Yesterday it was time for the annual Meet the Blogger Conference in Amsterdam! As the whole day was spent speaking and listening in English – due to visitors and speakers from abroad – i decided to write this report in English as well. Care to hear my thoughts? Read on!

I took the train at 7:30 so it was quite an early morning for a Saturday. I arrived at Amstel Station at 9:30 and a short stroll brought me to Hotel Casa 400. An excellent location! There was time for a coffee before the program began. After introductions it was time for the keynote speech by Holly Becker.

Holly Becker – Decor8

Holly is an American blogger currently based in Hanover with her husband and young son. She is a stylist and photographer and author of  four books about decorating your home. I must say i wasn’t a follower before but i am now. Holly did a great job telling us about her career and the reason she started her blog, wrote her books and her online courses on bloggingyourway.com. She also spoke of the depression that hit her this year and how she got out of it.

Holly and I

You were a total inspiration Holly! Thank you very much. I made lots of notes in my bullet journal (which i recently started in the black notebook we received at last year’s conference!).

Talkshow and book pitches

Next on the program was a fun blogger talkshow with audience participation and after that, book pitches for several books; ‘Urban Jungle’ by Igor Josifovic & Judith de Graaff, ‘Decorate for a party’ by Holly Becker,  ‘Wanderlust’ and ‘The Amsterdam City Guide’ by Anne de Buck. All books could be purchased and signed by the authors. I chose the Urban Jungle book and i love it! But more about that in a later blog.

Mini master class

After lunch there were a few sessions we could choose from. I went for the mini master class ‘video tips and tricks’ by Jörgen van Dongen from Bleck Media. It was very practical session with tips about audience, structure, writing a plan/storyboard, choosing your visual style, taking into account angles, light, sound and background. We also did a practical exercise and introduce ourselves on video using our smartphones. We watched a few of the videos and tried to give feedback about the  good stuff and what could be improved. Unfortunately there was not enough time to check out all videos (including mine). But still i learned a lot from the feedback on the other videos that i can apply to mine.

Igor, Judith and I

Anne de Buck – YLBB

The last speaker of the day was Anne de Buck. Anne turned her blog yourlittleblackbook into a proper business and quit her day job. She recently published not one but two books! Her talk was about turning your hobby (blog) into a living and she gave us 40 tips to do so. Or, that was the plan. She had so much to tell us that she ran out of time 😉

After the group photo it was time for drinks! I talked briefly to Linnea from Norway, whom i met last year (we’ll talk more next year Linnea!) and sat at the bar with Eline and Holly. When we walked back to the train station it was raining but luckily we got inside before it really started to poor! I took the 19:15 train to Sittard and arrived home tired but satisfied.

Thanks!

It was a totally inspiring day yet again! I learned a lot, bought a cool book and received a very nice goodiebag. Thanks to Liselore, Yzette, Elske, Henny, Kirsten and Laura at Meet the Blogger for the organiation and thanks to the sponsors Flexa, Brabantia, Google and VT Wonen.

The contents of the goodiebag

Create Collaborate & Celebrate

This was the theme of the whole day. The organisation thought of an original way to to get us to collaborate with other bloggers. We were all supposed to leave our business card at a clothes drying rack which of course i did. Each card was then put in one of the goodiebags. In my goodiebag i found the business card of Miriam Goudsmit of MeerVanMir so i will be contacting her soon to see what kind of collaboration we can do!

How was your Saturday?

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