Her Campus Conference 2014

Her Campus Conference 2014

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

If you follow me on twitter you know that this past Saturday I spent the day up at Columbia for the Her Campus Intercollegiate Conference. I've been a part of the Her Campus Blogger Network for over a year but it was my first time attending the conference and I can tell you I'll definitely be back next year. 

My day started earlier than anyone's Saturday should ever start as I had a 45 minute commute from SoHo up to Columbia (note the completely empty broadway shot above). While I was running a bit behind schedule I took a quick shoe selfie, which ended up being the only real outfit picture I got all day. I really had no idea what was I supposed to wear to a conference like this, but I settled on this H&M blouse, Zara skirt, and my absurdly comfortable Express ankle boots. Of course I quickly realized that I'm probably the only college girl who wears all black and white in the summer, but I guess that's what happens when you try to stay in one color scheme for packing. 

The morning started with a keynote from Carley Roney, Co-Founder of The Knot (now XO Group), who was incredibly inspirational. Hands down her best piece of advice was that if you accept that perfection isn't reality you will open yourself up to doing more and find yourself asking why you can't be the one to do something. If you want to know more about Carley this interview with her and her co-founder husband is great!

The best part of the conference for me was the panel about how top bloggers had found their niche. The panel featured Hallie Wilson from corals + cognacs, Jessica Sturdy from Bows & Sequins, Carly Heitlinger from The College Prepster, and Mackenzie Horan from Design Darling. As someone who writes a blog (duh) and is interested in digital marketing I was scribbling down notes the whole time (and just dying with excitement because as someone next to me said, these bloggers are our equivalent of celebrities). While it may seem obvious one of the bloggers pointed out that we need to treat social media like a conversation. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms are meant to promote interaction between people and we need to be on both sides of the conversations (aka don't feel weird responding to people's tweets or commenting on their instagrams). 

After the panel I got the chance to talk to Hallie for a little while! While we had emailed a little bit (read my interview with her here) it was pretty amazing getting to meet her in person. She is definitely someone I look up to in the blogosphere (and in real life) so talking about her experiences since starting corals + cognacs was incredibly inspirational. 

I could go on for at least three more paragraphs about all the other amazing things about the conference (including the unbelivable swag bags and delicious chipotle lunch), but what I really left the day with was a new excitement for blogging. Between meeting a few of my idols and making some new blogging friends (check out Ingrid's blog Smilingrid) I've never been happier to be apart of this community.