3 MAJOR BENEFITS TO ATTENDING BLOG EVENTS AND HOW THEY CAN BOOST YOUR BLOG SUCCESS

“Attending events is more than just a fun day out, they can genuinely impact the success of your blog”

If you’ve read a lot of my blog tips posts, especially my post all about my blogging routine and how I juggle a full time blog and full time job then you’ll know that one disadvantage I’ve experienced as a result of juggling so much, is a lack of time to attend lots of events. I’m invited to wonderful events all the time, press days, trips abroad, parties, dinners, days out etc, I try my hardest to attend as many as possible, but what comes with having a busy life is not a lot of time to spare. And so events have always been the main thing I’ve had to sacrifice in order to ensure I have enough time just to keep my blog and career running. Especially last year when my career was really taking over my life.

As I mentioned in this post, I’ve definitely noticed the impact that this  has had on my blog success and growth, in particular on my network and all the benefits a strong and broad network brings to any career, but especially blogging. The benefits of attending events goes far beyond simply a fun day out … events can genuinely benefit your blog, and have quite a major impact on it’s success, today I thought I’d share the reasons why. And why I will be making a big effort this year to start attending more events and getting more involved in the community.

3 MAJOR BENEFITS TO ATTENDING BLOG EVENTS AND HOW THEY CAN BOOST YOUR BLOG SUCCESS

An opportunity to build your business network

Events, PR days, trips and parties are a great opportunity to build your business network, an opportunity to get to know people better, build stronger relationships with brands, with PR agencies, with agents, other bloggers, future clients … Whilst events are so much fun (and so they should be), they’re also a really brilliant opportunity to get your blog and brand out there. I am most definitely not a fan of over selling yourself (you’ll see no elevator pitches here), but being yourself and getting to know people better will only build a stronger network and open doors for future relationships and opportunities. When a business or company knows YOU, then a) you’re more likely to come to mind for future projects, and b) they are more likely to want you to get the opportunity. Read my posts on the importance of a network & how to network for more information!

An opportunity to extends your support network

It’s not just about future clients and extending your business network, attending events is also an amazing way to get to know other bloggers, make friends, create a support network and generally feel more a part of this community. And you can’t underestimate the power and value in being an active part of the community. More than just a friend supporting your journey and being that cheerleader you need every now and then, you also never know the commercial and blog growth benefits that could come your way when you have friends putting you forward for things or suggesting you for projects they’re working on, or even wanting to collaborate.

An opportunity to harness social coverage & traffic

The other major benefit to attending press events is harnessing the coverage and buzz the events attract, whether that’s the brand or company engaging with you and featuring you across their channels (exposing you to their audience), or you maximising the opportunity to reach new audiences through engaging in social conversations about the events and sharing your own coverage. Even a simple re-tweet from another blogger, brand or company is enough to open your blog and brand to a new audience, let alone the new audiences you could attract with your own content. The best example I can think of is Fashion Week, being seen at Fashion week and reporting at fashion week allows bloggers not only coverage (if they’re spotted etc) but also the license to engage in the conversation and provide their own take on the events to an audience who are interested and engaged in the topic (and probably following the hashtags and conversations). It’s a huge opportunity to broaden your reach and gain traffic!

Blog evens and parties aren’t only great fun and a fantastic perk of blogging, they also provide a great opportunity for your blog success, your blog growth and your blog as a business too. But the main thing to remember is to be genuine, be yourself, and don’t simply attend to drive your blog forward, it’ll show, think of these three things as a bonus and not the purpose.

Do you love attending events? Have you built strong blogging friendships and a business network that you lean on? Do you have any other tips for bloggers looking to take their blogs full time and build a network?