Posts Tagged ‘blogger’
Dear ConAgra, Invite Me To Dinner
If you live in bloggingland like I do, you have heard about the dinner ConAgra did for some food bloggers. The New York times wrote a scathing article about it (however, I have yet to see one article in the New York Times that actually talks highly of bloggers). Basically, in New York (I think the location was their first problem. I can see this going over way better here in Chicago), ConAgra put a dinner on at a restaurant. They said it was a night out with a celebrity chef. For dinner, they had lasagna. It ended up being a Marie Callender frozen lasagna. Once told, some of the bloggers there were mad. In a nutshell, that’s what happened.
ConAgra invited foodie bloggers (now, technically, I could be considered a foodie blogger due to my cooking blog. However, foodies would actually turn their nose at somebody who recommends buying a can of pasta sauce for a casserole which I do all the time.). That is #2 where they went wrong. The bloggers they chose weren’t a good fit. You’ve got a busy mom blogger who has a food blog — heck yeah I’m going for a dinner. If I’m busy growing my own organic veggies, not so much a good fit. They also opened this up elsewhere, because people got invited from all over. Bloggers were able to bring people and/or give away tickets too (#3 of what they did wrong. As a blogger, I would have been a little upset to have misled my readers. They lost control of their invite list.) I also didn’t hear if there was any swag given away either. They also didn’t have an alternative menu for those who didn’t eat meat. Lastly, I can’t tell if they ask if anybody had dietary restrictions. (I add this because on of the posts I read complained about his wife being allergic to food dye and this could have been really bad).
Now, you may be wondering why I am an expert on this. Well, I’ve been invited to one of these dinners myself. Last year, I had dinner at Ben Pao that really was Wanchai Ferry. Did I throw a hissy fit on Twitter for my 25,000 followers? Heck, no. I actually used the coupons in my swag bag and I’ve bought Wanchai Ferry since. I thought it was a great idea and I didn’t mind having to drive to downtown Chicago (they covered the valet parking) and getting a free dinner with my husband. If you click the link above, you’ll find that we thought it was funny and would happily do it again. So ConAgra, I’ll happily have you send me some dinner 
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Top 10 Reasons Why You Need To Attend The Brands & Bloggers Summit!
I went to the most amazing conference last weekend. It was called Brands & Bloggers Summit. Now, you know that I’ve been to many conferences and events. Instead of rehashing the events of this weekend (because there are a ton of posts already out with what we learned. You can also see a lot of what happened on Twitter using the hashtag #bbsummit11.) However, if you are wondering if you should come next year, I’ve got the list:
1. The people. Yes, it was mostly women, so we also know how to take care of one another. One blogger tweeted that they wanted a Diet Coke. If you can believe it, another blogger brought her one. :) Another blogger needed some aspirin and some was given to her. Now, I can honestly say I’ve never been at a conference where I’ve seen such big hearts. Oh yes, we also all took turns holding the babies (who have to say were seen and not heard. And they were cute.)
2. Affordable. Since it was one day, a lot of people drove in Saturday. Some women even drove home Saturday night. It is much more affordable to get a room for one night. (For me, it was a 30 minute drive, so I went home late Saturday night). The conference itself was $100 (I think. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong on that). That include breakfast, lunch, and two snacks. I could have easily spent $100 on food in downtown Chicago myself on a Saturday. :) It also helps that we have 2 airports for those flying in.
3. Wifi and power cords. I can’t tell you how many conferences I’ve been to where the Wifi doesn’t work or there are 3 outlets in the entire room and hundreds of bloggers. MJ (the awesome lady who put this on) is a blogger herself, so she knew we’d need this stuff!
4. Breaks for networking. I’ve never been to a conference where there was actual time scheduled into the day, so we could all network. That’s what this is all about — making connections and learning new things. In our networking time, I found out that one of the women at my table (who I’d never met before), actually lives 5 minutes from my house. Now, how crazy is that? If that network time wasn’t there, I may have missed ever talking to her. I also found that that another wonderful woman at our table had read my interview in the newspaper (it was a couple of years ago), and she’s read my site ever since. I can’t tell you how warm and fuzzy that makes me feel.
5. Organization. We all had QR codes on our badges. Also, the back of the badge was our agenda for the day. (Again, I’ve never seen that done before). At all times, you knew what was next and how long it would take. Everything pretty much ran on time.
6. It was great for brands also. Our information was put in for a grand prize. All we had to do was visit each booth and get a sticker. I thought this was brilliant, so that we visited each booth (which I would have done regardless, but not everybody did). The brands there also were a great fit with the moms there. I found products that I would have never even seen before.
7. Miss Lori. Not only did we get to hear her perform for us, she also gave an awesome speech (which I’ll be blogging about this week).
8. No egos. The speakers hung with us during the conference and even after. I’ve been to many of a conference where the speakers weren’t good enough to hang with the rest of us lowly bloggers nor would they talk to us either. (I do have to add that the conferences I’ve been at with John Chow and Chris Brogan that they have never acted like that even with their A list status.)
9. The after party rocked. We got to go to the John Hancock Observatory. I’ve never been there, so it was pretty awesome. It was also great to network with the other bloggers I didn’t get a chance to during the conference itself.
10. This was the best conference I’ve ever attended hands down. I’ve been to BlogHer, and it was even better than that. Many times, the complaint I have with conferences is that I’m not a beginning blogger. I’ve been doing this longer than some of the speakers at other conferences. I’ll be honest — nothing is more annoying that knowing more than speaker (and I’m not trying to be rude about that. You know what you know. However, I don’t like paying hundreds of dollars to learn what I already know.) I learned something from each of the speakers at the Brands & Bloggers Summit!
I highly, highly, highly recommend heading out to the Brands & Bloggers Summit next year. It is definitely worth and hope to see you there!
Disclosure: I did receive a complimentary ticket to this years event. However, all opinions are mine.
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