Social Media Tips from ROAM Event 2016 & Wrap Up

It’s Tuesday and I’m finally back in the swing of things after being away Wednesday through Saturday of last week for ROAM in Vancouver. Roam was a small social media conference put on by Blissdom Canada. It was my second time attending and I was not disappointed. This year’s takeaways were totally different than last years (surprisingly to me). I’m sure that if you asked each of the attendees, you would get different thoughts on what was the most important takeaways but here are mine….

Snapchat is HUGE

I guess I already knew this but I refused to believe it. Before I understood more, I felt like a geriatric any time I used it. Now I am getting the hang of it and like it better. I’m still not clear on how to make content that is useful for my followers but I’m working on it. My big takeaway was something that I don’t actually need right now but a really great tip. If you begin to use Snapchat for paid opps, it is important to set a timer to be able to screenshot the viewer information for your sponsored snap. Once your snap disappears, so does that info. Who knew?

I also learned that you swipe left to initiate filters on your snap and before you take your snap, hold down on your face to initiate lenses. That’s where you find all the funny headdresses, puppy faces, etc that you see people posting. Also if you tap the pencil, you can draw or write freehand on your snap. If you add text, make sure to drag the text banner down or up so it doesn’t cover your face.

On snapchat? Follow me there at yycmerry!

SEO is more than just Keyword Planner Tool

I have been making a concerted effort for a while by using the Google Keyword Planner Tool. I would go look up a keyword and pick one that had a high number of searches and low competitiveness. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to do much and I was left scratching my head of what I was doing wrong. Then I sat through my friend Gillian Duffy’s presentation and had an “AHA” moment about figuring out where you rank for that keyword and picking one where you can be on the first page of a Google search. Seriously….I had no idea.

Here is a link to Gillian’s presentation on SEO which has all the gory details. It is game changing for me!

YouTube

Stop trying to be perfect and JUST DO IT. You need to post consistently to build a following. Also don’t be afraid to be real. It is called YOUTube not CorporateTube. No one is looking for perfection.

In that vein, check out this video about my takeaways:

Use Your Influence for Good

The Roam conference partnered with Telus to kick off their #TheGivingEffect campaign. Attendees were given options for how they wanted to give back. I chose to go to the Belkin House by Salvation Army. We got a tour of the facility which includes an emergency short term shelter as well as transitional housing for those looking to take the step into longer term housing. We got to help prepare dinner and make lunch bags for the next day. After we helped serve dinner. I was on the coffee team so I got to chat with people who came in for dinner. It was an eye opening and rewarding experience that I hope to repeat soon.

Oh and we also had a GREAT time!

I think Salvation Army was surprised at how efficient our group was. A bunch of Type A social influencers…they shouldn’t be surprised!

I got to be on a team with these two lovelies, Lisa and Angella. They made our work hilarious as you can probably tell.

And that leads me to the last reason I think Roam was fab…I got to meet and reconnect with a ton of amazing bloggers that I don’t get to see nearly enough. And because of all of that, my heart and mind is full.