After PodCamp Pittsburgh…

So many words to describe Pittsburgh PodCamp 5: informative, exciting, overwhelming, fun, tiring, engaging… There are more, I’m sure, but my brain is still a bit dead today from the two-day unconference. There were quite a few sessions that I was interested in, with several of those overlapping. Thankfully, all the live feeds will be edited and uploaded in a couple weeks, available for public viewing. For every great class I went to, I heard of another that was equally as awesome.

What I hoped to gain by my attendance was a broader knowledge of using social media and blogging for my business and for the organizations that hire me. That was decidedly a success. And perhaps even saved my sanity.

Here were my sessions:

Day One SEO: All You Want to Know in an Open Discussion; Social Media 201: How Do I Use It; Steps to Build Your Brand in Social Media; Living Out Loud: Real Life Effects of Living Online; SWF Seeks… The Birth of a Blog: How I Evolved From Lurker to Creator.

Day Two Blogging for Business; Managing Social Media: Using Hootsuite to Manage Accounts; Finding Your Fashion Blogging Niche; Social Media Strategy Mapping: Beyond Hub and Spokes.

Within these classes, I now have a better comprehension of SEO tactics (including a better explanation of WordPress plug-ins), using and measuring analytics in both blogging AND social media marketing. I also learned some great blog content creation tips (for my business and personal sites), continuing my brand through different aspects of social media, several links to great resources, book recommendations and more detailed information about SM strategy and mapping.

Personally, Hootsuite will definitely make me more efficient as a SM practitioner, and I couldn’t be more grateful for learning a hands-on approach to this program. And thanks to Terra from SWF, I now know that I need to create a media kit for my blog. Who knew? When I felt I was overloaded with too much information, I attended a few sessions lead by local ‘Burgher bloggers… solely for stalking out the personalities behind the blogs.

The entire weekend series was a combination of practical and informational seminars — where fun and social meets an informative business necessity. More than anything, being new to the city, I found it a great opportunity to meet people (in real life) from my local tech and online community. If you have the chance to attend a PodCamp in your area — and are interested in the social media, podcasting or blogging industries — I definitely recommend the experience.

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