Going to Alt Summer 2015 was an amazing experience for Nell and I, and this is our recap of those *magical* three days.
Fair warning, this post is the mother-load of just about everything we learned in three nonstop days at Alt. Pace yourself! We wanted to share our experience, as well as document our learnings for our reference. There is a lot of good stuff here, so take your time.
We were lucky to be two members on one team, so we could divide and conquer almost all the great sessions. We’ll just run through the week and provide our major takeaways from the conference.
Opening Dinners {Nell & Maggie}
Alt started out with a bang! Maggie dines with the Mailchimp team, Nell with Tagspire. It was an informal introduction to two great services and a wonderful way to get to know some amazing woman doing amazing things (Lille Baby, Among the Young, Spray Pal, Something Devine, Freckle Baby andThe Beauty Snoop to name a few) before the Alt Summer officially started!
Keynote Kickoff {Nell & Maggie}
Alt Summer kicked off with a keynote session by four amazing women who have paved the way for bloggers and creatives. Their presentations were packed with inspiration and tips from their personal stories.
Danielle Krysa, The Jealous Curator
“There is room for everybody who wants to be creative. Including me.” Don’t let admiration turn to jealousy! Participate in the creative community by producing your own work, openly admiring other’s work, and keep failing until you become a genius.
Jane Mosbacher Morris, To the Market
Don’t get down on yourself for not doing enough, focus on doing even more good. Build on the good you're already doing, and take it to the next level. We particularly love her mission of creating a socially inspired business that shops like a luxury brand. It’s not charity, it’s just really good business.
Rachel Ryle, Don’t Stop Motion
Focus on doing what you love, put positive energy out into the world, and good things will come from it! It’s that simple. “Good things come to those who make.”
Heather B. Armstrong, Dooce
You’re a creative and you hurt. Don’t hide your pain or attack naysayers, try to understand that negative comments are their expression of a personal pain.
Overall the keynote set the tone for the next couple of days by diving right in to what is important; remember about staying true to yourself, never be afraid to fail, work hard in things you believe in and you can make a difference.
How to Successfully Pitch Content to Magazines and Television Shows {Maggie}
Olivia Omega, Amanda Kingloff, Kristin Guy, and Lindsay White of Lot 801
There was so much helpful information that these women shared with the group on everything from pitching to the media, working with celebrities, the difference between getting press and becoming a contributor, courting brands and editorial and the importance of packaging your product and your image. Here are a few points that really resonated with me:
The one thing that was a clear theme throughout the talk was to do your research and to stay true to yourself and never change who you are to fit a brand.
Launching a Product {Nell}
Jen Wakeland of Salt City Emporium, Sara M. K. Neal of Plumstitch, Alexis Mattox of Alexis Mattox Designs, and Emily Meyer of Tea Collection
Overall, I was blown away by the transparency and openness these women brought the panel. So many questions I had never asked either because I didn’t have someone with the right experience to answer, or I was just embarrassed that I had to ask it at all.
Here are a few major takeaways:
Instagram: Growing Your Following, and Monetizing Options {Nell & Maggie}
Trisha Hughes of @GoEatYourBeets, Jenny Komenda of Little Green Notebook, Kirsten Grove of Simply Grove , and Jordan Ferney of Oh Happy Day
Nell: This panel was really, really fun. I love images = I love Instagram, and have been following some of these women for years. This was kind of a celebrity geek out session for me.
Maggie: For me, this panel was like learning a foreign language to me, but WAY better. I am not great at social media, which is one of the main reasons I went to Alt in the first place, so this class was really made for me.
But there were some actual, useful takeaways (aside from confirming that Jordan from Oh Happy Day really is as great in person as she is on screen). Here is a quick rundown of the highlights:
Round Tables (Small Group Sessions)
Creating a Type A Editorial Calendar with a Type B Personality {Nell}
Jill Swenson of Being Spiffy
Basically this comes down to planning, creating deadlines for yourself, and sticking to them. Jill gave some really helpful tips for how to do that. A few of the standouts were:
Iconosquare: Learn Your Instagram Stats & Optimize Your Instagram Account {Maggie}
Bethany Everett of Twenty Something Plus
Iconosquare in an analytics app for Instagram. Bethany walked us through how to use it to identify your most engaged followers, find related feeds to connect with and monitor your growth. I spent the next hour and a half asking the most basic questions and while I learned a lot; Bethany deserves a medal for her patience.
How to Get the Media to Give You New Followers {Nell}
Brooke & Brittany Graham of Twin Tested
Brooke and Brittany were incredibly helpful in helping me streamline our pitch to media. They helped me boiled down my pitch to critical piece of info, i.e. Who What Where When Why. This seems so obvious, written out, but is somehow incredibly difficult in practice! I wasn’t thinking that I needed to supply to idea for the story - that Hi Little One is not a story, but a sneak peek at our new Fourth of July collection is. Serve it up on a platter so it’s impossible to pass up!
Don't Be Afraid of Your Website {Nell}
Lisa Yoder, Front-end Developer
I have worked in web development for over 8 years, so would say I am pretty comfortable with most things digital. Still, it was super helpful to have some 1:1 time with Lisa to chat about some nitty gritty challenges I’m having with building our new shop on Shopify. Namely, the blog designs are extremely limited and I’m having a very difficult time finding help online. Lisa clearly knows her stuff and gave me some helpful direction - i.e. there is no silver bullet and I’ll need to build the blog I want, myself.
