some of the loot, specifically a three pack of lip gloss in scrumptious springy colors. I know it’s not anything extravagant, but it’s still a fun surprise! And I’m now reaching out to some of my favorite brands to be able to do things like this more often.

The Inside and Out lip colors come in three colors and are 100% certified organic. Further, the company donates 10 percent of all revenues to charities that support women. Amazing, right 🙂

There are several ways to enter:

—> Tweet about me with a link to mariandaniells.com.
—> Leave an engaging comment on any of my posts.
—> Start following me on Twitter, Bloglovin, or subscribe via the “follow” tab at the bottom right of the screen.

You can enter as many times as you want between now and May 20th. At that point, I’ll work to calculate all the submissions and pick one at random! Best of luck and thanks for sharing in my Alt for Everyone experience.