Last week, I attended my second Blogalicious conference hosted in Atlanta.

I blogged about my experience at last year’s conference in Las Vegas here.  This year’s conference was equally fantastic but I missed having a night in that luxury suite though 🙁 I enjoyed meeting new people and honestly, I feel like I learned so many things about myself and my goals. Here are my 4 takeaways:

1. The digital field is not going anywhere

When I started out in 2008 in my first job in a digital media role it was an uphill battle. Everyone said, “Social media is just a fad.” I’m not going to lie, those words were discouraging. Here we are a few years later and it’s obvious that things are changing. It felt great to go to an event where others have used this space to create great companies, build brands and spread the word about businesses and ideas.

2. What’s your vision

I have to take a moment to be honest here and say, I didn’t have a specific vision for my career or blog. For a while, I struggled with being in this field. I went from a Public Relations firm to start-ups and freelancing and now I work in technology. I do social media at a technology company – social media is valued and I like what I do! Feels good. It has been a crazy wild ride. One thing is true: my social media platforms have been an asset to my ascension in this field. When I didn’t know where I was going or what was next, using social media helped me on my journey. Now, I feel more confident about crafting a vision for my next steps in this field. And I want to work on becoming more comfortable with sharing my roller coaster of a journey through life and through my career with the world on this blog 😉

{Halo Booth with Nicole}

3. Go in with a plan

So many things are happening during the 3 days of Blogalicious that you have to decide what works best for you. This year I went in with a plan of action. For me, this was a great idea to help me stay focused. I didn’t stick to it 100%, but I stuck to it enough to meet the people I wanted to meet, brands I wanted to get to know, reconnect with people that I already know and even meet a few people that I didn’t plan to who are wonderful too!

{with Blitz and Glam from the ORS Haircare Suite}

4. Discover new things

There are products, films and documentaries that I learned more about during the conference. One would be OraQuick. OraQuick is the first in-home HIV test. I used to do social media for different companies that dealt with healthcare. I quickly learned that talking about health related issues doesn’t happen as often as it should online. I would love to be apart of more conversations about health online and I enjoyed the panel conversation about relationships and knowing your status.

I’m still in recovery mode from Blogalicious! I’m still following up with people that I met during Blogalicious and I am still working towards my 100byHalloween goal. I will give an update on my progress next and I have a fun giveaway coming so make sure to be on the lookout!