{The number one thing I’ve learned in managing web development is that it pays to find bright, talented people to work with! Lisa fits that bill if you need any front end work.}
Photography for Non Photographers {Maggie}
Gilit Cooper of The Bannerie
Learning to take pictures for Instagram, Facebook etc... Not as easy as it looks, but with a few tricks of the trade (enter Gilit Cooper from The Bannerie) you can create professional looking photos!
Photoshoot: From Concept to Styling to Shooting to Editing to Posting {Nell}
Candice Borup Stringham of Candice Stringham Photography , My Minds Eye and Handmade Mood
This was one of my favorite sessions of the conference, and not just because Candice started by admitting she’d prepped for her presentation by doing several power poses in the mirror. This session was incredibly informative, with immediately useful tips and tricks to help you guide yourself to becoming a better photographer.
First was her 5 minute flip trick to discovering your personal style:
She had some practical tips for taking better photos:
Candice offers a 5 week course, Be the Boss of Your Camera. I am definitely going to take this - and don’t mention it to my college photography professor please!
Driving Traffic to Your Site: Pinterest & Facebook {Maggie}
Teachers: Alexandra Evjen and Peg Fitzpatrick
This was a great discussion on using Pinterest as a discovery tool (genius!). It was all about creating helpful content and to get people to engage with you via Pinterest and how to use it as a tool to be informative and how to share without spamming others.
Self Management: Productivity, Energy & Work-Life Balance {Nell}
Monique Malcolm, Miranda Anderson, and Samantha Ettus
Maggie and I decided that I needed this session. Bad. I might be known for over-booking, over-stressing and pretty much over everything-ing everything. I am happy to say that there is hope! This session gave me several practical approaches to taming my schedule and my crazy. I've been diligently implementing them for the past two and half weeks and am legitimately feeling more productive, organized and overall happier. What's the secret sauce you ask? Here goes:
Productivity Hacking, by Monique Malcolm of Keep Chasing the Stars
The top hits (for me):
Personal Energy Profile, by Miranda Anderson of One Little Minute
This segment was about getting to your yourself and your energy profile, so you can be the most efficient with your time. “Time without energy is worthless”. Miranda started with this quote and it really stuck with me. So many hours spent sitting at my computer working at about half pace, because I was tired, or burnt out or distracted. She provided some guidelines for setting up a schedule that maximizes your energy when you need it.
Managing Work-Life Balance, Samntha Ettus of SamanthaEttus.com
It was refreshing for Samantha to start her talk by acknowledging that work-life balance simply does not exist. You are not going to achieve this ongoing nirvana of schedule and happiness so don't beat yourself up over it when you don’t! But you can achieve happiness by setting attainable goals to work towards each week.
Some helpful tips:
Overall, the bottom line from this session was to prioritize, be reasonable with what you can achieve and let the rest go! (Working on it over here…)
How to Set Goals for Your Business {Maggie}
Nancy Soriano of NancySoriano.com
This talk was a great way to pull everything together that I had leaned over the past few days and how to take my to do list and make a plan out of it. Nancy broke down the differences between a goal and a strategy. "A goal without a plan is just a wish". In short , she was asking us if we were focused on the goal or the strategy.
Nancy described how how to effectively map out a plan using my own resources and business to make my goals achievable. This talk was invaluable!
Creative Collaboration (Versus Competition) is the Best Way to Grow a Small Business {Nell}
Cyndie Spiegel of CyndieSpiegel.com and The Collective {of US}
Cyndie’s talk was one of the best half-time-pep-talks I’ve ever had. She is super dynamic, sharp and motivating and full of a million reasons why you should be open to collaborating with just about everyone. If your brands align, no matter how many followers each of you has or doesn't have, you both stand to gain. And no matter how similar your companies, it pays to recognize that there is room for both (two t-shirt shops, two fashion blogs, two professional coaches) and you can benefit by working together.
She gave some very actionable advice for a successful collaboration:
Most of all, remember you have a great product that is worth getting excited about!
Closing Keynote, Guy Kawasaki {Nell &Maggie}
It was so so cool to have Guy Kawasaki, Social media master extraordinaire, round off the week with his guide to the art of social media. He had many great thoughts, here are the ones that resonated with us most:
And just like that we were done! The closing keynote was the perfect end to such an informative two days of learning and networking. One thing in particular stood out during the closing session, Guy mentioned that brought his daughter to Alt Summer 2015 because he wanted her to be surrounded and impacted by all of the strong, intelligent women (and handful of men) present and attending ALT. He also made no qualms about highlighting the work of his partner, Peg Fitzpatrick - going as far to say that she was the smartest person he’s had the opportunity to work with in the social media space. It wasn’t a showy sentiment for an audience of 98% women, it was the truth and it was clear he meant it.
To say we left this conference feeling energized, capable and way behind schedule was an understatement. To say we left feeling inspired by strong women doing amazing things is also a total understatement. Alt was so much more than the notes we’ve made here. We would recommend it to anyone looking to boost up or jump start their creative endeavor, and we hope to go back again very soon!
