Portland Bloggers Social Media Strategies Meetup

Last Saturday was our Portland Bloggers Social Media Strategy Class hosted at SwellPath headquarters and led by Ashley Stuart (of SwellPath). I like to think that this event was the complimentary 200 level class to pair with our upper 100 level course we held earlier. The class took a deeper look into social media, from the familiar Twitter to newer platforms like Quora. The main purpose of the event was to help attendees familiarize themselves with newer outlets, while simultaneously assisting in honing their skills on existing platforms (because media are constantly changing!). The power-point for the event was made available by Ashley here, and even as an attendee I plan on reading through it a few more times.

As an organizer of Portland Bloggers, it’s my job to help connect the local businesses to our members, all influential writers of the Portland area. It’s honestly up there on my list of absolute favorite things to do (aside from feasting in my accomplishments and hugging restaurant owners). One of the reasons I felt this event was such an enormous success was due to our spread from some amazing Portland area businesses.

Photos by The Soft Season Photography

This event really had an amazing line up of vendors to support it! In addition to Swellpath, we had decadent donuts from Blue Star Donuts, beautiful macarons from Nuvrei Café & Patisserie, and delicious coffee from Water Avenue Coffee Company! Needless to say, nothing lasted past the event really, aside from a maple bacon donut I had snatched up early to bring home to Ktams. An afternoon of sweets and caffeine matched the event well, as all of the attendees were abuzz with questions and stories by the end of the presentation. The day was captured beautifully by fellow Portland Bloggers Jaden and Grace of The Soft Season Photography! They are a crazy fun couple to work with and they excelled at capturing great moments throughout the event!–they even stayed after and took some head shots for attendees at no extra cost to them!

Photos by The Soft Season Photography

Perhaps you are reading this as a member or prospect of Portland Bloggers, or maybe as a business or an outsider (as in not in Portland)—I need to take a moment to describe the atmosphere of Portland Bloggers to you because I feel that it is something to be experienced. This community of bloggers, some new to the arena and others veterans, aren’t just writers. In so many cases they are working part- or full-time in addition to their writing, and yet on TOP of that they want to give back to the community. I was approached by multiple people wanting to help the group continue to thrive and grow, and to have fellow bloggers step forward and do things simply out of the kindness of their hearts to help others continues to pleasantly surprise me. Look at the last event for example—we had six photographers donate their time, expertise and effort to help others have professional photos, not just for their blogs but for Linkedin and other professional accounts as well. We also have businesses sharing their space and coming into work on their off-time (in many cases) to help host events and share expertise. My heart is so full knowing that there are so many supporters out there.

Thank you again to the event vendors that made this possible!