SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN: On Day 3, attendees at the Beer Bloggers Conference were greeted with "beermosas," a 50/50 mix of Breckenridge's Agave Wheat and orange juice.
Going to a conference with a bunch of tech-savvy bloggers certainly has its advantages. Take Day 3 of the first-ever Beer Bloggers Conference, held Nov. 5-7 in Boulder, Colo. Before I even rolled out of my hotel room bed, I knew through Twitter posts from fellow attendees that “beermosas”—a 50/50 mix of Breckenridge Brewery’s Agave Wheat beer and orange juice—were awaiting me in the meeting room.
Nothing like a little extra incentive.
So I made my way downstairs just in time to hear presenter Kerry Finsand of Taplister clue me into a great plugin (WordPress Mobile Pack) that makes fledglingbrewer.com mobile-friendly. Unfortunately I had missed Erik Boles‘ discussion of monetizing your site; it would have been a good one to hear given the fact that the rest of the conference pretty much indirectly convinced me that I don’t want to run ads on my site. Am I interested in making money from this site? Maybe someday, if possible. But I don’t want any quest for money to be intrusive, conflicting, or the primary impulse for the site’s existence.
Anne Fitten Glenn of Asheville, N.C., was the next presenter, and she shared her experiences of working to become a go-to expert for her local beer scene. A writer for several outlets including her own blog, Brewgasm, she was the wisest presenter of the day for peppering her presentation with trivia questions that yielded a bottle of North Carolina-based beer for each first correct response. How’s that for writing to your audience!
Glenn’s experiences and those of the day’s final speaker, keynoter Jay Brooks of Brookston Beer Bulletin, were particularly interesting to me because these two individuals are making money writing about beer. I’ve been fortunate to write about (and get a check for writing about) my passions throughout my lifetime—video games, hockey, music—and frankly it’s always inspiring to hear from others doing the same. Compared to my other passions, beer is a relative newcomer. The thought of developing enough of a knowledge base to someday write authoritatively about it is definitely a goal of mine.
After the conference wrapped, I joined several attendees who had gathered for lunch (and beers, of course) at Baker St. Pub & Grill as we waited for our shuttles back to the Denver airport. This impromptu meetup, the one-hour shuttle ride and a meal in the Denver airport were all spent enriching connections with new friends—further solidifying the sense of community that made the first-ever Beer Bloggers Conference such a valuable experience for me.
Photo Slideshow
View my photos from Day 3 of the Beer Bloggers Conference:
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